Because of the UK Aid Match scheme, the government has doubled this to an amazing £2,210!

Thank you too to everyone who helped in any way and came to support the group.

Next: Memorial Roll >

All of Southampton’s Catholic communities were affected by the tragedy of Titanic.

ST BONIFACE’S CHURCH, Shirley

His fellow Catholics will be overjoyed to hear our friend, Mr J Foley, storekeeper, was among the saved. He was appointed to man a lifeboat in which Lady Astor [the wife of John Jacob Astor, the richest passenger on Titanic] was saved.

Richard Stephen Carr of Winchester Rd was soon to be married and banns were read during the voyage.

The 3 RC priests on board all died. Fr Byles, a convert, was the only English priest, on his way to Brooklyn for his brother’s wedding. Of the final scenes just before the ship went down, and when all the boats had left, none was more solemn than that of a group of men and women kneeling before Fr Byles making their last confession. As he made the sign of the cross as absolution, the waves broke over the group and the ship sank.

ST PATRICK’S CHURCH, Woolston

This immense tragedy has overwhelmed the world with horror and grief. The stories of all the brave deeds done in those hours of agony are like a great song of triumph over weakness and fear. “Watch and pray for you do not know the day and hour”.

Mr John Coleman, born 57 years ago in Cork, came here with his wife 6 years ago and was to collect for our new church on the Titanic.

Mr James Kelly attended Mass here at every opportunity and when in New York encouraged others to do so – a great example to his wife and 3 sons.

William Luke Duffy was the Engineer’s Clerk. He was born in Dublin and this was his first trip. He leaves a wife, 1 child and aunt, Mrs Ward, who gave a framed portrait of the “Sacred Face of Jesus” for the church entrance.

Mr Frank O’Donoghue was to bring back from New York his wife and little Frankie. We sympathise with Mrs O’Donoghue so far away from friends and relations.

We remember also Mrs Fletcher married only a few weeks.

A set of green vestments was bought by the bereaved for the St Patrick’s Mission.

ST EDMUND’S CHURCH, Fr Denis O’Mahony

Titanic engineers memorial, East Park, Southampton

A Requiem Mass was held attended by local clergy and large numbers of the Royal Engineers from the Ordnance Survey Office in the Avenue. Fr O’Mahony told the people “Captain Smith called the sailors to “Be British” in the face of death. I am asking you to “Be Christian mourners” – along with grief there would be consolation. Their loved ones were now with God and would one day welcome the mourners into Heaven where they would never be parted”.

St Edmunds has care of a Titanic chalice, bought after a collection, inscribed only “1912”.

ST JOSEPH’S CHURCH

On Sunday a High Mass was offered by Fr Aloysius Smith whose brother, a local man, was lost in the wreck of the Titanic. Praying for all the dead, the widows and orphans, Fr Dolman said  Let me tell you if they died as brave men, they also died as true Christians. Although the men had died without the Last Sacraments, God had forgiven them their sins and welcomed them to Himself along with their Guardian Angels”.

Father Bans in charge of the Crusade of Rescue in London, offered to take all the children orphaned by the disaster to give them a home. This offer was taken up on behalf of at least one child, Kathleen Walsh, daughter of Catherine Walsh of Woolston, payments being made from the Titanic Memorial Fund to Fr Bans.

A couple of weeks after the tragedy, John McMullin died; his eldest brother had died on the Titanic. Sympathies were given to his mother

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION CHURCH, Portswood

We were very grieved to hear of the sad death of Mr Simmons in the wreck of the Titanic. We all sympathise with Mrs Simmons in her great bereavement. She used to play the harmonium for us at the Portswood Church, her brother, Mr A A Ereaut being our Choir Director.

Three weeks later Mrs Simmons lost her mother, Mrs Ereaut.

