Excellent news just to hand: while, sadly, our esteemed parish priest, Fr Allan Hartcher, OFM, is about to retire to Sydney at the end of this year (he is now eighty), our new Archbishop has persuaded Cardinal Pell to release a Sydney priest, Fr Martin Aye Ngwe, to come south and become the new priest administrator of West Tamar parish – so the church won't close as we feared it would, Deo gratias!
Internet searches reveal that Fr Martin is a learned and orthodox priest, proof of which, if aught were needed, is the way the notoriously dreadful Bishop of Broken Bay, of whom I have heard so much that is unpleasant and uncatholic, treated him so badly as to drive him to transfer to Sydney, a part of the Church more happily united to Rome in one faith than the former. (In a better world, Walker would have been deposed just as Morris was, but his time is almost up in any case.)
I am indebted to Jadwiga, a stalwart of the parish, who suggested we make a novena to St Francis to obtain a new parish priest: it's certainly worked, all thanks to "Holy Uncle Frank"! I just said the Te Deum in thanksgiving, and invite all readers to do the same, and to offer up prayers that Fr Martin will prove an ornament to our parish, and a wise shepherd of souls, as I fully expect he will be. Priests who have suffered are always holier and kindlier than those who have not; and no good priest even gets ordained without enduring many crosses.
Well, you are blessed indeed. I have read something of the history of your new priest - can't remember how I first came across the story, but it is certainly "interesting" to say the least. I wonder if this might not be the doings of your new Sydney-connected Archbishop? Sign of good things coming!
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