Editor: We hereby republish sections of the Centennial Booklet, “La Salette—1846-1946: Ten Decades with Our Lady,” edited by Fr. Emile Ladouceur, M.S., describing the first hundred years of making Mary’s message known. This is the tenfth of twelve articles.
Bishop William Bernard Ullathorne, O.S.B. (1806-1889), author of the early work, “The Holy Mountain of La Salette: a Pilgrimage of the Year 1854”The devotion to Our Lady of La Salette was introduced in England a short time after the Apparition. As early as 1854, the Church of Our Lady of the Reconciliation of La Salette was dedicated at Liverpool, England and another Church to Our Lady of La Salette was dedicated on May 2, 1861 at Bermondsey, London, England
About this time also the Archconfraternity to the Reconciling Virgin was inaugurated at Birmingham, no doubt with the approbation of Bishop William Bernard Ullathorne, O.S.B. (1806-1889), one of the first champions of La Salette. It is due very likely to this veneration on the part of English Catholics that the Missionaries themselves later arrived to settle definitely in England.
The merciful love with which Our Lady brought about a foundation of her own Sons in that country is clearly evident. In November 1927, Fr. Cecil McDonald, a Missionary of La Salette from the United States, then on his way to Madagascar, obtained an audience with Most Rev. Arthur Henry Doubleday (1865-1951), Bishop of Brentwood, England, who was also visiting in the Eternal City. Our Lady of La Salette was not unknown to Bishop Doubleday.
There is in the very heart of London, at Melchoir Street, not far from the Tower of London whose name fills the pages of English history, a parish that bears the name of Our Lady of La Salette. A church dedicated to her was built as a consequence of a miracle obtained through her intercession.
The Bishop of Brentwood had charge of this parish in the junior years of his priesthood. Called to a higher dignity, he still considered it a pleasure to come back and preach there for the Feast of September I9. And twice he has climbed, like a pilgrim of old, the rugged slopes of the Holy Mountain to pray on the site of Mary's Apparition. The Bishop was greatly interested in Father McDonald’s plea to introduce the Missionaries of La Salette as auxiliaries in his growing diocese.
In January 1928, two La Salette Missionaries, from the American Province, called at the Episcopal Residence in Brentwood. The Bishop advanced a proposition with a very promising future. Dagenham, the name of the new foundation, had just been englobed within the suburbs of the immense metropolis of England. London authorities, in order to relieve the congestion of the Capital, had undertaken to build south of the city, thousands of dwelling places, spacious streets, cozy brick residences with gardens around them, wide boulevards, public squares and miniature parks.
(from left:) Fr. Emile Replat (1876-1942), M.S., first pastor of St. Peter’s Church in Dagenham, England; Church and Presbytery of St. Peter’s Church in Dagenham
Thus Dagenham. once a bare territory of meagre cultivation on the outskirts of London, blossomed forth into an important suburb. The United States’ Motor Magnate, Henry Ford, had chosen it as the site for a huge factory. Several other large factories had sprung up along the Thames River. The population was teeming with life.
The La Salette Fathers were assigned to this district. Fr. Emile Replat (1876-1942), M.S., for years Director of our different Scholasticates at Rome, Fribourg and Altamont, New York, was designated first head of the parish. The Fathers began to work in this newly-assigned district with nothing but a temporary chapel built by Canon Meenen of Barking, Essex.
Out of love for Mary, the Bishop of Brentwood had dated the document giving the Missionaries of La Salette official standing in his diocese on February 11, 1928, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. On the morrow, he presented to the parish the new pastor of St. Peter's Church. He spoke with emotion of his own personal devotion to the Virgin of La Salette and of his happiness of having been in charge of a parish dedicate to her in the English Capital. Furthermore, he expressed the wish to celebrate the centenary of Catholic Emancipation in England with the opening of a Catholic School in this parish of some 2,000 children.
Within one year remarkable progress was made. The Bishop returned to bless a group of statues erected in the Church’s Shrine. In September 1929, was conducted the first public procession in the streets of London's suburbs in honor of Our Lady of Ransom. In 1931, a new and more imposing replica was blessed by the same Bishop and the Archconfraternity of Our Lady of La Salette was officially erected. The shrine attracted many Catholics in the South of England.
(from left:) The first public procession in the streets of London's suburbs in honor of Our Lady of Ransom was held in Sept. 1929, led by St. Peter’s Parish, Dagenham; handmade English banner for all English pilgrimages to Holy Mountain beginning with 1931
Although La Salette had been visited from time to time within the past hundred years by English Catholics, the first organized pilgrimage to La Salette look place in August, 1931, when a party of forty-two pilgrims from various parts of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, under the auspices of the Catholic Association and the spiritual leadership of Fr. Wolfgang J. Fortier, M.S.
While at La Salette the members of the pilgrimage decided to have a banner made to commemorate the first English pilgrimage. It now hangs in the Basilica on the Holy Mountain and the future English pilgrimages will carry it in procession.
The Bishop's dream of a new school for St. Peter’s Parish was fulfilled when a beautiful structure, up-to-date in every respect and affording accommodations for 350 children, was officially opened in March 1931. The teaching staff comprised seven nuns, members of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. On Sunday, December 5, 1937, the Bishop solemnly dedicated the new church which may be well considered the fairest shrine and monument to Our Weeping Mother of La Salette in the rejuvenated realm of England.
The Very Rev. Etienne-Xavier Cruveiller, M.S., then La Salette Superior General, was present for the ceremony. That same year, on August 7th, he had been given the title deeds of the parish property and, on September 9th, the parish was recognized as a Canonical Religious Parish belonging in perpetuity to the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette. Great was his joy therefore to witness the opening of this Shrine to Our Lady and to admire the beauty of God's new Temple.
(above:) La Salette Parish Church in Rainham, near Dagenham; (below:) La Salette window in Rainham Parish ChurchThe new church is Romanesque in style. The main entrance doors are placed in a columned stone surround, the tympanum bearing the arms (herald) of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette. The side chapel is dedicated to Our Lady, Reconciler of Sinners. The edifice has survived the severe bombing of World War II. So have the Rectory and the School.
In 1938 a second new parish was established by the Missionaries at Rainham, outside Dagenham. The Fathers acquired a site of five acres on the Dovers Estate. The family home is now used as a presbytery, and Mass is said every Sunday at the small chapel which served the Catholics of Rainham for many years and has already become inadequate to meet the needs of the fast-growing population.
Thus in the land of the "Second Spring" the devotion to Our Lady of La Salette made so popular by the brilliant
work of Archbishop Ullathorne, has become a bounteous source of heavenly aid to regain for England her ancient glory as "Our Lady's Dowry."(above, from left:) Our Lady of the Reconciliation of La Salette at Liverpool dedicated in 1854; Our Lady of La Salette in London dedicated in 1861; (below:) St. Peter’s Church and Presbytery in Dagenham ministered by La Salette Missionaries dedicated in late 1930s