An interesting suggestion was made by Canon Walton, parish priest of Our Lady of Victories, the Kensington church which was recently destroyed in an air raid, when he preached at the last Mass on Sunday in the Majestic Cinema. Mentioning that some fifty-two ecclesiastical buildings in the archdiocese of Westminster have already suffered, some much more than others, through homhing attacks, and that funds were being collected for their re-erection, he said :—" I understand that these buildings, which include our destroyed churches, will be rebuilt after the war under the new Government insurance scheme. Why not therefore pay the sums being received from voluntary subscribers into a central fund, to be administered by the Bishops, for the purpose of embellishing these destroyed churches to such a degree that each of them would be a shrine of thanksgiving for peace and victory?"
When asked to detail the scheme he had proposed, Canon Walton told a Cocreosic HERALD reporter that the fund might be administered by the three Bishops whose respective jurisdictions embraced sections of County of London, namely those of Westminster, Southwark and Brentwood, and further, that one destroyed church in each of the three dioceses might be selected for especial embellishment as a central shrine of thanksgiving for peace and victory.
Canon Walton pointed out Catholics had built nothing at the end of the last war to express their gratitude to God for the victory then obtained. and added:.. have we no determination to do better
this time? London, the capital of the Empire, should have its great shrine of victory."
CONTRIBUTIONS NOW NEARLY 11,000
Over £900 has already been collected towards the new church of Our Lady of Victories, " but," said Canon Walton, " at the moment it is not a question of building churches. My anxiety is to keep the doors open and to pay our hills. There is a terrible debt still on the parish which we have to face." As the Majestic Cinema, where Sunday Masses have been said since the church of Our Lady of Victories was destroyed, is now temporarily closed, Canon Walton has arranged for all Masses next Sunday to be celebrated in the church hall. Meanwhile he has received the offer of premisea in Argyle Road for use on Sundays only, which might accommodate some four hundred persons, hut has arrived at no decision yet as to whether he will avail himself of the offer.