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GB ARCHON 2913 DEA-05-01-02-01-155-1 · Part · 5 to 9 August 1976
Part of Roman Catholic Diocese of East Anglia (RCDEA)

Photocopies of local press coverage about Fr Baker inaugurating a Tridentine Mass centre in Newcastle.
page 1: Article: Rebel priest to celebrate Latin Mass; Article: Booted out but unrepentant; letter: Oath of Loyalty
page 2/3: article: Old faith alive in the North
page 3: article: A choice of Masses today
page 4: article: North Catholics defy their Bishop

Various
GB ARCHON 2913 DEA-05-01-02-02 · File · 20 August 1975 to 15 November 1976
Part of Roman Catholic Diocese of East Anglia (RCDEA)

EDP 20-8-1975; letter; Status of Downham: RC protest
EDP 21-8-1975; article; Downham Catholics fight to keep traditional Mass; image of mother and daughter with petition for the Bishop
Daily Mail 25-8-1975; article; Pop goes Communion with paper cups and Co-op sliced / The Watchfield faithful get a taste of religion; 3 images - Sister Verity on drums / Bishop of Reading on stage / Communion in a paper cup
Guardian 25-8-1975; letters; Mass revolt of the Catholic Loyalists
Unknown 26-8-1975; letter; Traditional Mass?
Universe 29-8-1975; article; "Latin" priest supporters plan demo
The Times 29-8-1975; article; Bishop's warning on priest offering Mass in old form
Sunday Times 31-8-1975; article; Latin lovers in protest; image Fr Baker
Sunday Times 31-8-1975; article; Priest in Mass protest; 2 images - procession; Fr Baker
The Observer 31-8-1975; article; This rite is not wrong say 300 Catholics; image of Fr Baker
The Times 3-9-1975; letters; The Tridentine Mass
Catholic Herald 5-9-1975; letters; End wrangles of amateur liturgists
Catholic Herald 5-9-1975; article; Latin protest "cause of distress"; cartoon
EDP 8-9-1975; letters; Downham Mass
EDP 9-9-1975; article; Priest "refuses to see Bishop"
EDP 11-9-1975; letters; Downham Mass
EDP 11-9-1975; article; Downham priest asked to resign
Guardian 12-9-1975; article; Priest says he is hounded
The Universe 12-9-1975; article; Fr Baker won't meet Bishop Grant
The Times 12-9-1975; article; Canon law to be used to remove priest
The Guardian 13-9-1975; article; Latin mass takes to road
The Times 13-9-1975; letters; The traditional Mass
The Sunday Telegraph 14-9-1975; letters; Tridentine Mass and Anglican voluntary principle
The Guardian 14-9-1975; article; "Sensual" girls at Sunday mass
The Times 15-9-1975; article; Knives are out for Roman Catholic dissidents
EDP 17-9-1975; letters; Downham Mass
The Times 18-9-1975; letter; The traditional Mass
The Times 19-9-1975; article; Bishop's aim "to make new Mass available to all"
The Times 19-9-1975; article; Bringing the church to the people
EDP 19-9-1975; article; Bishop on his duty over the new mass
The Times 22-9-1975; letters; The traditional Mass
The Times 22-9-1975; letter; Catholic traditionalists
EDP 22-9-1975; letter Downham Mass
EDP 30-9-1975; letter Downham Mass
Sunday Express 31-8-1975; article; Catholics march to banned Mass
Unknown undated; letters; Downham Catholics and their Mass
The Sunday Times 31-8-1975; article; Latin lovers in protest
EDP 1-9-1975; article; Procession backs Downham priest; 2 images: procession; Fr Baker
The Telegraph 1-9-1975; "Liturgical bingo" of English Mass
Lynn News & Advertiser 2-9-1975; article; Catholics on the March / Downham Mass dispute grows; 2 images: procession; Fr Baker
EDP 2-9-1975; letter; Downham Mass
EDP 4-9-1975; letters; Downham Mass
EDP 6-9-1975; letter; Downham Mass
The Times 9-9-1975; re-typed by unknown; article; [Bishop Grant statement]
Catholic Herald 12-9-1975; article; Guarding against false gods
EDP 18-9-1975; letter; Downham Mass
The Guardian 20-9-1975; [photocopy] article; Church militant
EDP 23-9-1975; letter; Downham Mass
The Times 26-9-1975; letter; The traditional Mass
Catholic Herald 26-9-1975; article; Bishop Grant on Downham Market issue
Lynn News & Advertiser 10-10-1975; letters; In support of Fr Baker / And against..
The Telegraph 21-11-1975; [photocopy] article; Bad Marks for Latin
Evening News 30-6-1976; article; Rebel priest opens centre for Mass in city
The Journal 2-7-1976; article; Catholic Bishop hits at old Mass rebels; 2 images: Fr Baker; Bishop Clark
Cambridge Evening News 9-7-1976; letter;
EDP 17-7-1976; letter; Mass
EDP 19-7-1976; letter; In reply to Fr Baker
EDP 12-11-1976; article; Disused shop setting for Downham Mass
EDP 14-7-1976; letter; Mass: rebel priest "follows ruling"
EDP 15-11-1976; [reprint] article; Rebel Archbishop's "Woolies" mass; 2 images: Archbishop Lefebvre; Archbishop Lefebvre and Fr Baker

Various
GB ARCHON 2913 DEA-09-02-02-60-2 · Part · 26 February 2021
Part of Roman Catholic Diocese of East Anglia (RCDEA)

