We met after mass in the sacristy of the Annunciation Church at the heart of Little Walsingham village. Father Keith Tulloch is warm, humble and engaging. He is the Parish Priest of the local Catholic parish which includes Blakeney, Well-next-the-Sea and Burnham Market as well as Walsingham. Four churches where the congregations are quite small and scattered.

He is a Marist Father. It is a small religious order given papal approval in 1836. The Order was founded in the years leading up to the beginning of the 19th century in France. It was all about the recovery of the church in the aftermath of the French Revolution. The French Revolution had quite serious effect on the on the church in France. There was the civil constitution of clergy which got rid of so many bishops. The civil constitution of the church clergy was a document which clergy had to sign to say that the church was subservient to the state. It caused lot of trauma, until it was sorted out by the Napoleon of the beginning of the 19th century. But by then the church was in disarray.

Fr Keith told us, “We were founded really to try and sort it out and the Society of Mary is a sort of echo of Jesus. But our spirituality rests upon Mary the mother of Jesus and her role in the early church. She was there always, but always in the
background. She was hardly ever heard of. There are only about three pages in the New Testament about her, but she's still there, and her influence was monumental.

“This was the thought of our founder, that we should become instruments of Divine Mercy like Mary. There are things in the constitution that we are to think and judge like Mary. It has even been said that we should not need statues of Our Lady because when people see the Society of Mary they should see her image.”

The cause of the canonisation of Jean-Claude Colin, the founder of the Marist Fathers is open.

Father Keith continued, “In England, at the moment, we're struggling. When I joined the society there were about eighty of us, now only about ten are left, and I'm among the youngest. We have a modest community here in Wells. There are three of us, but we may be four in the near future. But we are all of an age. I'm seventy-five, Desmond eighty, and Tom is older. He's still very active; in fact he is upstairs counting the money now.”

Father Keith joined the Marist Fathers because he was educated by them in Hull. “When you spend seven years with the community it gets under your skin. I was impressed, and thought I'll give it a shot. And here I am.”

He has served as a schoolteacher in Lancashire for a number of years. He was a youth officer in the Middlesbrough dioceses for a short time, then a prison chaplain, before spending twenty-odd years in Japan. He speaks Japanese, and says if he
went back he would pick it up pretty quickly!

He came to Walsingham some twelve years ago. We wondered about being Parish Priest in Walsingham with England’s National Shrine on your doorstep. When he arrived, the Rector of the Shrine was also a Marist Father and they all lived in same house.

“Relations between the parish and the shrine were perfectly natural. We didn't have to arrange anything. We just sat at the same table and spoke. But when the last Marist Rector at Walsingham was appointed Bishop of Brentwood, we had no one
available at that time to succeed him. So someone else was appointed at the Shrine. Since that time it's been more difficult to relate to the shine. For example, this church is the Parish church of Walsingham but it's used by pilgrims and that was the intention in building it. I mean it’s not a dual use church, but pilgrim services take
place here.”

Attendances at the Annunciation church vary according to the time of year. During the pilgrimage season they get a lot of pilgrims, but not so in January and February. We also have people who deliberately choose to move to live in or around
Walsingham because of the Shrine. They often become members of the
congregation here.

“However, the Annunciation is the Parish Church, although it's used by pilgrims. This is not a problem at all, but the shine is at a distance in Houghton and they have their own Rector. There are little bristles from time to time, but it is not a major problem.

“Generally speaking ours is an elderly congregation and will always be an elderly parish because people die and people retire here. As I say, a lot of people come here because of the shrine. Covid was a difficult time and it has taken time for us to recover, but I think we are back to normal now. We have different jobs to do. The Shrine looks after the pilgrims; our job is to care for those who live here. All in all we rub along together rather well.”

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