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No 164 - 2001
Editorial
THURSDAY June 18, 1903 was the date that the greater part of the community and the students of St Edmund’s Abbey left Douai, France for the last time and travelled by boat and train to be met at Charing Cross Station in London by a welcoming delegation of English Catholics led by the Duke of Norfolk, the dying Cardinal Vaughan having sent a hand written note that he had been too ill to complete. The Bishop of Portsmouth had offered St Mary’s College, Woolhampton as a new home, and Woolhampton College would re-open under the direction of the Benedictines on Tuesday September 8, 1903.
The monks had been expelled by the French Government under the anti-religious laws. Many of the towns people, including the dean and the clergy of the three parishes of Douai had turned out to bid them farewell, some of whom had bought tickets to the next station so as to have access to the platform from which their train left at 10.42am. As the community has been given till July 6 to leave, Prior Edmund Kelly OSB and five monks remained to do the final clearing and packing up. The prior celebrated the last Mass in the chapel on Friday July 3, consuming the last hosts from the tabernacle. That night they too departed about 10pm, the last to leave being Br Bernard Dowen OSB who switched off the electric current and having locked the door leading to the street, deposited the key in the drain beneath the great gates where, as prearranged, the caretaker might find it the following morning. So ended eighty-five years residence in Douai.
To celebrate 100 years at Woolhampton a series of events are being planned to commence with a solemn Mass of thanksgiving on Saturday June 21, 2003 at which the Abbot Primate, Dom Notker Wolf OSB, has agreed to preach. More details of this and other events will be published in due course on our web site and in issues of the Douai Abbey Newsletter.
This issue
In this issue we celebrate two distinguised Dowegians, Professor Adrian Hastings and Oliver Welch. Our concern for the Third World is illustrated by an article by Fr Peter Bowe OSB narrating his experiences in India, whither he travelled in 2001 to help the monastery of Asirvanam and one by Fr Alexander Austin OSB telling of his visit to El Salvador in January 2002. Our continuing parochial involvement in England is shown by the article by Fr Paul Gunter OSB. ‡
Index
Douai Society Dinner, May 18 2001 Extracts from a speech by Abbot Geoffrey Scott OSB
Fr Adrian Hastings 1929 - 2001
Pre-Vatican II Catholic: The Case of Oliver Welch by Adrian Hastings
Indian Interfaith Encounters by Fr Peter Bowe OSB
Impressions of El Salvador January 2002 by Fr Alexander Austin OSB
Music at Douai March 2001 - February 2002 by Fr Oliver Holt OSB
St Mary's Parish Studley by Fr Paul Gunter OSB
New Mass Setting: Roxanna Panufik's Douai Missa Brevis by John Rowntree
Go to index of Douai Newsletter.