Welcome

to the website of St John Henry Newman, Victoria, British Columbia. We are a Roman Catholic parish of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter, a body established in 2011 following Pope Benedict XVI’s historic Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, which made it possible for groups of Anglicans to come into the full communion of the Catholic Church whilst retaining elements of their liturgical, spiritual, and cultural patrimony as a gift and a treasure to be shared with the whole Church. Our community is under the patronage of the great theologian and priest St John Henry, Cardinal Newman, a 19th century Anglican convert to the Catholic Church who was canonised in 2019.

We are a friendly, family-oriented, and welcoming community of traditional Catholic faith and practice, as reflected in our liturgy, music, and preaching. We exist to worship God in the triune majesty of the Blessed Trinity, drawing all men and women into deepest communion with him through his Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and in the power and fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Our present home is the Church of Our Lady, Queen of Peace, built in 1930 as a memorial to those who died in the First World War. The church lies just west of downtown Victoria, in Esquimalt, and is a parish of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Victoria.

Confessions are heard on Sunday from 1.50-2.25 pm (2.50-3.25 pm on the third Sunday of the month), from 9-9.15 am on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday (also 10.30-11.20 am on Saturday), and 9.30-9.45 am on Friday. Appointments for other times may be made by contacting Fr Kenyon.

E-Transfer is available for those who wish to make a donation to our parish directly from a Canadian bank account. To send money via e-Transfer, please use the following address [email protected] 

Holy Week 2025

Sunday 13 April
PALM SUNDAY (Holy Week begins)
Confessions 2.20-2.50 pm
PALM CEREMONIES & SOLEMN MASS 3 pm
followed by a potluck supper with Bishop Lopes

Monday 14 April
Holy Monday
Mattins 8.30 am | Terce 9 am
Confessions 9-9.15 am | Low Mass 9.30 am
Rosary 10.20 am | Confessions 10.20-11 am

Tuesday 15 April
Holy Tuesday
Mattins 8.30 am | Terce 9 am
​Confessions 9-9.15 am | Low Mass 9.30 am

Wednesday 16 April
Spy Wednesday
Mattins 8.30 am | Terce 9 am
Confessions 9-9.15 am | Low Mass 9.30 am
Rosary 10.20 am | Tenebrae 6.30 pm

Thursday 17 April
Holy Thursday (morning) | MAUNDY THURSDAY (evening)
(The Paschal Triduum begins)
SOLEMN MASS of the LORD’S SUPPER with
PROCESSION to the ALTAR OF REPOSE and the
STRIPPING of the ALTAR 10 pm
The Watch at the Altar of Repose (Midnight to 6.30 am on Good Friday)

Friday 18 April
GOOD FRIDAY [Fasting & Abstinence]
Tenebrae 6.30 am
SOLEMN LITURGY of GOOD FRIDAY with the
SOLEMN PRAYERS, SINGING of the SAINT JOHN PASSION,
VENERATION of the CROSS and HOLY COMMUNION 10 am

Saturday 19 April
Holy Saturday (Morning) | EASTER EVE (evening)
Tenebrae 8 am | Antecommunion 9.30 am

Sunday 20 April
EASTER DAWN
The EASTER VIGIL with the BLESSING of the NEW FIRE,
EXSULTET, LITANY of the SAINTS,
RENEWAL OF BAPTISMAL VOWS, and FIRST MASS of EASTER,
followed by a PARISH POT LUCK BREAKFAST 5.30 am

Sunday 20 April
EASTER DAY
PROCESSION and SOLEMN HIGH MASS with the BLESSING
and DISTRIBUTION of EASTER EGGS 3.30 pm
Evensong 6 pm

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The Ordinariate

The Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter in Canada and the United States is one of three personal ordinariates in the world, the others being the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham (Great Britain), and the Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross (Australia, Japan, and Guam). These bodies, similar to a diocese, are not however based on geography, but rather on membership, and membership is by personal choice, which is why each ordinariate is ‘Personal’. 

Members of the Ordinariate are fully integrated into the life of the Catholic Church. Most were former Anglicans, received into the full communion of the Church, others have become members by virtue of baptism, marriage, or who have family members in the Ordinariate. All are fully Catholic, able to receive the Sacraments in any Catholic church. And similarly any Catholic may attend Mass celebrated according to the Ordinariate Form of the Roman Rite (Divine Worship: The Missal) and receive the Sacraments from an Ordinariate priest. All are welcome! 

Anglicanorum coetibus (Groups of Anglicans), was published in 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI. This was the favourable response of the Holy See to repeated petitions from Anglicans to be received into full communion in a corporate manner. The erection of ordinariates was the practical means to make this response a reality. Since the establishment of the first Ordinariate in England and Wales in 2011 thousands of Anglicans have made the journey home to the fulness of the Catholic Church whilst retaining elements of those Anglican traditions - liturgical, spiritual, and pastoral - which both nourished them and served as an impetus towards full communion. This noble patrimony is now, in the words of Anglicanorum coetibus, ‘a treasure to be shared’ with the whole Church.