On Sunday 28th June, 90 priests and over 2500 parishioners from around the Archdiocese celebrated the end of the year of St Paul and the beginning of the Year for Priests at an open air Mass in the College grounds. At the mass we celebrated 190 years of  of Priesthood of 4 Bishops connected with the Birmingham Archdiocese; 60 years for Bishop Leo McCartie, 50 years for Bishop Philip Pargeter and 40 years for both Archbishop Vincent Nichols and Bishop Willima Kenny. For full details, click here.

This morning, May 26th, the final exams of the STB took place here at Oscott. The whole community then gathered in the upper common room for the Solemn Proclamation of the results.The new Dean of Theology from the Catholic University of Leuven, Professor Boeve congratulated our three candidates for their excellent work and announced that they had each achieved Magna Cum Laude.

Congratulations to Roger Peck, Paul Leonard and Paul Johnson!

On May 9^th, Archbishop Vincent Nichols made the last visit as Archbishop of Birmingham to his seminary at Oscott . With so much on his mind, he might have been excused for merely turning up to say goodbye. Instead, he asked if he could join the community in prayer and give a talk to the students where he explored the reality of answering God’s call in the life of a priest. In doing this, he demonstrated yet again, the deep concern he always showed for seminarians throughout his time in the diocese. At the special dinner that followed, the dean of students, Michael Collis, thanked him for the encouragement he has always given to those who feel that they are called to priesthood, particularly today when so often, in society, people try to deter anyone who feels this call. It would be fare to say, therefore, that the most significant contribution he made at Oscott was his care to foster the gift of priesthood. In this sense, he lived up to his predecessor and hero, Bishop Ullathorne, first bishop of Birmingham, who said that the seminary should be ‘as the Church intends, the family of the bishop, in which he will take singular interest, and over which he will exercise a singular care; to which his whole heart will be given.’ His care for Oscott, however, was not domineering or interfering. He has a great capacity for entrusting responsibility to others and then allowing them to be creative and develop initiatives in their own way. I know I can speak on behalf of all the formation staff and say that, given the strength of his support and his clear vision of priesthood, we have been able to enjoy our work as formators under his care. We are sad to see him leave us but we are confident that in his new role he will give clear leadership and vision regarding the importance of the priesthood in the evangelisation of our nation. In this way, we know that he will, even from a distance, still foster vocations to the priesthood way beyond the confines of the Archdiocese of Westminster.

Mgr. Mark Crisp
Rector

The next Oscott Public Lecture will take place on Tuesday 24th November at 8.00pm (gates open 7.30). The speaker will be Anne Duggan, Emeritus Professor of History at King's College London, and a leading authority on the life and influence of Thomas Becket. She is the author of:

Thomas Becket, Hodder Arnold: London, 2004

Thomas Becket: friends, networds, texts and cult, Ashgate 2007.

In this Year for Priests, Thomas Becket is an appropriate subject, as he has been celebrated throughout the Catholic world from the 12th century onwards as a model for priests and bishops, with thousands of churches and chapels being dedicated to him.  With this in mind, Oscott is dedicating a small chapel, known for generations as the 'Domestic Chapel' in honour of St. Thomas, as a permanent place of devotion to this English patrol saint of priests.

The title of the lecture, which will be accompanied by images of Becket throughout the ages and music from his lifetime, is:

"The people's love, the clergy's delight": Thomas (Becket) the Martyr.

On Saturday December 20th Dominic Cosslett was ordained Priest at the parish of Christ the King, Coventry. This meant that during 2008 there were 10 ordinations to the Priesthood from Oscott College:

Fr. Christopher Howard, Wrexham Diocese
Fr. Andrew Richardson, Northampton Diocese
Fr. Simon Penhalagan, Northampton and Sion Community
Fr. Sean Riley, Archdiocese of Liverpool
Fr. Paul Smith, Archdiocese of Birmingham
Fr. Andrew McCann, Archdiocese of Birmingham
Fr. Bernard Garatt, Archdiocese of Birmingham
Fr. Cecil Rogerson, Archdiocese of Birmingham
Fr. Phillip Harries, Diocese of Menevia
Fr. Dominic Cosslett, Archdiocese of Birmingham

Ad Multos Annos!

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