BISHOP ELLIS of Nottingham opened a new Franciscan Friary, adjoining Our Lady and St. Edward Church, at Gordon Road, Nottingham. last week, bringing a 36-year building plan to an end.
The Franciscans first went to Nottingham in 1230. Three hundred years later they were suppressed by Henry VIII and did not return until 1930, when Bishop Dunne invited them to take charge of the parish of St. Edward's.
The parish had started with a school in 1886 where Mass was said on Sunday. A new church was opened in 1956, followed shortly by the parish hall and in 1960 a new school. The Friary was last on the list.
Bar on re-baptism
BISHOP Joseph Hoffncr of Germany has barred the conditional rebaptism of converts to Catholicism from the Lutheran Church. A similar bar has been put on the rcbaptism of Catholic converts to the Lutheran church by Oldenburg's Lutheran bishop. 'I he agreement grew out of a series of discussions the two bishops held on common pastoral problems.