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Barnes in Commonthe magazine of Churches Together in Barnes
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‘Welcome Father Dominic’ (or should it be ‘welcome back’?)by Theresa Mumford
Father Dominic Allain is a Londoner by birth and initially a teacher by profession. After six years teaching, he trained for the priesthood in the Venerable English College in Rome, a place steeped in history – it’s the oldest English institution on mainland Europe, founded in 1362. Back in the early 16th century John Colet, founder of St Paul’s, was a student at the English College. After obtaining a degree in philosophy and theology and a postgraduate degree in Dogmatic Theology from Rome’s Gregorian University, he returned to England to serve as assistant priest in Balham. He remarks “Barnes reminds me a little of Balham – there too, the parish contains a high proportion of young families, attracted in part by the many sizeable Victorian (and hugely expensive!) family houses, the safe feel and the nice green spaces. It also has a significant population of refugees and people who do not live as comfortably as the stereotypical image of the place suggests.” After a short stint as assistant priest in Bromley and then South Norwood he came to Barnes to cover for Fr Logan’s absence due to illness: “I was told I would be there six weeks. In the event it increased in increments of weeks and months, until it was nearly eighteen months in all. That was not easy, if I am being honest. I felt I used a lot of energy not settling in, consciously having to tell myself that I should not get too attached because here was no abiding city. That was one of the reasons I was delighted to be appointed back here permanently in October. It feels in many ways like coming home. So now I am back and in some ways it’s familiar, though of course, it’s also very different. One anticipates the sort of Narnia effect, where on coming back through the wardrobe no time has elapsed. In fact, parish communities change fast. I am amazed at the number of new parishioners and families. It’s sobering to see those I remember in Year 6 at St Osmund’s now applying for Sixth Form places.” For Father Dominic, the special features of this parish include a very good mixture of ages and backgrounds, a strong sense of community, the support in the Church’s mission of an excellent school, a sense of stability which comes from having had the same parish priest for twenty years and a good engagement with the wider community – with the other Christian Churches and the different voluntary groups which are a feature of Barnes. He is conscious that he is following in the footsteps of a ‘good and gentle’ parish priest who held a very special place in the parish’s affections, and he is looking forward to the challenges, practical as well as spiritual, that await him. We warmly welcome Father Dominic to the parish and wish him as long and happy a stay as his predecessor, Father Logan, enjoyed. |
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