St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, Thorpe End, Melton Mowbray , livre ebook

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Many visitors to St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, Melton Mowbray, have remarked on the beauty of the small church and the atmosphere of peace which pervades it. For a hundred and seventy years it has witnessed the prayers, worship, joys and sorrows of the Catholics of Melton Mowbray, and is still very much at the heart of our community today. It is used for both sunday and weekday Masses and services, and many weddings and funerals take place here. The Catholic community loves and looks after this church, and we would like to share with you something of its remarkable history - and some of its mysteries.

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Publié par	Help for Writers
Date de parution	02 mai 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780957186811
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0150€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Copyright © Frances Levett 2012
Published by Help For Writers.
ISBN 978-0-9571868-1-1
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without written permission of the author.

Introduction
Many visitors to St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, Melton Mowbray, have remarked on the beauty of the small church and the atmosphere of peace which pervades it. For a hundred and seventy years it has witnessed the prayers, worship, joys and sorrows of the Catholics of Melton Mowbray, and it is still very much at the heart of our community today. It is used for both Sunday and weekday Masses and services, and many weddings and funerals take place here. The Catholic community loves and looks after this church, and we would like to share with you something of its remarkable history - and some of its mysteries. Before you leave, please kneel or sit quietly, and pray before our Lord Jesus, who is really and truly present here.
Catholicism in the Melton Mowbray area after the Reformation
The acts of Supremacy and Uniformity (1559) required people to conform to certain religious beliefs and penalised those who refused to do so. The authorities aimed to stamp out Catholicism and it was the priests who bore the brunt of this attack. Many were executed, and the death sentence also awaited those who harboured a priest. Catholics in these times were a proscribed people. Those loyal to the ancient faith of this land had to practise their religion secretly. Mass was celebrated at various centres in Leicestershire, and the Catholics of Melton Mowbray area probably had the choice of a Mass Centre (though they would not have been referred to as such at the time because of the danger), at Brentingby Hall or the more important centre at Eastwell Hall, where the Eyre family had a secret chapel, and kept a priest from 1630 to 1795. By this time the penal laws were less harshly enforced, for Catholicism had been so weakened that it was no longer perceived as a threat. In 1791 it became possible for Catholics to register public chapels, and in 1797 a Catholic chapel was built in Stanley Lane, Eastwell, using money which Thomas Eyre had left for this purpose. This chapel, which was used well into the 20th century, is still there as a private house, and is one of the oldest chapels in the Nottingham Diocese. One of the graves there is that of a Monsignor G. Vincent Bull, who died in 1937.

There were other “Mass Centres” at Ashby Folville and Old Dalby, where Lady Bowater maintained a priest until 1829. By 1780 the long Catholic rearguard action begun in 1558 had reached its weakest position, but it was to hold for another fifty years, for the “Mass Centres” remained much the same during that time. Although an attempt was made to repeal some of the penal laws by the passing of the Catholic Relief Acts in the late 18th century, the Catholic Emancipation Act was not passed until 1829. That Catholicism was able to survive in the penal times was due to the willingness of the Catholic laity, both landed and poor, to shelter their priests, and the devotion of those priests whose lives, in the earlier years, were forfeit if caught. It was in the homes of the great and small that the Catholic faith was kept alive for more than two centuries.
The Building of the Church 1839 - 1842
St. John the Baptist church stands as a memorial to the struggles of the Catholic community in Melton Mowbray since the Reformation. What hopes, aspirations, sacrifices and tales of generosity would be revealed if only the fabric could tell its story! The two people who must be chiefly honoured as the founders of the church are Father Tempest of Grantham and Mr John Exton of Eastwell Hall. It is likely that the chief initiative came from Father Tempest who had built the Catholic church in nearby Grantham. He started the fund to build the church and contributed most generously from his own meagre resources. He was helped by generous donations from Mr. John Exton, who also left a legacy which enabled a priest to be maintained at St. John’s until 1880. Both these founders are depicted in the stained glass east window of the church, as a contemporary description records, “a large east window...with the two principle benefactors of the building kneeling.” A 1997 newspaper article suggested that the priest depicted is R.W. Willson, brother of John Exton’s architect E.J. Willson and a friend of Pugin. However, this opinion seems based solely on a fancied likeness of features. There is no evidence that R. W. Willson had anything to do with St. John’s church.
The building of St. John the Baptist Catholic church, Melton Mowbray, commenced in 1839. It is difficult for us today to visualise the troubles which the project encountered. When a site was proposed in 1838, the penal laws against Catholics were still in force, and an orator addressed a public meeting of the “saints of Melton” to the effect that there must not be a Catholic chapel in the town. In 1839 the Catholic Directory reported that a church could not be built due to religious prejudice, but another site was secured and building began before the end of that year. It seems that troubles, probably including financial ones, continued to beset the project, since the church was not completed until 1842. Anti-Catholic feeling still ran high, and public riots followed the restoration of the hierarchy in 1850.
Who attended the church? In 1829, only three Catholics were recorded in Melton Mowbray, but the congregations of the local Mass Centres must have been much greater than this. There were 16 confirmations in 1805 at Eastwell, where a third of the families were Catholic, and the numbers were increasing due to two factors: the general resurgence in Catholicism in England during the early 19th century, and the influx of Irish immigrants, whose numbers doubled during the 1840s. In Melton Mowbray they were mainly employed on the farms, and a 1950s article on St. John’s church in the Melton Times states that it, “ministered in its early days to the spiritual needs of the Irish potato pickers living in this part of the country.” The church was built to accommodate a congregation of 200, and a description shortly after its completion lists two priests. The first Mission priest, Fr. McDermott, had to live 7 miles away initially before obtaining the use of a derelict house in the town. Soon afterwards, in 1844, a presbytery and hall were built next to the church.

The drawing by Alfred Thomas Warbis which accompanied the Melton Times article. The church hall was behind “The Old Presbytery” on the right as it was known when the Franciscan sisters lived there in their early years in Melton.
The Pugin Connection
“Melton’s Catholic church of St. John the Baptist is also a Pugin church”
This is the proud

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