Controversial Catholic group is given care of parish church

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Times
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent



OPUS DEI, the conservative Roman Catholic organisation that counts Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, among its members, has been given its first parish in Britain since it was founded in 1928.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy- O’Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, is to hand over pastoral care of St Thomas More church, Swiss Cottage, to Father Gerard Sheehan, an Opus Dei priest.

Father Sheehan is one of 17 priests in Britain who work for the Opus Dei organisation. None of the others is a parish priest although Father Sheehan is local deanery secretary for the Westminster archdiocese and regularly hears confessions at Westminster Cathedral and St James’ Spanish Place.

He will take over at Easter from Father Ian Dickie, who is to be moved to another parish.

The decision by Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor to entrust the parish of 500 souls and their 1968 red-brick church to Opus Dei partly indicates that the organisation has “come of age” and is achieving mainstream respectability within the Catholic Church in Britain.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,171-1434918,00.html

THIS church is in my neighborhood.

Cormack Murphy O'Connor has forgotten the words of former RUC Chief Constable Sir Kenneth Newman who was instrumental in closing down Opus Dei networks in North London in the 1980s following the bombing of the Regent's Park Bandstand and later the Brighton bombing of the Grand Hotel at the Tory Party conference in '84.

Local residents groups fought tooth and nail for more disclosure about the Opus Dei role at the time but Margaret Thatcher put a D Notice on the matter - a Ministry of Defence gagging order - which effectively protected many of her key financial backers from being outed in the local politics of this awful cult.

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1. Isolated amid demure back streets of Swiss Cottage

Isolated amid demure back streets of Swiss Cottage
By Stefanie Marsh



ST THOMAS MORE church was founded in the 1930s, but rebuilt in the late 1960s according to the architectural tastes of the day.
A red brick and concrete building, it is aesthetically at odds with its demure surroundings on Maresfield Gardens, one of the most desirable back streets in Swiss Cottage and home to the Freud Museum.

On a weekday, Mass at the church attracts a 30-strong crowd from the surrounding area. ..........

An anonymous member of the St Thomas More congregation said: “He is a charismatic person who is particularly good with young people. I’m sure the Cardinal chose him because he has a gift with them.

“He’s occasionally said Mass there before, so he’s not totally unknown, but we were only told this yesterday at the end of the 12 o’clock Mass. Nobody has been given any details or anything.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,171-1434917,00.html

OH THE IRONY! The Maresfield Gardens area is part of the United Reformed Synagogue enclave, some of whose members are campaigning vociferously for the official placement of an Eruv in the area - which would mean cordoning off St Thomas More Church with wires on telegraph poles, similar to those used in the nearby Golders Green Eruv.

[Bridget Burke]

2. Perhaps Father Murphy-O'Conner doesn't care....

About the Royal Ulster Constabulary!

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3. Local residents groups do.

And the Eruv campaign group has twice been to court having subpoenaed local crime reports that Thatcher gagged between '82 and '90.