It was now that the church roof, which had always caused problems, began to leak quite seriously. Repair proved impossible and a complete new roof was laid in 1971. The condition is still not completely satisfactory.
It was to the spiritual and liturgical sides of parish life that Fr McGeoghan made his main contribution, encouraging the parishioners to play a more active role. Numerous lay people began instructing young candidates for Confirmation; Lay Ministers of the Eucharist were prepared and commissioned and the musical tradition of the church was revived, so that we now have two choirs, a folk group and a traditional choir, which combine for special events.
An SVP conference was reestablished and a Third World Group set up: this latter led to the twinning of our parish with the Jesuit Mission of Hosororo in north-west Guyana, a parish with an Amerindian population of 10,000+ living in the rain forest. This work later spread to helping a leper hospital and a boys’ orphanage on the Demerara coast.
Encouragement was also given to the altar servers in the Archconfraternity of St. Stephen.
Fr. McGeoghan suffered from ill-health during his time as our PP and was not able to achieve everything that he would have wished.
Fr. Ian Dommersen took over temporarily until a new PP was appointed and continued the work of encouraging the laity to be forthcoming.
Move to next section – The Parish in 1988: Fr John Power 1983-
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