THE report on the merging of Catholic parishes in Salford and Bolton specifically should come as no surprise.

With dwindling congregations and number of priests the continuance of so many parishes is unsustainable.

Growing up in Bolton in the 50s and 60s one lucid memory is the vast parade of Catholic parishes across the north west each Trinity Sunday in July.

Long since abandoned it was a spectacle enjoyed by Catholics and non Catholics alike, watching the proud adults and beaming children with banners and ribbons backed by pipe bands flooding past Bolton Town Hall safe from any discrimination from the tens of thousands cheering them on.

The demographics of most former industrial towns in the NW, not least Bolton, have changed dramatically over the past thirty years, so that today as Catholic and CoE parishes merge and churches close, mosques continue to sprout up in many former Catholic neighbourhoods.

A sign, truly, of things to come in the future.

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