Bolton Catholic! Workers

This Group Takes Its Press To A Thousand Homes
By a Staff Reporter "Catholic Action means Catholic Activities." That is the motto of the Bolton Catholic Workers' Group, which has been celebrating its 10th birthday this week.
Birthday celebrations began last Sunday with a pilgrimage of thanksgiving to the Salesians at Shrigley Park. Throughout the period of the pilgrimage a group of pilgrims watched in the chapel.
The Catholic Workers' Group is unique in many ways. It began in 1938 among a small number of people who used to attend the Catholic Social Guild Study Circle underneath St. Edmund's Church, Bolton.
They started by selling the Catholic Worker in draughty porches and church doorways. This was so successful that they extended their activities to selling the other Catholic newspapers and periodicals.
CATHOLIC BOOKSHOP
The next step was to secure premises, which they did—first in a cellar and later in Moor Lane. A Workers' bookshop followed.
On May 29, 1940, Mgr. Marshall, Bishop of Salford, gave this his approval and appointed Fr. James Fallon chairman and general supervisor. The work spread into four more parishes and there were lectures, debates and discussions at the new headquarters.
A library of Catholic books was founded and the spreading of Catholic literature of all descriptions forged ahead.
With the coming of the war many of these activities ceased but paperselling went on. Now the group is almost back to its old "action stations."
Features of the celebration week included a public meeting in the Bolton Hall, on Wednesday, with Fr. Fallon in the chair and Mr. Charles Osborne talking on "The Message of Fatima."
Cm Sunday there is to be Solemn High Mass at St. Joseph's. Halliwell, a talk and discussion on "The Work, Its Needs, Means and Future Policy," at St. William's, followed by Compline sermon, Benediction and Te Drum.
This enthusiastic body of Bolton young people, Fr. Fallon told me, numbers only about 25 but they manage to sell between them 1,000 Catholic papers a week, mostly from door to door. They gladly lend their premises to any Catholic body in the neighbourhood.