Extracts from the report of Rt. Rev. John Arnold, following his Visitation to the Parish on December 13/14th last year

The new building works and the completion of the hall have obviously brought good resources to the Parish and, as you say, there seems to be no need for extensive projects in the future.  There will, of course, remain the maintenance costs of such a large Presbytery, Hall and Church.  They all appear to be in very good order and the Parish Hall served very well for the gathering of Saturday evening.

Thank you for arranging meetings with Catechists, with the Finance Committee and the Parish Council; I have made some notes below which I leave with you for your consideration.

In my meeting with the Catechists
I was very pleased to meet the three Catechists who came on Saturday afternoon; they were able to give a very good picture of a well structured catechetical programme in the Parish covering Baptism, First Reconciliation, First Communion, Confirmation and RCIA.  I gather that the Marriage preparation is not done in the Parish.  It was good to hear that many of the Catechists have worked on the team for a number of years giving a sense of continuity and experience.  Given the nature of New Southgate, with a relatively stable community, this is no doubt a benefit for everybody concerned.  It seems that Anthony Curran in Vaughan House has been very helpful as the liaison catechist and I will pass on gratitude to him.

In my meeting with the Finance Committee
It is very evident to me that you have a very serious and competent group of people running your finances and I liked both their approach and their confidence in all that they were talking about.  I was grateful that they had accepted the idea of the benchmarking as being helpful to an individual Parish and not to be seen as a criticism or as an identifier of failing factors.  No doubt the presence of Patrick Bolger is a significant measure of the competence of your Committee.  We spoke about accounting procedures which are clearly well in place and I was pleased to hear that, in as far as they are consulted, Diocesan Central Services have been helpful to the Committee.

I appreciate that there is the significant cost of the church benches still to come but that is well within your savings and an important improvement to the church.

The four paid employees are within the budget of the Parish  There is no outstanding loan on the completion of the Parish Hall.  The more I became aware of them, the better the facilities seem to be at the Parish with the significant number of meeting rooms which are of a high standard.

In my meeting with the Parish Council
I was very pleased with the meeting of the Parish Council.  Again there is some real competence and enthusiasm among its members as well as a diversity of personalities.  I know that some of the members of the Council are ex-officio, being representatives of various aspects of Parish life, and that some are elected.  I was very impressed by the youthfulness of the group and it seems to work well as a consultative body.

In my visit to the sick and housebound
I was very moved by the three house calls that we were able to make; both you and Damian clearly know many of the people who are not able to leave their homes and who are seriously ill.  They certainly appreciated your contact and your presence with them.

The Liturgy.
I enjoyed the various Masses at the weekend.  There is certainly a variety both of Liturgy and of the congregation.  It was good to see music very competently presented at two of the Masses but I also found the attentiveness of people even in the Masses without music as very encouraging.  The Altar servers were well organized and well behaved and certainly had a sense of initiative in what they were doing.  It is always good to have a certain number of adults leading the Altar servers in their training and prsent on the Sanctuary though of course this is not always possible.  Your senior Altar servers seem to be very competent.

The Seminarian. 
Brian O’Mahoney is clearly very much at home in the Parish and appreciates the contact and the pastoral experience he is getting at weekends.  He certainly  seems to be active and enthusiastic and seemed to be spending every possible minute speaking and engaging with parishioners.  My visitation does not strictly include a formal interview with him but I would be very happy to pass onto Mgr Mark O’Toole the good report of all that I saw.  Thank you for making him welcome and for so obviously encouraging him in taking part in the Parish’s weekend life and liturgies.