The Titanic Memorial Fund

Titanic musicians memorial, Cumberland Place, Southampton

This fund was raised for the aid and relief of the widows, orphans and relatives of the crew and passengers who died in the Titanic disaster. By 19 March 1913 the fund had raised £418,775 but many survivors had their applications rejected. Among the members of the Southampton Committee were Fr Denis O’Mahony of St Edmunds and Mr and Mrs Cooksey of St Joseph’s. Miss Maude Newman was a Lady Visitor for the committee, cycling around the town for over 30 years visiting families and assessing their true needs.

Miss Alice Sophia Bowles of Bugle Street was the Catholic member of the Ladies’ Committee and she had several tough cases:-

Mrs Keegan and family. Payments made to Miss Bowles and others to buy food for the family. No money to be given to mother. June 19 1914 Anonymous letter alerting police to extreme cruelty and neglect of the children who were taken into the workhouse. (Joseph John, Laurence. Sydney Francis, Alice Ellen) Sydney sent to a home for the blind. Laurence sent to sea.

Mrs Simmons. Given £5 for teeth extraction and a pair of false teeth.

Mrs Luigi Gatti. Child Victor in very delicate health age 10. Grant from fund to pay for education at a private school at £3 6s 8d a term ( £10 a year). This will be instead of help in gaining an apprenticeship

Mrs Thomas Shea. Delicate son, Leslie, given 2 shillings a week for nourishing food 1913-1914 then boarded out in July 1914 for 10 shillings a week
In 1948 Mrs Shea wrote 30 letters asking for money. The decision was that after rent etc she had £1 18s 6d which was thought to be enough.
In 1953 she was given £2 15s 4d for 2 pairs of glasses.

Miss Catherine Walsh. Her daughter Kathleen, known as Walsh and later Roche, was sent to Fr Bans’ Crusade of Rescue in London to be cared for in 1912.
In 1922 she was given £1 a month until the conclusion of her course at the training college in September 1927 in north London. She married and had two children and died in Ireland in 2000.

< Back: A Catholic perspective

Next: Memorial Roll >

15 April 1912 – News spreads through Southampton of a great tragedy

The White Star liner, Titanic, the “unsinkable” new ship struck an iceberg at 11.40 pm last night and had sunk by 2 am. She left Southampton five days earlier with 2,224 people on board and only 707 were saved. Captain Smith stayed at his post and as the ship sank, the ship’s orchestra, who had been playing for a dance, apparently played the hymn “Nearer My God to Thee”.

There were many stories of bravery by both crew and passengers that night. Wives stayed with husbands to die together. Some men changed into their tail coats and best clothes “to dress for the occasion” and thirteen couples who had chosen to spend their honeymoon on board were separated in death. Many died in the freezing conditions, others were buried at sea and richer passengers buried in Halifax, Canada.

Here for the first time is news of the Catholic crew and passengers mourned by the parishes of Southampton at the time as seen through the pages of The Southampton and Woolston Catholic Magazine, assembled by Carole Olding, Diocesan Archive Assistant for Southampton Central & West and a St Boniface parishioner.

Next: A city mourns >

This was to symbolise Christ demanding entry into his Church, as into the city of Jerusalem. One of the earliest pilgrims to Jerusalem, Egeria, tells us how on Palm Sunday the bishop of Jerusalem would indeed ride up to the city gate on a donkey, the gate would be slammed shut in his face, and he would demand entry.

Jerusalem is Christ’s city. Its name means the “city of peace”. Likewise every baptised person, whether they come to church every week or are of the baptism/marriage/funeral brigade, has a right to demand entry into a place of peace. And indeed the unbaptised, too. In one tradition the priest greets a person to be baptised at the door of the church, and says:

I welcome you in the name of the Church in peace, I welcome you into the victory of Christ, I welcome you to the heart of the Christian community.

The doorway of the Church symbolises a triumphal arch, of the sort which emperors of old erected after a victory. Passing under the arch meant one was leaving the world of darkness, evil and danger for the world of victory, glory and peace. That is the victory which Christ has won.

