After two years of eager anticipation, St Anne’s Church in Belmont has been opened and blessed as a centre for celebration of the Mass in Latin according to Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum.
Fr Rowe celebrated the Mass with visiting Dominican Fr Christopher Dowd from Adelaide as Deacon, Perth Canon lawyer Fr Brian Limbourn as Sub-Deacon and Fr Steve Casey from Karratha and Fr Rohan Murphy from Ireland also present.
The altar was from St Anne’s Church in North Fremantle used by the Croatian Catholic community, the altar rails from Christ Church Anglican church in Claremont and the Stations of the Cross – which were also fully restored then blessed on 19 March, were found in the basement of the St Mary’s Cathedral presbytery.
The pulpit was sourced from Europe by Fr Tiziano Bogoni, chaplain at All Saints Chapel in Allendale Square, Perth city.
Much of the work on the church was either by donations as mentioned or from community members or friends who were tradesmen. The Archdiocese also helped out with some costs.
While Fr Michael admitted a sense of relief, the work is far from done, he said, with the altar rails needing fixing as well as the sound system.
During the opening Mass, radio coverage of a horse race was somehow coming through on a frequency. The office and presbytery – which is uninhabitable – also needs to be fixed as the roof of both are on the verge of caving in due to white ants. No work had been done on either for decades. Fr Rowe currently lives in North Perth. He would like to move into the presbytery eventually once it’s fixed.
There was some initial angst when Fr Rowe closed down the church as a construction site, as Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament – started by Fr Eugene McGrath when parish priest there years ago – had a full roster. Some of them suggested that it be held in the presbytery, but this was equally unsafe, and Fr Rowe reassured them that he would restore adoration, to some extent, once the church was finally opened.
The Latin Mass community still uses the Pro-Cathedral but will be phased out for the community to be used by the Third Order of St Francis, among others.
“As we celebrate the feast of this great missionary saint (St Patrick), let us ask ourselves whether we are grateful to God for the gift of faith which has been passed down to us?” Fr Rowe said in his homily.
“Do we, like Patrick, use every means to pass on this faith and spread it? As we open St Anne’s today, let us see that we have done all we have done to open it for the glory of God and please God for the conversion of Belmont and the districts around.”