DECREE CONCERNING THE MERGER OF THE PARISHES of St MARY & St JOSEPH (Hemel Hempstead Boxmoor) & St MARK (Hemel Hempstead West)
Following consultation with the Council of Priests in accordance with Canon 515 §2, and conscious of the views expressed by the priests of the local Deanery and the lay faithful of the above named parishes, I, Vincent Cardinal Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, have determined that the spiritual welfare and pastoral needs of the faithful of the parish of St Mary & St Joseph (Hemel Hempstead Boxmoor) and of the faithful of the parish of St Mark (Hemel Hempstead West) will be better served by merging these two parishes into one new parish.
Therefore, I hereby decree that the parish of St Mary & St Joseph and the parish of St Mark are united to form a new parish. The ecclesiastical goods and patrimonial rights of the former parish of St Mary & St Joseph and of the former parish of St Mark, together with their respective obligations, in accordance with Canons 121-122, are ceded to the newly erected parish.
The name of the new parish shall be ‘Hemel West with the Churches of St Mary & St Joseph and St Mark.’ The territorial boundaries of the new parish shall be the combined boundaries of the former parish of St Mary & St Joseph and the former parish of St Mark.
As both the churches of the former parish of St Mary and St Joseph and of the former parish of St Mark will remain open and will serve as Churches of the new parish, separate sacramental registers will continue to be kept.
In accordance with Canon 524, I appoint Reverend Paul McDermott as the parish priest of the new parish of ‘Hemel West with the Churches of St Mary & St Joseph and St Mark.’
The dispositions of this decree shall be applied retroactively so that the merger of the two parishes will have come into effect on 1 January 2019. The fact of the merger shall be communicated to the parishioners of the new parish by Father McDermott at the earliest opportunity. The decree shall be published on the diocesan website and in the Westminster Record.
Given at Westminster this second day of February in the year of Our Lord two thousand and nineteen, Feast of the Presentation
Cardinal Vincent Gerard Nichols
Archbishop of Westminster
