The Channel Islands in Diocese of Portsmouth – Part 4

Fr. Mahy installed as Dean of Jersey by Bishop Warlock,
St. Mary and St. Peter's, 1975.

This week’s history comes from the “Diocese of Portsmouth: Past and Present” by Gerard Dwyer published in 1981, and looks at the history of Catholics in Jersey after the Reformation to the early1980s.

The Channel Islands in Diocese of Portsmouth – Part 4

At the beginning of January 1843 the church in Vauxhall Street was opened and a month later it was consecrated by Bishop Griffiths. According to the "Handbook of the Channel Islands" by F. Coghlan (London, 1843), "Religion in Jersey is essentially Protestant. There is, however, a yearly increase of Catholics, principally Irish and foreigners. Their number amounts to between two and three thousand."

Because of the Irish Famine 1845-47, this number was doubled. Work on the naval harbours and breakwaters in Jersey and Alderney had just started and labour was needed. The Government gave free passage; the work was constant and the wages good. From the district around Waterford alone 4,000 people came to Jersey. The congregation increased to such an extent that the existing church became completely inadequate for its congregation.

 In 1848 Fr. Cunningham died and was succeeded by Fr. Jeremiah McCarthy who remained priest in charge for not less than 45 years. When in 1850 the English Hierarchy was restored and the Channel Islands became part of the Diocese of Southwark, Fr. McCarthy was given the position and title of "Dean of St. Anne of the Isles."

In July 1851 Cardinal Wiseman, Archbishop of Westminster, visited first Guernsey (for the opening of the new St. Joseph's Church) and then Jersey. Wilfred Ward in his “Life and Times of Cardinal Wiseman" writes: "He paid a visit to Jersey in 1851 where he was received with brickbats, the windows of his carriage were broken and his progress impeded by a howling mob as he drove to the Catholic church where he was to preach. A crowd of Protestants came to hear him, and the English directness and common sense of his discourse so won them that a complete reversion took place."

The "Impartial de Jersey" reported on 5th July 1851: "We regret, for the honour of our brothers and neighbours in Guernsey, to learn that not only when he arrived, but also during his stay in their Island, they forgot all points of good behaviour.... Underneath his purple robe is one of the first and most learned collaborators of the magazine called the 'Penny Encyclopaedia.'. . . As for us, we do not care what colour he wears, whether it be black, red or blue. We are proud to say, that without sharing his views, we admired this learned writer, a man of strong convictions. If we heard one lone voice echoing the cries of the children in the streets 'what a hat!, what gloves!' we had great pleasure in noting that it was not the voice of a Jerseyman, but of a foreigner."

The same paper continued its report on 9th July:

"At three o'clock in the afternoon, the Cardinal also administered the Sacrament of Confirmation in the French chapel in New Street. He preached in French, surprising us all with the ease and purity with which this learned Doctor of Divinity speaks the language, a language that is not his own."

Year after year up to 1870 the number of parishioners was increasing. Fr. McCarthy had plans drawn up by Mr. Joseph Hanson for a new church. Bishop Grant opened the new church on 8th August 1867. It was incomplete when opened - the intention being to complete it as soon as possible. But in the 1870s a terrible financial and banking crisis overwhelmed the Island causing great distress and an

almost entire cessation of employment. Many people emigrated to the United States, Canada and Australia, and the prosperous congregation of some 4,000 was reduced almost overnight to just over 1,000 with comparatively little work and greatly reduced wages. Fr. McCarthy did not lose heart; but it took 24 years before the chancel and the transepts could be completed in September 1891. Two years later, in June 1893, Mgr. Jeremiah McCarthy (he had been made a Papal Prelate on the completion of the church) died.

The next parish priest, Fr. John Hourigan, remained at St. Mary and St. Peter's for 38 years. He paid off the debt on the church and so was able to have it consecrated by Bishop Cotter, then Auxiliary Bishop of Portsmouth, in 1905. He was appointed a Canon of the Diocese in 1916, and in 1925 he beautified the sanctuary of the church with a new altar. Canon Hourigan died at this brother's home in Ireland in 1931.

Canon Clifford Bailey succeeded as parish priest. He was no stranger to the Channel Islands having been for over 25 years parish priest of Alderney. Canon Bailey died in April 1940, just a few months before the Germans occupied the Islands. Two priests, Fr. Richard Arscott and Fr. Albert Lion, both Channel Islanders, were in the running for the succession. Bishop Cotter chose Fr. Arscott who, as Canon Arscott, remained in charge of the parish all during the Occupation.

