A new Oratory will open in Bournemouth in September. The new community, which will be inaugurated at the Sacred Heart church, will be the sixth Oratory to be established in England. Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth, who invited the Oratorians to Bournemouth, said they would form part of a “major evangelisation drive”. The centre will be an Oratory “in Formation” and will be made up of Fr Dominic Jacob, co-founder of the Oxford Oratory, Fr Peter Edwards and Fr David Hutton. The first Oratory was established by Blessed John Henry Newman in Birmingham in 1848. The London Oratory followed a year later. In the early 1990s an Oratory was established in Oxford. In 2013 two Oratories “in Formation” were set up, one at St Chad’s in Manchester and the other in St Wilfrid’s, York. Bishop Egan said priorities for the centre in Bournemouth would include serving the needy – a food bank is already open in the parish – and offering sacramental support, with the church open throughout the day for Eucharistic Adoration, Mass, Confessions and other prayers and liturgies. In this week’s Catholic Herald, Bishop Egan writes: “The diocese has areas of real deprivation and poverty. There are immigrants and foreign nationals from Eastern Europe and overseas, as well as university and college students living far away from home. This is a pastoral situation that is urgent.” He added: “I am delighted by this new project beginning at Sacred Heart parish.”