Senior RC cleric is off to Jersey

Canon Nicholas France will go to Jersey as Dean to the Catholics of the island and with responsibility for amalgamating St Helier's St Thomas's Parish (French tradition) with St Mary and St Peter (English tradition) churches.

He said: "Although sad to leave Southampton, I am looking forward to this new challenge in the service of the Lord and his people."

Father John O'Shea has been appointed by the Bishop of Portsmouth Crispian Hollis to be the next Catholic Dean in Southampton and priest of the city centre parish of St Joseph and St Edmund.

Father O'Shea, 54, was ordained for the Portsmouth Diocese in 1969. He is at present Catholic Area Dean in Portsmouth, and parish priest of St Coleman's, Cosham, and St Paul's, Paulsgrove.

No stranger to Southampton, Father O'Shea worked for ten years as director of the Catholic Diocesan Religious education Centre in La Sainte Union College, (now New College).

He will take up his new appointment at the beginning of September and will be inducted by Bishop Hollis in St Edmund's Church at 7pm on Tuesday, September 14.

Father O'Shea said: "I am very pleased to accept this appointment and I look forward to working in Southampton, both in the service of my own Catholic community and the wider community of this city."

Canon France added: "I am delighted that Father O'Shea has been appointed to succeed me.

"He comes with good Christian leadership qualities, with great experience of pastoral work and religious education, and he has a vision about the way that Catholic priests must adapt as faith communities to face the challenge of the next century.

"I am sure that Father John O'Shea will be welcome in Southampton and be as happy as I have been here in working within the Catholic community and with other Christian bodies, people's of other faiths, and men and women of goodwill."

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