After the Second World War, Canon Arscott joined the Catholic Missionary Society in 1946, thus allowing Canon Lion to get his heart's desire and succeed him. But ill health soon forced Canon Lion to retire in 1948. He was followed by Canon Arthur Olney who remained for 27 years and who, after 25 years in the parish, was made a Papal Prelate of Honour.

Mgr. Olney by 1965 had taken down the old church which had been used as a hall and had given a porch and facade to the west end of the main church with a forecourt opening on to Vauxhall. Mgr. Olney left Jersey for retirement but very soon took up parish duties once again at Shrivenham.

The present parish priest of St. Mary and St. Peter's is Fr. David Mahy who has to consider the need for very considerable repairs to the church or more practically its replacement by a new church on another site.

To complete the picture of the parish and its growth, a Mass Centre was started in 1943, in the early days of the Occupation, at Samares in the Parish of St. Clement. A church was built dedicated to St. Patrick and in 1968 it was formed into a separate Catholic parish. Since then a presbytery and hall have been added.

In November 1949 another Mass Centre was started at First Tower, but in August 1955 there was a change of parish boundaries and the Oblates at St. Aubin took over responsibility for the First Tower and Millbrook area where shortly afterwards they built the Church of Our Lady of the Universe.

The Jesuits in Jersey

No Catholic history of Jersey would be complete without a mention of the Jesuits. During the first half of the nineteenth century the French Jesuits made several attempts to buy property in Jersey with the intention of transferring their schools there should they be forbidden to teach in France. Each time the States of Jersey refused them permission to buy.

In 1880 they tried again when the Imperial Hotel in Jersey was for sale. The Jesuits first approached the Bishop of the Diocese then Southwark), Bishop Danell, and asked permission to open a house in his diocese.

First of all he refused because he feared that the arrival of the Jesuits would arouse the anti-Catholic prejudices of the Jersey Protestants, but Fr. McCarthy, the Parish Priest of St. Mary and St. Peter, sent a strongly worded letter to him which changed his mind. Because foreigners were not allowed to purchase any portion of Jersey soil, the English Jesuit Province bought the property with Fr. McCarthy acting as proxy for them.

Thus began Maison St. Louis. Between 1881 and 1940, when the Jesuits finally returned to France, some 3,000 students had spent at least three years of their training in the College. They came from all over the world - England, Ireland, America, France, etc. Twelve of them became Bishops, and some 600 went on to do missionary work in China and Africa. One famous priest who spent three years there was Pere Teillard de Chardin. After the Second World War the property was put on the market and was eventually sold to become, as it still remains, the "Hotel de France."

In addition to Maison St. Louis, the French Jesuits acquired a nearby property called "Highlands." There they built a large building and to it transferred their French Naval Preparatory School. Many high-ranking French naval officers were trained there between 1881 and 1900 after which, because of a law passed in the French Parliament, the school had to return to France.

In 1903, however, the building became a French Jesuit Secondary School called "Bon Secours College." A thousand young Frenchmen received their secondary education there between 1903 and 1919. In 1919 the Jesuits left "Highlands." The property was bought by the De Lammenais Brothers who used it as their Novitiate and Training College, as well as their Generalate. But in the late 1960s the Brothers moved their Generalate to Rome and sold the property to the States of Jersey who now use it as an education centre.

Religious Houses of Brothers and Sisters

The De La Salle Brothers conduct a flourishing independent school for boys at "The Beeches" and the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception a similar one for girls at Beaulieu Convent (originally a Convent of the Helpers of the Holy Souls before they gave it up after the Second World War).

As has been noted before, the Faithful Companions of Jesus moved their convent and school from David Place in St. Helier to Granville in St. Saviour's. In very recent times they have given up their senior school in order to be able to provide in conjunction with the Diocese an opportunity for Catholic primary education to all the children of the Island who wish to benefit from it.

The elderly have been cared for since 1886 by the Little Sisters of the Poor in the Convent and St. Augustine's Home on West Hill. In recent years this Home has been almost completely rebuilt and thoroughly modernised to meet the needs of the elderly who are there.

Finally, there is the community of Sisters of the Holy Family who came in 1901 to open the Orphanage of the Sacred Heart in Rouge Bouillon; today they run a playschool and do pastoral work in St. Thomas' Parish.

St Patrick's, Jersey