St Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Farnham is marking its 95th anniversary this year, but urgent repairs are needed to secure its future. In this video, we speak with parish priest Fr Simon Dray about the launch of a £250k to £300k appeal to repair the church’s ageing roof. Founded by French priest Fr Etienne Robo in 1930, this much-loved and historic church has served generations of local Catholics. However, time has taken its toll, the roof tiles and nails are deteriorating, putting the building at risk. Fr Dray explains why the restoration is vital and how the community can help preserve this spiritual and architectural landmark for future generations.
00:00so we're standing outside this lovely church of St Joan of Arc Farnham where so many people have
00:19come to pray and now we know that after celebrating 95 years some work is needed to keep it healthy
00:28we need to do some work on the roof it could be up to 300,000 pounds how are we going to fundraise
00:35that we're gonna have lots of lovely little events we've had a concert we're having bingo nights looking
00:40for great ideas from our parishioners but there's gonna have to be a lot of prayer a lot of people
00:45understanding just how significant this church has been in their lives from baptisms from marriages
00:52from funerals from weekend week out lots of people coming to offer the Lord their Thanksgiving their
00:58adoration needing to answer some prayer and we want to keep that going so we need to be praying
01:05for this church we need to be fundraising for this church making people aware just how wonderful this
01:10church has been in the life of the Farnham community
01:13he was a French priest when he came back from the first world war he realized that the church of St
01:23Polycarp in the town center was too small for the growing number of Catholics so he found this piece
01:29of land and he decided to name the church after St Joan of Arc who only 10 years earlier in 1920 have been canonized by the church
01:41he also wanted to name it after St Joan of Arc because of his French heritage but also because of the connection that Farnham had to the heresy trial of St Joan of Arc
01:51Cardinal Beaufort had been living it said at Farnham Castle and he had been part of the English army's persecution of St Joan of Arc when she had been captured and put on this show trial
02:06and so he wanted this to be also an act of reparation for the English's involvement in her death which kind of makes it an interesting statement to our town
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