St John Vianney’s: Final Mass video and Booklet
As well as a booklet about the parish and its 71 year history - available to download here - you can now watch a video of the Final Mass which was celebrated on Friday 4th August. It lasts about 52 minutes and the link is here.
The church, hall and parish house will be cleared and the buildings will close by 31 August.
As you will know, we used the buildings at St John Vianney’s for the last time on Friday 4 August. We'd like to thank the people of both St Catherine’s and St Gregory’s for their prayers and support over the past couple of years.
From Saturday 5 August, St John Vianney’s will continue as a parish and will share the buildings at St Gregory’s in Walter Scott Avenue. All future Masses, services, and social events (unless otherwise notified) will take place there.
Our Sunday Mass will continue to be at 9.30am.
This Sunday, our Mass will be followed by tea and coffee in the hall.
The move to St Gregory’s will take place in 1 week. We thought it would be helpful to list in one place the key dates.
Friday 16 June
Deadline for contributions to the commemorative booklet
Sunday 23 July
The Archbishop will join us for our celebration of the Eucharist at 9.30am
Sunday 30 July at 9.30am
Last baptisms in St John Vianney's
Friday 4 August
Final Mass in St John Vianney’s, followed by a social celebration. A time to celebrate our 71 years in these buildings. Time to be confirmed
Sunday 6 August
First Sunday in St Gregory’s with celebration of the Eucharist at 9.30am
Thursday 31 August
Complete clearing out the church, hall and parish house and then close the buildings.
To mark the closure of St John Vianney’s buildings later this year, we are going to produce a commemorative booklet. Our plan is that the booklet will both tell the history of the parish, and include memories parishioners (past and present) have of the last 71 years.
We would therefore like to invite anybody who wishes to share their memories of the parish and/or any of the history of the parish that they know about. If you have photos to accompany your memory, that would be brilliant.
If you have access to email, could you please send your contributions to southedclust@btinternet.com (with St John Vianney’s Booklet in the Subject line). If you don’t have access to email, could you please post them to Cluster Parish House, 2 Captain's Row, Edinburgh, EH16 6QP. If you have photographs, could you please indicate this when you email or write - we will arrange to borrow them, scan them and return them to you.
To allow us to have the booklet ready for our closing Mass on Friday 4 August, the deadline for receiving contributions to the booklet is Friday 16 June 2023.
Please feel free to share this with any former parishioners that you are in contact with.
Thank you.
The Booklet Team (Christina, Ethel, Florence, George, Gerry, Jacqui, Jamie, Jojo, Kathleen, Mike and Mary)
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2. A request for help with the booklet
We are looking for somebody in our Cluster (or beyond) who might have the skills and knowledge to take all the contributions that will be made, and compile them into a booklet that tells the history of the parish and the memories of it that parishioners have.
If you think you might be able to help, please email southedclust@btinternet.com.
Thank you.
The Booklet Team (Christina, Ethel, Florence, George, Gerry, Jacqui, Jamie, Jojo, Kathleen, Mike and Mary)
St John Vianney’s: preparing to move to St Gregory’s (updated)
53 people have offered their time and talent to be a member of one of the Teams, and many have offered to be part of more than one Team. St John Vianney’s PPC are very grateful to each of them. We now have the following offers of help:
§ Team 1 – Final/farewell Mass and social event: 19 people
§ Team 2 – Commemorative booklet: 9 people
§ Team 3 – Transport needs: 3 people
§ Team 4 – What does each ministry need / have to do: 9 people
§ Team 5 – Church and hall capacity: 3 people
§ Team 6 – Emptying the buildings and moving what we need to St Gregory’s: 36 people
§ Team 7 – Selling the land/buildings and closing the buildings: 2 people
The Team Facilitators will have been in touch (or will shortly be in touch) with everybody who offered their time and talent, to explain what will happen next.
We ask everybody across our Cluster faith communities to please continue to pray for the parishioners of St John Vianney’s during this time of transition.
