Our Parish is served by priests from the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, (MSC, from the Latin Missionarii Sacratissimi Cordis) and is currently one of six parishes in England served by the Irish Province of the MSC. There are also MSCs working in several other ministries around the country.

Current Clergy

Our current priest is Father Jimmy Stubbs, MSC

James Michael Stubbs (always known as Jimmy) was born in Mallow, Co Cork, Ireland, on December 2nd, 1946, to Michael and Mary Stubbs. He was predeceased by Donal and has two younger brothers, Michael and Robbie and one younger sister, Renee Barrett. Fr Jimmy received both his primary and secondary education at the hands of the Patrician Brothers in Mallow.

In 1965 he joined the Novitiate of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC) and made his first profession in 1966. His philosophy and theology studies took place in West Cork, Galway and Dublin. He was ordained to the priesthood on December 18th, 1971, in Dublin. In October 1972, he set off for South Africa, where he has worked as a missionary, in various apostolates, until 2009. His entire life as a priest, before coming to Uppermill, has been in the MSC Region of Southern Africa.

Among his roles in the Southern African MSC Region, Fr Jimmy has worked in several parishes, both rural and urban, beginning among the smallest of the tribes, the Venda people of the far north-east of the country. This was in the territory which would later become the Diocese of Tzaneen. He spent a number of years combining parish work with the training of lay ministers and deacons in the diocese, with two years of this work been on a full-time basis.

When the diocese set up a pastoral centre for training lay people in 1987, Fr Jimmy became its first director, having spent a year on a pastoral studies course in Kenya as preparation for this new role. He served in the Centre until 1991, when he completed nearly 19 years in the diocese, and then moved south to the Archdiocese of Pretoria in what is today the Province of Gauteng.

In preparation for taking up the role of Director of the MSC theology house in Pretoria, Fr Jimmy spent over two years at the Institute of St Anselm in Margate, Kent, returning to South Africa in November 1993 and continuing in the student house until 1997. This was his silver jubilee year and after a short break in Ireland, he took up the role of parish priest in Midrand, in the Archdiocese of Pretoria, situated midway between the cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria, where he ministered for the next eight years.

Fr Jimmy was elected Regional Superior of the Southern African MSC Region in 2006 and served a term of three years, which ended in February 2009. After a holiday in Ireland, he succeeded Fr Joe Falloon in the parish of Sacred Heart and St William, Uppermill, on July 1st, 2009.

Previous Clergy
Our previous priests, with the dates they were in our Parish, have been:

Father Joseph Falloon MSC. 1993-2009

Father Joe Falloon, MSC was born in Belfast and spent his childhood on the Falls Road. He was an altar boy in the Redemptorist Clonard Monastery there.

At the age of fifteen years he went to study in the Sacred Heart Apostolic School, Cork. Two years later he entered the Novitiate of the MSC in Glandore, West Cork. Then after taking temporary vows, he studied philosophy at Myross Wood, West Cork. Moving on to Moyne Park to study Theology, he was ordained into the Priesthood on 29th September 1953 at the Missionaries of the Sacred House of Studies in Moyne Park, Ballyglunin, County Galway.

Parish Work
Father Joe’s first appointment was to the Sacred Heart College as Dean of Discipline. By 1970 Father Joe had managed the offices of the Annals of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart before being appointed as curate to the Parish of St Joseph in Maidenhead.

Following a year in Basingstoke, Father Joe was transferred to the Parish of St Alban and Stephen, firstly to work as curate and later as Parish Priest. In 1984 he moved to Liverpool, initially to the Parishes of St Mary the Mother of God and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and later to become Parish Priest of St Albert’s, Cantril Farm.

1992 saw another move to Tamworth to be curate there and by September 1993 Father Joe was installed as Parish Priest of Sacred Heart and St William Uppermill, Saddleworth.

Golden Jubilee
The parishioners of Sacred Heart and St William were delighted to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of his Ordination with Father Joe at a special Mass on 28th September 2003. He retired to Dublin in August 2009

Father Kieran Burke MSC. 1990-1993

Father Richard Scriven MSC 1973-1990 - Died September 1st, 2005

Born in May 1911 at Liscarroll, County Cork, Ireland. Educated at St Joseph’s School there, and at Sacred heart College, Cork city from 1925 to 1930 when he joined the Order of the Missionaires of the Sacred Heart. He studied in Belgium for three years and for four years in Holland where he was ordained in Stein on 10th August 1936.

Father Scriven celebrated his Golden Jubilee of his Ordination into the Priesthood whilst at Saddleworth. Four years later at his Farewell Mass on Friday 14th September 1990, Saddleworth thanked him for his pastoral care and devotion, and prayed that God may give him many years of peace and happiness in his priestly life away from the hardship and worries of Parish work.

He returned to visit the parish whenever the opportunity occured. As the Provincial of the MSC Society, he was instrumental in bringing the priests of the Society to the parish in answer to an invitation of the then Bishop Very Rev. John Carmel Heenan, later Cardinal Heenan.

He also had the distinction of being present for the first Mass celebrated in 1953 in the newly founded parish at Ladcastle Hall.

Fr Richard died peacefully on 1st Sept 2005 in St Joseph's Care Home, Cork, after a long period of illness. As he said "He was ready to go as soon as the Lord called him".

His Funeral took place at the Sacred Heart Church, Cork, attended by a large number of the Clergy, Members of the Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (of which he was a prominent member), relatives and friends.

Father Jerome O’Hanlon MSC 1965-1973 - Died June 28th, 2009

Father John Wallace MSC 1959-1965 - Died February 21st, 2003

Father Jeremiah Buckley MSC 1952-1959 - Died July 31st, 2000

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