"Eric St John Foti, a Norfolk Catholic entrepreneur and inventor, has died, aged 94. Sr Francis Ridler FDC pays tribute to a remarkable man Eric was a man of faith and someone who made things happen. With his wife Marion he raised eight children of his own and fostered another 24. He was born on 13th January 1926 and died on 4th January, just before his 95th birthday." Story continues.
Image: Eric St John Foti

The Catholic Universe (1860-2021)
Obituary Fr Oswald Baker
GB ARCHON 2913 MIS-01-40-2 · Part · 15 July 2004
Part of Miscellaneous Deposits

"Father Oswald Baker - Roman Catholic parish priest who became a rebel because he insisted on celebrating only the Tridentine Mass"
Obituary Text:
Father Oswald Baker
Daily Telegraph, 12:03AM BST 15 Jul 2004
Father Oswald Baker, who has died aged 89, attracted national attention in 1975 when he insisted on using only the traditional Tridentine Latin Mass in his Roman Catholic parish of Downham Market, Norfolk, instead of the new liturgy imposed following the Second Vatican Council.
A significant number of priests was distinctly tepid about the pedestrian modern English substitute for the rite which had been introduced by Pope St Pius V in 1570; and some discreetly obtained permission to continue using the traditional Latin on the grounds that they were too old to change.
But the authorities in Northampton diocese felt that they had to act against Baker because he declined to offer the new Mass in a rural area where it was otherwise unavailable; they found themselves confronted by a steely rebel.
It quickly became clear that Baker enjoyed strong backing from the majority of his parishioners, who formed a "1570 Society" to support him. Catholics started coming from all over the country to hear his Sunday Masses; and lay people throughout the English-speaking world wrote in their hundreds to assure him of their wholehearted agreement with him.
At a time when toleration was supposed to be in vogue, the Catholic Church was particularly embarrassed to find itself looking both narrow and tyrannical.
As the situation developed Baker showed every sign of enjoying himself. He made barbed remarks about Masses which made use of pop music and "sensuous dancing girls". The Daily Telegraph, which often had a reporter in the congregation, recorded one sermon in which he pointedly referred to St John of the Cross, who was jailed by his superiors for his beliefs in the 16th century, then was released to become Vicar General of Andalusia.
To general laughter from his parishioners, Baker continued: "There is something about them, these priests who gain a misleading reputation for disobedience." He then added: "These bishops. They will have their little joke." Meanwhile, the new parish priest dispatched by Bishop Charles Grant was celebrating the new liturgy for a minority of Downham Market Catholics in the town hall.
After politely refusing twice to obey his bishop's orders to celebrate the new rite or to resign, Baker was formally suspended as parish priest of St Dominic's by a decree of removal. The couples he married from then on had to have a civil service before they came to his chapel, but there was no attempt to deprive him of his faculties to celebrate Mass.
Baker eventually gave up the church, too, though he was allowed to keep the presbytery; and benefactors bought, for £15,000, a house in the town to serve as his chapel. From there he continued his ministry, which intensified his fight against the Vatican II reforms.
Oswald Charles Baker was born on May 1 1915 in the Angel Hotel at Clowne, Derbyshire, where his father was the landlord. The family moved to Great Yarmouth, where he attended the grammar school.
Young Oswald soon lost his provincial accent. He went to the Jesuits' Campion House in Middlesex before going to the prestigious French seminary to become "a gentleman of St Sulpice"; but, in 1938, he was asked to leave after publishing an article suggesting that the Treaty of Versailles had been too severe on Germany to be the basis of a lasting peace. "I was always a rebel," he later recalled. On returning home Baker offered himself to the Jesuits, but this was in the days before the Society of Jesus looked kindly on rebels; and Baker was earning a living selling books in Glasgow when a Dominican he met suggested that he become a friar.
But that did not work out either, and he eventually met a secular priest at Hyde Park, who recommended he go to Oscott seminary at Birmingham. After being ordained priest in 1942, Baker served as a curate at Luton, High Wycombe and Wymondham, Norfolk, before going to Downham Market in 1949.
After the battle with his bishop, he initially rejoiced when Archbishop Lefebvre's Society of St Pius X sent young priests to England. Like Baker, these die-hards considered that in refusing the new Mass they were following in the footsteps of the Reformation martyrs who had refused to accept the introduction of Protestantism.
But when Lefebvre visited Baker, the latter thought that the nominal recognition granted the Frenchman by Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II was a sign of weakness. Firmly adhering to Cardinal St Robert Bellarmine's teaching that a heretical pope automatically loses his office, Baker found himself branded a "sedevacantist" (one who believes that the see of St Peter was vacant).
In 1984 he explained to an astonished reporter that the present Pope was "no more a Catholic than Ian Paisley - and no more a pope than Billy Graham". He added that "the new Mass is a sacrilegious parody of the true Mass: it is sinful to take part in it."
He maintained to the end that, despite what any bishop might say, he still occupied his office of parish priest.
As an assiduous reader of The Daily Telegraph, he would write letters to correct what he judged to be faulty grammar or faulty theology. He was convinced that the one led to the other. One letter, which attacked an article about the Pope and contraception, informed the editor that this had contained the paper's most erroneous statement since it had criticised Catholic objections to a visit to Britain by President Tito of Yugoslavia in 1953.
Gradually Baker's congregation dwindled to about 20, though it would swell when the film producer Mel Gibson, who bought a house nearby, appeared for Sunday Mass and stayed for coffee afterwards. Seven years ago, Baker vacated the presbytery; and though crippled by spinal trouble, he continued to stagger to the altar to mutter a rapid Mass.
A quiet, kindly man who had been a practitioner of martial arts in his younger days, on July 2 Father Oswald Baker declared: "I am ready to die" - which he then did.

The Daily Telegraph / The Sunday Telegraph