REGINA | 72
REGINA: Fr de Malleray, unfortunately, St Mary’s was tampered with in the late 20th century, like so many beautiful Catholic churches. How is your restoration work going?
FR DE MALLERAY: The altar has been put back in its original location in the sanctuary, rather than in the middle of the nave.
REGINA: Excellent start! What’s next?
FR DE MALLERAY: In due course, we will need to clean the beautiful stonework on the reredos and have it professionally lit. The main stain glass window above the altar will also need consolidating.
REGINA: Any other projects planned?
FR DE MALLERAY: Yes. We will need to build a proper hall. Currently, there isn’t a space large enough for our congregation to meet outside of Holy Mass. A hall will allow more people to attend our activities for families, youth and conferences for all.
REGINA: That’s long term, we imagine.
FR DE MALLERAY: Yes, but this autumn we will convert our garage into a music room for our talented polyphonic choir. They currently use the original sacristy, leaving us clergy with practically no space to properly store the vestments and liturgical items, and to vest. So, when our singers move into the ‘garage’, we’ll move back
into our sacristy, playing real musical chairs.
REGINA: We saw you have a notice near the church entrance which informs visitors how much, per week, St. Mary’s costs to run. Why?
FR DE MALLERAY: It’s been one year and ten months since we took over St Mary’s. The weekly collection has tripled since our arrival.
REGINA: Impressive.
FR DE MALLERAY: The full cost to run St Mary’s Shrine for one week in £1,440. This includes the clergy allowances, pension and travel expenses, plus the yearly maintenance and insurance of the church and priory.
REGINA: Do you anticipate being able to raise enough money for St. Mary’s to be self-sustaining financially?
FR DE MALLERAY: We haven’t yet reached a full equilibrium, but we are hopeful that it will happen soon.
More people have set monthly or weekly direct debits with their bank, which provides us with a predictable income and make counting the collection quicker.
REGINA: Are people discovering St. Mary’s?
FR DE MALLERAY: Numbers are very stable, with about 150 attending every Sunday, and about 30 every week day.
An event such as the priestly ordinations of two FSSP priests which happened here in June 2017 draws attention to our presence here.