This leaves us with a challenge, especially for Holy Week. Do we make our church seem a place of victory, where we show our joy that Christ has won the battle for us? And do we make it seem a place of peace, where we do not squabble with each other, and gladly let others in?

• We may wish to carry out a duty, to ‘put things in order’ to be rid of a certain number of lesser or more serious faults which clog our steps.
• We may want to feel less encumbered, as if God was erasing from the book of our life the acts which we had committed.
• We may feel within ourselves a certain poverty or wretchedness causing us not to like ourselves, recognising that we cannot live the Gospel ideal.
• We may derive a certain not altogether wholesome pleasure in recognising that we are sinners and calling ourselves ‘worse than others’.
• We may wish to use this as a staging post, so to speak, to pause and try to recognise exactly where we are, to take stock of virtues which we may have acquired, efforts which we have made, failures which we acknowledge; we may wish to improve our spiritual ‘performance’.

Now none of these motives are altogether bad, by any means. But they are necessarily incomplete. They serve as a first step on the path of conversion. After all, the Prodigal Son, when he realised that he was hungry, that nobody was feeding him, decided to return home, hoping to receive at least the wage of a farm worker. He was not led initially by a sense of profound contrition, though it was a first step.

First and foremost, when we recognise our sin, it is not a determination to do better, to improve our spiritual and moral life. First and foremost, it is a revelation of God’s love for us. It is God who has taken the initiative. “What proves that God loves us is that when we were still sinners, God gave his life for us”, as St. Paul wrote to the Romans.

When we confess sin, it is not first and foremost a cancelling of debt (rather as though we were deleting spiritual e-mails). It is allowing ourselves to be looked at by the face of Jesus. We might find it rather daunting to be looked at by Jesus: he did look at some people angrily, but that was only when they were hard-hearted. When the cock crowed and Peter denied Jesus, Jesus looked at Peter, but it was a look of compassion.

Our confession is, above all else, a longing for, and a confidence in, the look of Jesus. As the prophet Nathan said to King David after David’s great sin in taking Uriah’s wife Bathsheba and arranging for Uriah’s death: “You are the man!” but then immediately afterwards: “You will not die!” Truth and compassion meet side by side. In Jesus that is perfectly accomplished.

In the course of the last year – since Ash Wednesday of last year – I’ve had many rich andwonderful and demanding experiences because this has been an extraordinary year for me. Not only has my resignation been accepted, though I am still awaiting the naming and appointment of my successor, but also I have had to undergo two major operations for cancer.

Bishop Crispian Hollis

To say that this has changed my life and my outlook on life is a massive understatement. From being an active leader in good health and giving support and encouragement to others, I suddenly have become one of those needing support; for the first time in my life, I have received the Sacrament of the Sick and have become one of those listed in parish newsletters as being sick and in need of prayers. And yet, all the time the loving face of Christ has been there for strength and comfort.

I have been struggling to try to understand what Isaiah describes as the Lord doing a new deed in me. I know that I have been given a gift from the Lord which was not of my choosing and a great part of my journey of faith in recent months has been taken up with trying to come to terms with this gift and the giftedness of illness. I don’t know where it will take me, but I have been graced enough to see God’s hand in it all as I find myself on the threshold of a new way of life as I approach retirement.

“No need”, says the Lord, “to recall the past, no need to think about what was done before. See, I am doing a new deed … I am making a road in the wilderness, paths in the wild.”

Many will think me crazy for describing my cancer as a moment of grace but that is precisely how I am beginning to see it. Already, through talking and praying and sharing my experience with others, I am discovering new ways of being the shepherd of the flock. Instead of being in control, I have become vulnerable and needy and I have had to be carried by the love and prayers of so many of you. It’s meant being brought before the Lord, rather in the way that the paralytic is in today’s Gospel.

Your love and prayer have brought me into His healing presence – and He has healed me physically and, I hope, spiritually. I don’t know what lies ahead and I don’t know, as yet, when I will be able to retire, but in a curious way, that doesn’t matter any longer. I have a strong sense that whatever lies ahead will be extraordinary and transforming and certainly not in my control. I feel very peaceful about the future. I have been given the opportunity of a much needed moment of conversion and transformation of my whole life and I have been given the grace of time in which to achieve what God wants of me.

