Ss. Peter & Paul and St Philomena
New Brighton, Wirral
Kevin Jones 
On Sunday 26th July at 10.30am, the First Solemn High Mass celebrated Canon Stephen Sharpe followed by first blessings of a newly ordained priest will take place at St Peter & Paul and St Philomena.
A plenary indulgence is available under usual conditions: Confession, Holy Communion & Prayer for the Sovereign Pontiff for those receiving the first blessing.
We intend to provide a gift for the new Canon. If you would like to participate please contact Canon Poucin.
In March 2020, Ss Peter & Paul and St Philomena Catholic Church was awarded a much-coveted ‘Heritage Grant’ of £362,900 by National Lottery, to complete the restoration of the roof and dome. As the country begins its recovery from Covid-19, we have been given permission to start this project, our biggest one yet. The contractors will begin to scaffold the Dome and main sanctuary roofs at the end of June and the regeneration will be seen for miles across Wirral.
Project manager, Anne Archer, said, “Some of the planned project activities to engage with the heritage will be slow to start, especially the planned visits by Care Homes, while the church reopens for individual visits. They will happen and we will become much more dementia friendly, but the bulk of this work will be when the building works have been completed.”
“However, we are still hoping to arrange scaffolding tours for the public as part of the Heritage Open Days in September, and a conference for Heritage professionals. Work on New Brighton’s memories for a very special book will start remotely with some of our partners. Our great team is working on keeping this church open for everyone and would welcome more volunteers.”
Thanks to the help of Wirral Borough Council, The Dome of Home has been able to implement social distancing guidelines and reopen to the public for 2 hours daily. ‘Wirral Together’ Fund awarded £337 for hand sanitisers, notices and PPE for volunteer stewards. At the moment, the church is open for 2 hours every day from 1-3pm. This will change from 24th June to 5-7pm when the building work begins.
Canon Montjean, Rector of the church said, “We are delighted to reopen our church so that local people can pay a visit to our sanctuary, safely. Please check our website for updated times.”
If you have a smart phone, it is likely that you will have a facility called QR (Quick Response) in the phone which reads a bar code and opens up a preprogrammed link to a website. If your phone does not have a QR reader, there will be several free ones at your app store/
We have set up two links to help you reach our streams:
| Your Canons will prioritise your Sacramental life here at the Shrine in New Brighton during this unprecedented crisis. His Eminence Cardinal Nichols, together with the Bishops Conference of England and Wales have accordingly decreed that all public Masses in our country be suspended from 8pm on Friday 20th March until further notice. Our community needs to cooperate in avoiding mass gatherings, which spread the virus, but our priority is to preserve and continue fostering the spiritual life and access to the Sacraments. Therefore, there will be no public Masses or other services until further notice. Your priests will continue to celebrate Mass in private. Daily Mass at 9.30am (including Saturday and Sunday) and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at 6pm will be live streamed on the ICKSP Dome of Home Facebook page and on ICKSP Dome of Home YouTube channel for you to watch (you do not need a Facebook account). Confessions available on request: please contact us to arrange a meeting. The confessional will be slightly reordered as well. Daily Adoration & Benediction: 6pm to 7pm, in the main church, respecting distancing rules whilst praying. We strongly recommend that you make a daily spiritual communion, with your families if possible, and that you receive the Sacrament of Confession at least as often as you usually do. Feel free to contact us to arrange confession at any time. Given the current restrictions, Holy Communion cannot be received at the Shrine Church. We shall nevertheless do our best to answer individual requests. It is heart-breaking for priests to write such words to his flock, but the root of our sorrow is the loss of the public celebration of the Holy Sacrifice, which should never be separated in the minds of the faithful from Sacramental Communion. The church will be open for prayer daily from 8.30am to 7pm: please feel free to come for personal prayer. We have left some Holy Water at the back of the church to fill your own bottle to take with you. We will also leave some blessed candles to use at home. Regarding a more materialistic matter, we still depend entirely on your generosity. We would be very grateful if you could continue your financial help, by leaving your offertory envelopes at the door of the presbytery. Thank you for this support as well. Please be assured of our prayers in these most difficult times for the Church and the world. God bless you Your Canons of the ‘Dome of Home’ |