St John Vianney’s Parish Pastoral Council would like to express our thanks to the 60 parishioners who came to the hall after Mass last Sunday, and participated in the meeting to organise and plan our move to St Gregory’s. A special word of thanks to all those who prepared and served the breakfast rolls and tea/coffee – it was greatly appreciated by everyone
40 people have offered their time and talent to be a member of one of the Teams, and many have offered to be part of more than one Team. We are very grateful to each of them. As it stands, we have the following offers of help:
§ Team 1 – Final/farewell Mass and social event: 17 people
§ Team 2 – Commemorative booklet: 8 people
§ Team 3 – Transport needs: 3 people
§ Team 4 – What does each ministry need/have to do: 9 people
§ Team 5 – Church and hall capacity: 1 person
§ Team 6 – Emptying the buildings and moving what we need to St Gregory’s: 28 people
§ Team 7 – Selling the land/buildings and closing the buildings: 2 people
Some people weren’t able to come to the meeting, and others wanted to take time to reflect on how best they can use their time and talent to help with the various tasks. There will therefore be a further opportunity to sign up for the Teams this weekend, Sunday 26 March.
We ask everybody across our Cluster faith communities to please continue to pray for the parishioners of St John Vianney’s during this time of transition. Thank you.
SJV PPC
St John Vianney’s Parish Pastoral Council (PPC) met last week to look at everything that will need to be considered and done in advance of closing our church, hall and house buildings and moving to St Gregory’s. Having done that the PPC agreed that the following is a realistic timescale (with a little contingency built into it):
The proposed date for moving was then shared with the St Gregory’s PPC. They have agreed to the proposal.
We have now written to Archbishop Cushley, formally asking for his agreement, and that of the Trustees, to vacating the buildings at St John Vianney’s and moving to St Gregory’s over the weekend of 5/6 August 2023, and closing them completely by the end of August 2023. We now await the Archbishop’s response.
We have advised the Archbishop that we will start to prepare a detailed plan and work towards these dates, but recognising that it is subject to approval from him and the Trustees.
To get the planning underway, we would like to invite everybody to an Open Meeting in St John Vianney’s hall immediately after 9.30am Mass on Sunday 19 March. Breakfast rolls and tea/coffee will be provided. This meeting will be the first opportunity for parishioners to get involved in the various tasks that we will need to work on between now and making the move to St Gregory’s.
Some of the things we need to work through will involve our sister parishes of St Gregory’s and St Catherine’s and, over the next few weeks, we will contact them to explore how best to go about those tasks.
SJV PPC
In last weekend’s newsletter we communicated that parishioners from St John Vianney’s, St Gregory’s and St Catherine’s had a very positive and fruitful meeting with Archbishop Cushley on Thursday 2 February. We promised to share the notes from that meeting as soon as possible.
You will remember that on 7 December 2022 we had written to the Archbishop asking him to consider our proposal, namely: the parishioners of St John Vianney’s, with the support of the parishioners of St Gregory’s, wish to remain a distinct parish but use St Gregory’s for the celebration of Mass at 0930 on a Sunday. Some of the key elements of remaining a distinct parish are that St John Vianney’s have their own:
As the meeting on Thursday 2 February drew to a close, we were able to reach the following conclusions, which we have subsequently agreed with the Archbishop:
i. Archbishop Cushley said that he felt we could coalesce around the proposal St John Vianney’s, supported by St Gregory’s, had made.
ii. The Archbishop will take our proposal back to the Trustees of the Archdiocese and this will be our direction of travel. He added that it is unlikely to look any different to what we have spoken about this evening.
iii. Archbishop Cushley suggested that it will be important to regularly review how the new arrangement is working for everybody across our Cluster parishes.
iv. The Trustees of the Archdiocese will look after the sale of the buildings. The sale proceeds (less expenses – e.g. demolition of the buildings) will come to the parish. However, this will be subject to an Archdiocesan levy that was introduced by Decree on 26 July 2022 – between 0% and 29% of the sale proceeds (after expenses) and St John Vianney’s outstanding debt will be deducted.
v. We need to explore and agree a timescale for moving from St John Vianney’s to St Gregory’s. The Archbishop said it would definitely have to be this year, and most likely sooner rather than during the latter part of 2023.
vi. The Archbishop will keep Fr Alex informed regarding progress.
St John Vianney’s Parish Pastoral Council will now start to work on a plan for making the move to St Gregory’s, including timescales (which will have to be agreed with the Archdiocese). They will involve and work closely with parishioners and with the parishes of St Gregory’s and St Catherine’s.