My illness has been a gift to me – I really believe that with all my heart. It has brought me into solidarity with so many who suffer and the Lord has enabled me to witness, even in suffering, to His loving and gentle care. I believe that in my sickness I have been able to touch many – or so I have been told. Of course, there have been times when this gift has seemed much more of a burden than a blessing, bringing its own weariness, but then, in those moments I can see quite clearly that the Lord is leading me in His ways, not mine. He is leading me to new pastures, to live positively, with patience, optimism and hope, for my own sake but for the sake of others too. This is His way and all I hear Him saying to me now is “Follow me” and all that I can say to that is “Amen…Your kingdom come in me; Your will be done in me.”

Next Saturday, many of us will gather in the Cathedral with those who are publicly seeking to be baptised or received into full communion with the Church at Easter and we will have the opportunity of being alongside them in their joy, and in the struggles of their journeys of faith. For my part, I will bring a new consciousness of having been gifted by the God of surprises with an illness that I never sought and it is leading me into a new vision and way of life. This has become my journey of faith. I don’t know where it will end but I am confident that the Lord is doing all the leading and choosing. I am content that it should be so because, at the end of the journey, there is, for sure, Easter, Resurrection and new life.

The Lord says “See, I am doing a new deed” and all we need to do is to hear His word, which calls us to follow Him, and then, allow Him to do that new deed in us. May the Lord bless you all and bring you all safely to the joy of Easter. Pray for me at this time, sisters and brothers, as I pray for you, and let’s pray together that our new bishop,when he is appointed, may be an ardent and gentle shepherd for us all.

+ Crispian
Bishop of Portsmouth

Cardinal Basil Hume, Benedictine Abbot of Ampleforth and Archbishop of Westminster from 1976, has now been dead for 13 years which is long enough to assess his legacy.

Like everybody else, he had his weaknesses;  he could be famously irritable and sometimes passing enthusiasms carried him away, but he was also profoundly realistic.   He always used to tell the monks at Ampleforth:  “Remember that when you die, somebody will be relieved”.

In particular he possessed and developed the English characteristic of compromise and moderation, which allowed him to guide his monastery through the difficult days of liturgical change in the early 1970s without too many casualties.    Conversely, when a cause required unfailing tenacity, he stuck to it – do you remember the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven, where Cardinal Hume was convinced of their innocence and pursued the matter for 13 years?

And he was very good, while remaining loyal to the Pope, at reminding officials in the Vatican that England is a country with a long democratic history which does not respond well to just being told what to do.   Indeed it was thanks to him that the Church in this country avoided the painful polarisation between conservatives and liberals which has been a feature of Catholicism in the USA, for example.    Now, unfortunately that polarisation seems to be occurring here too.

In particular, Cardinal Hume was the living embodiment of the idea that faith can be sincere and deep without being fanatical.   When he died in 1999, the distinguished Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe OP paid him this compliment:

Basil Hume could never be a salesman of religion.   He does not ‘market’ Christianity, and that is why he has been the most attractive Christian leader in the country.   It is precisely in people who do not shout and compete for our attention that we may begin to guess that religion has something to say.   By refusing to promote religion as the latest ‘leisure time activity’, they pay us the compliment of not regarding us as ‘consumers’.   In them we may recognise who we are called to be.

He was very much opposed to slick marketing techniques in religion, fundamentalists brandishing Biblical quotations like bombs, ‘fashionable’ courses which we fail to attend at the risk of being branded inadequate, and any temptation to present religion as entertainment.  “Gentlemen,” he told his priests, “stick to the Missal!”    He would be grieved that the Missal – or rather its translation – has become the occasion of presenting a hidden agenda.     His hour has come again.

