At Mass recently, Fr Luke announced changes to the governance structure of the parishes of St Mary Magdalen, St Mark and Holy Family, Brantham which are being implemented.
A Senior Leadership Team (SLT) has been established and will work alongside Fr Luke to advise and assist in the daily management of the parish. The SLT members have delegated authority and will help as leaders in our parishes. The members of the SLT are [javascript protected email address], [javascript protected email address], [javascript protected email address], [javascript protected email address] and [javascript protected email address]. They can be contacted direct via email for non-urgent parish matters - simply click the relevant name to email them.
To work alongside the SLT, a larger consultative body, to be called the Parish Mission Council (PMC) is to be established. Comprising members drawn from each of the three parish communities, the PMC will help Fr Luke in leading the parish as well as functioning as a consultative body, not unlike a governing body in a school. The PMC will help shape the mission and life of our parishes and, importantly, as a presence in each community, it will also be a point of contact for anyone who would like to raise non-urgent and strategic parish issues for discussion. The PMC members for St Mary Magdalen parish are Michael Long, Martin Pakes, Tracey Snell and Declan Moore with one further appointment pending.
You can read the full announcement made by Fr Luke, together with the diagrammatic representation of the new governance model, here.
There is a mixed faith chaplaincy team working at the Ipswich Hospital, Heath Road. This team, in part full time and in part volunteers, helps minister to the spiritual needs of in-patients.
The role of Catholic chaplain is currently unfilled, following the departure of Fr Bineesh OCD from St Marks, and a new appointment is awaited from the Bishop of East Anglia. In the mean time, please let Fr Paul, or any other Ipswich parish priest, know if you, or any member of your family, are going into hospital. Please be aware that for reasons of patient confidentiality, the current practice in the NHS is NOT to inform the chaplains of any Catholics that are admitted to hospital. So unless you or your relatives inform the chaplains of your hospital stay, you will not be visited by a priest or any other member of the chaplaincy team.
Each Sunday morning, a Eucharistic Minister from one of the Ipswich parishes, visits the hospital to take Holy Communion to those that have requested it. However, the hospital gives no patient information to the chaplains, consequently we have no knowledge of Catholic patients. So if you, or any member of your family, are going into hospital and would like to receive the ministrations of the Church whilst there, please let Fr Paul or Fr Luke know.
The list below contains the details of those deceased parishioners whose ashes have been placed in the Memorial Garden.
Mr Leslie Harry Robinson RIP. Passed away 10th March, 2000 aged 87 years.
Mrs Elizabeth Robinson (née Mulholland) RIP. Passed away 8th February, 2002 aged 89 years.
Mrs Winifred Frances Razzell RIP. Passed away 1st April 2005, aged 84 years.
Mr John Metcalfe RIP. Passed away 7th February, 2007 aged 74 years.
Mr Claude Turner RIP. Passed away 25th August, 2008 aged 80 years.
Mr Edward Sidney Razzell RIP. Passed away 5th March, 2015 aged 91 years.
Stansilaw Wojciechowski RIP. Passed away in January 2021.
Michael Wojciechowski RIP. Passed away in August 2022 aged 59 years.
May their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
In order to ensure that, as a parish, we have accurate records of our parishioners, we know how to contact them when necessary and we understand the resources that are available to call upon to assist in parish life, all parishioners are requested to complete a registration form.
Data contained on the forms submitted will be compiled into a parish records database which will be maintained securely and used exclusively for the purposes of parish administration and communication within the parish. It will not be shared with any other party, with the sole exception of cases where the parish has to submit returns to the Diocese.
All data will be handled and stored in compliance with the Privacy Policy.
The parish registration form can be found here. To register, please download and fill in the form, returning the signed and completed form to Fr Paul or by email to [email protected].
For reasons of security and insurance, all persons holding any key(s) to any church property are required to complete and submit a key holder registration form . The form can be found here and should be completed, signed, dated and returned to either Fr Paul or Fr Luke.
