OBSERVERS representing the 13 Catholic churches in Stockport and surrounding districts attended the inaugural meeting of Stockport's Council of Churches, held last Friday.
They took no part in the formal discussions, "but we got to know many Church leaders whom we had never met before, and that was a useful achievement", said one of the observers, Fr. J. Russell (assistant priest at St. Joseph's, Stockport).
The other Catholic observers were Mr. S. Tenpenny, headmaster of St. Joseph's School, Reddish; Mr. R. Cullom a teacher at the same school; and Coun. J. A. MacCarron, a parishioner of St. Winifred's, Heaton Mersey.
l'hey had been specially invited by the Church of England and Methodist co-presidents of the Council.
At another gathering in Stockport, held on the previous Tuesday, several Catholic priests joined with non-Catholic clergymen in a meeting arranged for local clergymen and doctors to discuss their common problems. This meeting was the idea of Dr. F. T. Dodd, who had proposed it to the Stockport branch of the B.M.A. It had been arranged by a sub-committee consisting of a Catholic doctor, a Jewish doctor, and a non-conformist doctor.