PORTUGUESE-speaking Catholics in Jersey now have their own priest to minister to them in their own language.
Father Antonio Jácomo has joined the team of the Jersey Catholic Pastoral area.

‘There is an extensive Portuguese community in the Island,’ he said, ‘and the Church feels that its members need a Portuguese priest to stay here with them, and to work with them to help in their full integration into the greater community.

‘The presence of a priest of their own nationality is a great help for any community working away from their own country – whatever their nationatity might be. Portuguese people, on the whole, do tend to trust and rely on their priest.’

Monsignor Nicholas France, the Catholic Dean in Jersey, has been celebrating a Mass in Portuguese for the past ten years – which is quite an achievement, since he does not speak Portuguese. Fr Jácomo’s said that the Portuguese parishioners were happy with and appreciative of the Dean’s efforts – but his own work, he hoped, would also help towards increased intregration.

He did not know how many people there were of Portuguese origin in Jersey, but he had been informed that perhaps the number might be in the region of 9,500 to 10,000.

Fr Jácomo does not come from Madeira, but from Viana do Castello, a town 50 km from Opporto in the north of the country. He has lived for two years in England, and is studying for a doctorate in philosophy at Oxford, researching the link between knowledge and intuition.

For the past two months he has been working in Jersey, but he is not spending all his time in the Island, only the week days from Sunday to Wednesday. The other days of the week he lives in Bournemouth – a town which also has a large Portuguese-speaking population from Portugal and Brazil – and he is attached to the Catholic parish there when he is not attached to the Catholic parish here.

As he also has to get himself to Oxford regularly – ideally one day a week – he is a busy (and well travelled) man. ‘The Portuguese Bishop with responsibility for workers living abroad knows how essential it is for communities to have their own priests,’ he said.

‘But it is not usual for a Portuguese priest to work in Britain. For one thing, English Bishops expect a good knowledge of English from clergy working in their dioceses, and for another, English is not a very common ‘foreign language’ for Portuguese students to learn – they tend rather to gravitate towards French. Nor does Britain have a Catholic University at which priests can be sent to study.’

Fr Jácomo recently celebrated the 14th anniversary of his ordination; he is now aged 37. Certainly for the next three years he hopes to be spending at least half a week every week in Jersey, and to go on making himself available for the Island’s Portuguese Catholics.

‘Every week I have people coming to me, perhaps just to talk to me – they just need to have someone whom they feel they know well enough to have a private or personal conversation. I am not here just to celebrate the Mass in Portuguese!’

Father Antonio Jácomo at St Thomas’ church  Picture: David Ferguson (00584129)