Twenty years of Oratorian life in Oxford

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the formal beginning of the Oxford Oratory, when the founding members came from Birmingham and took over St Aloysius to commence Oratorian life in the city, which led on to its formal establishment as an independent community in 1993.

Through the initiative of Archbishop Maurice Couve de Murville the Oratorians have fulfilled Newman's plans to establish an Oratory here, even if there was an interval of over a hundred and twenty years in doing so.

During the last twenty years much has been achieved with the development of the community, the revival of a church which it is said Somerville was looking upon as a potential new library in the 1980s, the commencement of the restoration and expansion of the building, and the faithful presentation of the Catholic faith to ann increasing and widening number of people. A great deal indeed for which to give thanks.