BY A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
ALIVERPOOL cinema which in recent years has normally
shown sex films is to become a chapel for the perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. An agreement was reached last week which brings to an end a ten-year search for a site by the Blessed Sacrament Fathers Liverpool Corporation has given permission for the Jacey Cinema in Clayton Square, heart of the city's new market and shopping centre, to become a church.
An official of the Town Planning Department said: "Planning permission has been given to the Blessed Sacrament Fathers to use the Jacey as a church and carry on there until it is wanted for rebuilding.
"Schemes are afoot for the redevelopment of the area, but the scheme is still being negotiated . . . In that scheme the council have undertaken to make provision for the Blessed Sacrament Fathers' chapel.
EXCHANGE BASIS "This will be on an exchange bas:.,. the archdiocese exchanging the site for land on which St. Nicholas's Church stands. This was leased to the diocese as a church site in the early 19th Century. The church opened in 1815."
The church will be a centre of continual exposition, with easy facilities for Confession and for Mass at peak shopping times.
St. Nicholas's Church, as pro-cathedtal until t h e Metropolitan Cathedral was opened, immediately behind the Adelphi Hotel and adjacent to Lime Street Station, will be demolished in about two years time when a new General Post Office will he built on the site.
Work is to begin on the reconstruction of the Jacey next month and the chapel is
£100 for gutted Anglican church
7111E first donation towards
the rebuilding of the 120y:ar-old Anglican church of St. Luke at Crosby, Liverpool, which was gutted by fire last week, was from the Catholic parish of St. William of York, Great Crosby.
Fr. Louis Rotherham, the parish priest, sent a cheque for £100 — a considerable saerifice for a parish with church debt of nearly £40,000 and a huge school debt commitment.
The Rev. R. J. Lee, the vicar of St. Luke's, writes in his par:sh magazine: "I thank you and your parishioners for your kindness, your concern, your prayers and your gift of £100 offered to me and the members of St. Luke's following the tragedy of the fire. It did my heart good." expected to open at the end of the year.
FOUR MASSES Fr. Thomas McNevin said : "When it opens there will be four Masses daily and exposition of the Blessed Sacrament for people to visit. We foresee many business people and shoppers as well as visitors to town frequenting the centre daily.
"Many cities throughout the world have chapels in the heart of their centres. Thousands of city workers and shoppers pass in and out of the chapel throughout the year. We expect a similar response in Liverpool."
The Blessed Sacrament Fathers have such chapels in New York, Amsterdam and Melbourne. In Liverpool at the moment they administer the Catholic Information Centre and Oratory at St. Augustine's, in Great Howard Street.