Shrewsbury: Shrine Church, Traditionalist centre to open

Dome of Ss Peter and Paul (image Simon Caldwell)

Pope Benedict XVI is offering a Papal Blessing with Plenary Indulgence for all who attend the opening of a Shrine Church in the Wirral which will be a centre for Daily Adoration and celebration of Mass and other sacraments in the Latin Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

The parish church in New Brighton, Wirral, was closed in 2008. The Shrine Church of Ss Peter and Paul and St Philomena, will be officially opened this Saturday on 24 March.

The church will become the first in Britain to be entrusted to the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, a society of Apostolic Life of Pontifical Right.

The Celebrant at the Mass, which begins at 10.30am, will be Monsignor Gilles Wach, the French founder of the Institute, and the homily will be preached by the Rt Rev Mark Davies, the Bishop of Shrewsbury.

People are expected to travel from different parts of the country and some from overseas to the church that the Bishop of Shrewsbury hopes will become a special centre of devotion for people from the immediate area and far beyond.

The Vatican, which has taken an interest in the establishment of the shrine church, has issued the following decree announcing the Papal Blessing and Plenary Indulgence to all the faithful who attend the Mass:

THE APOSTOLIC PENITENTIARY, empowered by a faculty granted to it in a special way by our Holy Father Benedict XVI, by Divine Providence Pope, happily grants his Lordship the Most Reverend Mark Davies, Bishop of Shrewsbury, that, on the 24th March next, on which the pastoral care of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul and St Philomena is solemnly entrusted to the members of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, after the offering of the Divine Sacrifice, he may impart to all the faithful present, who, their souls entirely separated from attachment to sin, take part in the sacred mysteries, a Papal Blessing with an attached Plenary Indulgence, which may be gained under the usual conditions (sacramental Confession, Eucharistic Communion and Prayer for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff).

Those faithful unable for a reasonable cause to be present at the sacred rites may devoutly receive this Papal Blessing and the Plenary Indulgence, according to the norms, if they follow the rites with a pious intention of mind by means of radio or television broadcast.

Nothing to the contrary withstanding.

Given at Rome, from the Apostolic Penitentiary, on 14 February in the year of Our Lord 2012.

Bishop Davies said: “It is a source of great joy that we have received the blessing of the Holy Father and a Plenary Indulgence to mark the new mission of this historic church of the Shrewsbury Diocese.”

The Church

The Church of Ss Peter and Paul and St Philomena is a cruciform church with a green dome, built in the Renaissance-style and opened in 1935. It towers above New Brighton and the Bay of Liverpool on a sandstone outcrop and can be viewed from as far away as Llandudno in North Wales. It is a Grade II listed building. The church was closed in August 2008 amid rising repair and maintenance costs. After consultations with local Catholics, Bishop Davies announced its partial reopening for a weekly Mass in the Weekday Chapel from 4 March 2011. Masses in a side chapel within the main church were permitted from Christmas 2011 but further works were required before the main altar of the church could be reopened for public use.

The parish that the church previously served was amalgamated with the parish of English Martyrs’, Wallasey Village, in January 2011 to form the new and flourishing parish of the Holy Apostles and Martyrs with English Martyrs serving as the parish church.

Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest

The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest was founded by Monsignor Wach, a Frenchman, and Father Phillipe Mora in Gabon, Africa, in 1990 and has its headquarters in Florence, Italy. The Institute places a strong emphasis on missionary work. It has about 70 priests working in 12 countries and is training about 80 more, including two English seminarians, at its seminary in Florence. In 2004 a community of sisters was founded to aid the priests in their mission. The Institute draws its spirituality from the inspiration of St Benedict, St Francis de Sales and St Thomas Aquinas and has adopted St Paul’s injunction to “live the truth in charity” as its motto. It has a track record of restoring churches, recently reopening two in the United States and one in Belgium. Priests of the Institute celebrate Mass exclusively in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite (sometimes known as the Tridentine rite, the Traditional Latin Mass or Old Latin Mass) according to the liturgical books promulgated in 1962 by Blessed Pope John XXIII.

Source: Diocese of Shrewsbury