Amid the wheatfields of Suffolk, East Anglia's largest Catholic church is flourishing, buoyed by newcomers who are breathing fresh life into the faith community. It is a remarkable success story of integration
Two electric candles, three rosaries and a picture of the Sacred Heart adorn the prayer corner of Tommy Joseph's sitting room. Here, Tommy and his family regularly pray together. You might imagine yourself to be in a quietly devout corner of rural Ireland until you see the beautiful curly script on the cover of the well-thumbed Bible. For Tommy, his daughter Mary Tomytha and his wife Molly Tom are from Kerala in southern India, and they have come to make a new life for themselves in the old Suffolk town of Stowmarket.
They came to work - Tommy in IT and his wife as a care assistant - and to give their daughter a good education. She is a bright and beautiful 15-year-old, hoping next year to do her sixth-form studies at the Catholic school of St Benedict's in Bury St Edmunds. They are part of a strong and growing community of Keralan people who have chosen to make Stowmarket their home. It is no accident that so many of them bear versions of the name "Thomas" for it is believed that Christianity was brought to their country in AD 52 by the apostle Thomas, whose tomb is venerated near the city of Chennai, formerly known as Madras. This makes them members of the Syro-Malabar Church and thus in full communion with Rome. Already, Tommy has been invited to join the Parish Pastoral Council at the Catholic Church of Our Lady in Stowmarket and Mary Tomytha is one of the readers. In November, the parish threw a party for newcomers, and they were all there.
And they were not alone. Every Sunday 14 or 15 Keralan families attend Mass at Our Lady and it was their parish priest, Fr Denys Lloyd, who had brought me, one evening during the first week of Advent, to Tommy Joseph's house. Fr Lloyd had noticed that something remarkable was beginning to happen in his parish: people from other countries arriving, settling - and reinvigorating the community they join. We often hear of such migration to London and other major cities, but this was happening in the heart of Suffolk. Here, the Catholic Church has been instrumental in helping people adjust to life in a new country, and develop a sense of belonging. And in their turn, the new arrivals are helping to renew the Church.
It is particularly intriguing that such a thing should be happening in Suffolk. For centuries, Catholicism has been unwelcome here, threatening to "pollute this pure Protestant town" as a local paper once complained. It was not always so. In the Middle Ages, when the vision of Richeldis made Walsingham the third most visited shrine in Christendom, East Anglia was full of enormous churches and abbeys, many of them built from the profits of the wool trade: the evidence of that widespread piety can still be seen in that every third village seems to be named after a saint. But the area suffered a double attack of iconoclasm - first from Henry VIII's henchmen and then, a century later, from the followers of the local man, Oliver Cromwell. His lieutenant, the infamous William Dowsing, made particular note of the damage he did to Stowmarket.
The Catholic Church survived underground, in recusant houses, until the middle of the nineteenth century when a new foundation was established - but still things were far from easy. In 1910, for example, there were 35 Catholics, and the average Mass attendance was 17. Several heroic priests kept the parish going but it is only in recent years that the situation has improved, thanks largely to Fr Lloyd, and to remarkable demographic changes that have seen numbers - and confidence - increase.
The parish today is physically enormous, the largest in East Anglia. Covering some 600 square miles, it encompasses roughly 35 medieval parishes. It is, says Fr Lloyd, impossible to count the number of Catholics, as on occasion many of them will opt to attend Mass in Ipswich or Bury St Edmunds. But average Mass attendance is growing at Our Lady, Stowmarket. It has reached around 300 now, the numbers swelled not only by commuters who move there from London but by Tommy Joseph and his Keralan friends, by Filipinos and by Poles.
Constantly shifting numbers of people from the Philippines come to work for a while - often in nursing - although some stay to marry local people and bring up their families. The Poles' impact is noticeable, too. We went to visit two jolly, laughing young Polish women, Joanna and Katarzyna, who had just got home from work. They lodge in a very smart house owned by a man and his wife - who is of Polish stock. They are extremely grateful for this hospitality, and for the affectionate trust of their hosts.
Both had impressive qualifications in agricultural science and food technology and had heard that jobs were available at Nickerson Seeds. They are pleased with what they found. That day, they told us cheerfully, they had been checking the quality of wheat that was to go into Weetabix. These are not casual waitresses, here only to improve their English, but clever women who are able to use real skills, learned at home in Poland and properly valued here. They had ventured into the church - slightly anxious lest they had come to the wrong place - and had been warmly welcomed by an Irish parishioner who had taken them under her wing. Never, in all their time in Stowmarket, had they encountered any hostility.
Agnes and Rafael, married for "two months and 11 days", came to supper at the presbytery. Though over-qualified, both of them work shifts at the local Tesco, stacking shelves. They had previously held slightly more responsible jobs at a branch of Tesco in Poland, but conditions had been much harsher.
"Sometimes," says Agnes, "we had to work for 16 hours, practically non-stop. If you complained, you'd be told, ‘If you don't like it, you can go. There are 10 others wanting your job'." Arriving in Suffolk, they were overwhelmed by the kindness of local people, though it was, touchingly, only very simple politeness that so amazed them: "Even if they don't know you, people greet you, step aside to let you pass, smile at you. This simply doesn't happen in Poland." When they needed to rent a flat, Fr Lloyd was happy to act as their guarantor, even though he hadn't known them long. Again, they were incredulous, and delighted. They hope eventually to buy somewhere to live and to make England their home.
Fr Lloyd is a remarkable man. Ordained in the Church of England in 1963, he joined the novitiate of the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield in 1967, and eventually became its principal. But he had always leaned towards Catholicism and eventually, some 25 years later, found his position untenable. Leaving was hard, but it was harder still when the Solesmes Benedictines at Quarr, Isle of Wight, proved not to be for him and he found himself back with his elderly parents and signing on the dole. As his mother remarked, briskly, it was his own decision: nobody but himself to blame.
Cardinal Hume rescued him, he spent a year at Mill Hill and went as an assistant priest to Ipswich in 1997. He was 57. Eighteen months later, he arrived at Stowmarket and set to work. The church was dingy beige and brown, with little decoration. Now it is painted a warm blue (though he didn't tell his congregation that the colour is called "Mystic Mauve") and is decorated with beautiful, new, carved Stations of the Cross and a moving bas-relief of the risen Christ. It has a lovely, serene and welcoming atmosphere.
The young Poles will be going home this Christmas, but the Keralans will stay, and on 30 December they plan a big party of their own, to which all the members of Parochial Church Council are invited. It could be the hottest ticket in town.