More Recent History 

The then Archbishop kindly agreed to join us for our St Martin’s Day service in 2005, probably the first time any Archbishop has visited the parish, and in 2006 the Dean, Dr Robert Willis, paid us a similar compliment.

 
The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Rev’d Rowan Williams with Rev’d David Ridley
 
An similarly historic event occurred at the 2008 Patronal Festival, when Fr Abbott Lawrence O’Keefe OSB, the Abbott Emeritus of St Augustine’s Abbey, Ramsgate, joined us; this is probably the first time a Catholic Benedictine Abbott would have set foot in the church since the Reformation.

 
In the following year, 2009, the Patronal Festival was less than a month after Pope Benedict XVI had made his historic response to members of the Anglican Communion, Anglicanorum Coetibus, which alters the Catholic Church’s Constitution to allow for a historic reunion, over 450 years after the Reformation split.   By a happy coincidence, our guest preacher was Br. Philippe Yates, of the Order of Friars Minor, and Principal of the Franciscan International Study Centre, shown here with Revd David Ridley and Revd Stewart Carolan-Evans.

 
This papal initiative links neatly with Guston, too, in another way: in 2007, our distinguished guest at our Patronal Festival was Keith Newton, then Bishop of Richborough, the Provincial Episcopal Visitor to parishes which had not accepted the ordained ministry of women in the Church of England.  On 15th January 2011, Fr Keith was ordained into the Catholic Church and appointed by Pope Benedict XVI as the first Ordinary to lead the new Ordinariate for ex-Anglicans.   We have kept our links to the current Bishop of Richborough, + Norman, was our guest for the 2012 Patronal Festival.
 

 Keith Newton, then Bishop of Richborough, with Revd. David Ridley
 
 
Ecumenical links with the Catholic Church were further strengthened in 2017, when Fr Jeff Cridland and members of St Paul’s, Dover, joined in the Harvest Festival service and then the meal at the Chance Inn.  


Fr. Jeff is shown here with Canon Christopher Dent after the Sung Evensong.