About
St Aloysius is a small inner-city parish. Combined attendance at the week-end masses is between 150 and 200 people.
Visitors often comment on the 'country like' friendliness in the Parish, which probably results from both the relatively small congregations and the 'working class' origins of the Parish.
Towards the end of the 1800s, the Shenton Park area was known as Rosalie It was a working class district and belonged to St Joseph's Parish, Subiaco. In 1909 a school was established in Henry Street and was named after Aloysius Gonzaga, a young Italian nobleman who died in Rome aged 23 in 1591 while tending victims of the plague. The school room became the mass centre for the district. Father Peter Doddy was appointed the first parish priest of the Parish of Rosalie in 1937, succeeded in 1939 by Father and later Monsignor E.J.Collins, who built the present church in 1962. Mons Collins remained as Parish Priest until his death in 1965 aged 66 years. Other Parish Priests were Fr Phil Farrelly (1967), Fr Richard of the English Franscicans (1973), a Camillian Order priest (1977), Fr John Ryan (1993), Fr Peter Bianchini (1997), Camillian Order Fr Sean Bredin (2005) who retired to Ireland in 2007 after 40 years service in the Archdiocese of Perth. Fr John Ryan used the opportunity of sale of the school site to extend and embellish the church with the beautiful stained glass windows. He also built the Parish Centre.
Fr Benedict Lee was interim PP pending the arrival of the Vincentians from India whose order has a special charism as hospital chaplains. Fr Rojan George became Parish Priest in 2008 accompanied by Fr Thomas VC as hospital chaplain. Fr Sabu Jacob VC was appointed Parish Priest in 2011. Then in 2017 Fr Manoj Mathew VC was transferred from Melbourne to lead the Parish of St Aloysius.