Request for Prayers

Your prayers are asked for the repose of the soul of Edward de Toësny Wingfield Longford, who died on Saturday last, æt.85.

Although he died as a lay Catholic, and member of the congregation of S. Dominic’s, Downham Market, having been received into full communion with the Holy See, alongside his wife Joan, on the Feast of the Annunciation this year, Fr Ted – as he was universally (and perhaps not surprisingly) known – had previously been a priest of the Church of England (and latterly at S. Edmund’s, the church next door to S. Dominic’s) for over 57 years, and it is in that capacity that most people – including myself and, I strongly suspect, many of the saints and angels – will remember him.

Whether his orders were ultimately valid or not is not, I feel, in this context, greatly important. He came home to the Catholic Church, and died in it; but he will be judged, as will we all, on the whole of his life; and most of that was as a good, caring, and dutiful priest of the (catholic end of the) Church of England, who ministered for well over half-a-century to the people in his care : people who look back on him, and his ministry, with great affection and respect.

Please pray for the repose of his soul : and pray also for peace and comfort for his wife Joan, and for their sons Bill, Tom, and Nick together with their families.