Much has changed in Thanet over the past few months. As many readers will be aware, Fr Timothy Finigan, Parish Priest of St Austin and St Gregory, Margate offered his resignation due to ill health at the beginning of 2019. Notable for his astute sermons, superb pastoral abilities, liturgical exactitude and great piety, Fr Finigan was an exemplary and much-loved priest who is greatly missed. Our prayers and good wishes for his convalescence follow him. Sadly, the Traditional Latin Mass will no longer be celebrated in Margate and while many parishioners have turned to the Shrine Church at St Augustine in Ramsgate for spiritual solace, for some this is neither practical nor possible and a good number of faithful families and individuals attached to the Extraordinary Form have been left without provision. Ramsgate too has seen enormous changes, but here, at least, there is more positive news. Fr Marcus Holden the previous Parish Priest of Ramsgate and Fr Christopher Basden, Parish Priest of St Bede’s, Clapham Park arranged a ‘parish swap’ and Fr Basden was inducted as Parish Priest of Ramsgate in April. We are very grateful to Fr Simon Heans, Administrator of the beautifully restored Shrine of St Augustine & National Pugin Centre, who kept the Sunday Missa Cantata at St Augustine’s going during the three-month interregnum. Readers unfamiliar with the wonderful Fr Basden need only know that he is a long-term friend of Tradition and is a sound and holy priest as well as a real dynamo.
We are delighted to welcome him to Thanet and excited to see his plans unfold. When I asked him if there was anything he would like added to the report in Mass of Ages, he replied with the following: “We had Fr Gabriel Diaz Patri who came from St Bede’s in Clapham Park and did the entire Holy Week at the Shrine. Every week we have a Missa Cantata but need some help with singers! This summer we have had a brief visit from Dom Benedict Andersen OSB from Silverstream and we look forward to the visit of Fr Andrew Southwell from Rome with the young people attending the LMS Summer School. We hope to welcome the newly ordained Fr Rupert Bevan to offer a first Mass, as his family has been involved here with music in the past. We were not badly represented at the Chartres pilgrimage - our former PP walked the entire way while our present PP attended in a geriatric capacity! We very much miss our great supporter Fr Tim Finigan who has retired through ill health from Margate and rejoice at his recovery of health. We have a few good servers and an excellent 17-year-old MC - Hugo Robinson - who was well able to negotiate the intricacies of the Triduum! We will miss Jamie Wheadon (pray for his vocation!) and John from Tonga, both of whom have been a great support to the altar staff but have now graduated from the University of Kent in Canterbury. There is much to do but we hope to build up the Tradition in Thanet and commend ourselves to Our Lady Conqueror of Heresies!”
So, despite a bumpy start to 2019, things in Thanet are definitely looking rosier, at least in Ramsgate. The Wednesday morning Low Mass continues at St Ethelbert’s, Ramsgate and the main Sunday Mass at the Shrine of St Augustine is a Missa Cantata with sung Vespers and Benediction every first Sunday afternoon.