It is the season for Nativity plays.  They come in all shapes and sizes, some of them very slick and professional (some of them even produced by professionals brought in to reduce the chaos).   Others stagger their way to an over-delayed conclusion borne on the wings of prayer and hope, so lengthy that they make my sermons seem like precious jewels of instantaneous wisdom.

Probably the best description of a chaotic Nativity play is in the novel Rubyfruit Jungle, which, however, I cannot recommend to you in its entirety as the language used is not always appropriate to what we would expect in Shirley.   In this disaster-strewn production, one of the shepherds is so overcome by fear on taking to the stage that he wets himself while making his offering, thereby causing the child acting St. Joseph to make the immortal impromptu reply:  “You can’t pee in front of the little Lord Jesus, go back to the hills”.

In recent years, alas, a shadow has passed across the happy-go-lucky world of the Nativity play: some councils have banned parental videos of school productions on the grounds that the results may end up being used for corrupt purposes on the Internet.  And in South Shields one parent recently bit the finger off another during a fight in front of the assembled company before the play began.   “And on earth peace to people of good will”?

Of course one can have a super-professional Nativity play, but somehow it doesn’t seem quite right.  That is more what we would associate with the Passion play, from Oberammergau downwards.   In the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus we are dealing with such mind-boggling matters that we are straining to keep our hold on the story at all.  It is a story that is really beyond our range.  No wonder we tread carefully when we enact it.

But the Nativity play is different.  Chaos and confusion seems to be a built-in part of the story.  ‘Making do’ and ‘muddling through’ are, after all, what the Holy Family had to do.  There was no room for a polished ‘finished product’ in the makeshift accommodation of the manger or the cave.

This is why the story appeals so much to adults, largely irrespective of the fact that it is enacted by children.  It is a symbol of our chaotic adult lives, full of God-given promise, but often blighted by failures, misunderstandings, fruitless expenditure of effort, and grief.

It is only right that Christmas is close to New Year and new resolutions.  As we contemplate the ‘child amid the mess’, so we are reminded of our own God-given lives, so full of outward confusion, yet so rich in God-given worth.  A worth no-one can take away from us.

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

Bishop Crispian Hollis

Last Saturday I celebrated a great Mass of Thanksgiving with many of you in the Cathedral. It was thanksgiving for my 75^th birthday and for the 23 years which I have been privileged to spend among you as your Bishop. But, most important of all, it was a Mass of Thanksgiving to God for great graces and blessings that He has poured out on the diocese in recent years.

But, as I said last Saturday, if we have achieved anything during the last 23 years, it has been in no way just my doing. It has been my privilege and blessings to be the shepherd of the flock but what we have achieved has been due to the fact that you have responded to God’s grace to deepen our sense of communion for mission.

We have come a long way during my time as bishop and I have always tried to be faithful to my episcopal motto that we should always act “under the guidance of the Gospel”. I think that has become a motto, or watchword for us all, and we have been abundantly blessed as the gathered disciples of the Lord, proclaiming and living his Gospel to build up  his Kingdom in this part of our land.

In the course of the Mass, many things were said about my ministry that I find difficult to believe. There have lots of mistakes and false starts over the years but you have always been most patient and when necessary, most forgiving. I have tried to do my best and if I have offended or upset anyone during this time, then I ask for forgiveness.

These years have a wonderful time for me and if I needed any evidence of the affection and love in which we hold one another, then the support, love and concern that you have given me over the last few months when I have been ill have been wonderfully sustaining.

In the course of the Mass, a presentation of gifts was made to me and I have to say that I am overwhelmed by your generosity. But what else can I say except a heartfelt and sincere ‘thank you’. You have been so very kind and part of me knows how little I deserve that. But, bless you and thank you. You have been instrumental in giving me the best 23 years of my life.

I wish you every blessing and pray with you now as we await the appointment of a new bishop. If you give him even half as much love as you have given me, he will be very blessed and he will lead the diocese into pastures which are new and rich.

+Crispian

Homily given by Mgr Provost Nicholas France

Pictures