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ORATORY CHURCH OF ST CHAD

CHEETHAM HILL ROAD

MANCHESTER, M4 4EX


Telephone 0161 834 4104

email: pippo@manchesteroratory.org


St Chad's, Cheetham Hill, Manchester



Weekly Timetable

Masses, Confessions and Devotions


SUNDAY    (The Church is open from 7am - 6pm)

                8am  Mass   (Confessions before Mass)
                11.30am  Solemn Mass   (Confessions before Mass)
                4pm  Solemn Vespers and Benediction
                4.45pm  Mass in the Traditional Latin Form   (Confessions during Mass)



MONDAY - FRIDAY    (The Church is open from 6.30am - 6.30pm)

               7am Mass 
              12 noon Mass on Wednesdays in St Raphael's Chapel at North Manchester General Hospital
               4.45pm-5.15pm Confessions
               5pm Rosary
               5.30pm Mass  
 
               6pm - 6.30pm on Mondays - Devotions to St Philip and Silent Prayer 
               6pm - 6.30pm on Weekdays - Silent Prayer and Intercessions
               6pm - 6.30pm on Feast Days - Sung Vespers

              Bank Holidays: 7am Mass
                                         10am Mass  (Confessions at 9.40am)
                                         11am Requiem Mass at St Joseph's Cemetery, Moston (May and August)
                                         (NB. No evening Confessions or Mass)


SATURDAY    (The Church is open from 8am - 8.30pm)

                9.30am Mass at St Joseph's Cemetery Chapel, Moston
                11am Mass
                11.30am-12.30pm Confessions
                4pm Mass in St Luke's Chapel at North Manchester General Hospital (Vigil Mass of Sunday)
                7pm-8pm Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction
                7pm-8pm Confessions





For important New Year Information please  use the link below





Virtual Tour of the Church






St Chad in Manchester

When the first Catholic chapel was built in Manchester after the Reformation in the eighteenth century, it was dedicated to St Chad. In choosing him as its patron the Catholic community in Manchester was keen to show that it was the same living family of faith that has existed here down through the centuries. Whatever the political and religious upheavals of the day, there has always been a group of Roman Catholics in Manchester stretching back to the time of the Roman garrison nearly 2,000 years ago. In the 7th century St Chad was the first bishop to preach, teach, govern and sanctify God's people in Manchester.

St Chad's popularity and influence has lived on, not only in the dedication of many ancient churches in the region, but also in the place names of Manchester that were associated with him. "So much did Chad endear himself to those whom he converted, that even to this day we find traces of his missionary labours in the numerous place-names in the Manchester district that have been given in honour of the Mercian Bishop. The valley of the Irk, along which he must have toiled repeatedly, is particularly rich in these name memorials. Chadderton is simply Chad's town, Chadkirk is Chad's church, Cheetham is Chad's dwelling-place, Cheetwood is Chad's wood, Chat Moss is Chad's moss, Cheadle is Chad's hill, Cheadle Hulme is the meadow by Chad's hill, and so forth" (from John O'Dea, 1910, The Story of the Old Faith in Manchester).

His kindly presence and his faithfulness to Christ and His Church won many souls to God in his day. We pray that his personal influence will still be found today as the Catholics of Manchester work to build the Kingdom of God; to hand on what has been given to us from our Fathers and Mothers in the Faith.


If you would like to support the work of the Oratorian Community at St Chad's,
and the restoration programme of this historic church, please donate using the button below.



Sunday Afternoons

Julian of Norwich
The Revelations of Divine Love
Related image

Each week we read a chapter of the work and then meet to speak about it;
our thoughts and reflections on how it helps in our our Christian discipleship.
There is no need to come to them all, just come as you wish for as long as you wish.

We meet in St Philip's Chapel at 2.30pm
There is tea and cake at 3.30pm
Vespers and Benediction follow at 4pm

See Fr Christopher for further details



Some Ethical Notes
on contemporary questions

Gender Identity Theory - notes towards a clarification of ontological and epistemological foundations and functions.

Given the complexities of contemporary debates concerning 'birth-assigned gender' and 'self-identified gender', and the concomitant 'cis' and 'trans' positions, I thought an insight from a modern recording of a mid 16th century debate that I have recently uncovered on the subject would be useful in clarifying the alternative positions. It is between two humanist heavy-weights of their day known simply as Thomas and Bernard, and I think that the exact date of the debate was 7th September 1533 (I know, dear reader, but bear with me). 

Evidently, from the clash of paradigms we see in the piece linked below, our debate was alive and hotly pursued in the early modern period. At that time the human person had come to be seen as the centre and the measure of all things, and the consequences of this 'turn to the subject' for ethics can be seen in its schema of self-reflexive ontology. Still, it seems to be in the nature of this reflexive ontology that it seeks to place the subject by which the schema is determined outside of that schema. It seeks to gain a  dispassionate higher viewpoint or occupy a prior discreet ground of pre-ethical certitude, without admitting that this would avoid the very 'reflexive' nature of such an ontology from bearing on the subject itself. It cannot escape the necessary evaluation from its own schema. Moreover, we see the clash of the reflexive ontology with a classical paradigm that views the human subject as 'in relation', at least in as much as the subject does not claim to the sole criterion and arbitrator of its own subjectivity (cf. the police policing the police). We also see the development of an epistemology derived from this prior ontology that again demonstrates it's internal deficiencies as well as the conflictual position with the classical relational position. It is these ontologies and epistemologies that we will see played out in this extract of the 16th century debate, and which will go on to form part of the foundations of what would be later called 'Empiricism' and 'Idealism', which more-or-less offer the argument we recognise today.

In brief, the clip that we are about to watch is in the form rigorously detailed argument from Thomas, which conveys the broad sense of the classical relational ontology offered in the biological foundations of the natural law and its strict extrapolation for a coherent epistemology. His strictly materialist position is posed against the premise of Divine intervention in human generation that disrupts the verifiable sense data  as trenchantly argued by Bernard, which ironically offers a radical pre-ethical self-reflexive position. It's pretty tough going, but stick with it and it will be useful in nailing the disputed premises of the turn to the subject, as well as offering a critique of this move when played out in our late modernity (Fr.CH).


For a more succinct account of the matter please see Pippo or Midge.