DECREE CONCERNING THE MERGER OF THE PARISHES of OUR LADY, QUEEN OF ALL CREATION (Hemel Hempstead East) & THE CHURCH OF THE RESURRECTION, (Hemel Hempstead North)
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 Our Lady, Queen of All Creation (Hemel Hempstead East) and of the faithful of the parish of The Church of the Resurrection (Hemel Hempstead North) will be better served by merging these two parishes into one new parish.
Therefore, I hereby decree that the parish of Our Lady, Queen of All Creation and the parish of The Church of the Resurrection are united to form a new parish. The ecclesiastical goods and patrimonial rights of the former parish of Our Lady, Queen of All Creation and of the former parish of The Church of the Resurrection, 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 East with the Churches of Our Lady, Queen of All Creation and The Church of the Resurrection.’ The territorial boundaries of the new parish shall be the combined boundaries of the former parish of Our Lady, Queen of All Creation and the former parish of The Church of the Resurrection.
As both the churches of the former parish of Our Lady, Queen of All Creation and of the former parish of The Church of the Resurrection 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 Kim Addison as the parish priest of the new parish of ‘Hemel East with the Churches of Our Lady, Queen of All Creation and The Church of the Resurrection.’
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 Addison 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
