St Joseph's Society
James Daniel Collins was born in Blundellsands on 27th January 1918, the son of John and Anne Collins. He was educated at St Thomas’s Elementary School, Waterloo, before studying for the priesthood at St Joseph’s College, Upholland. He was ordained to the priesthood on 26th July 1942 at St Edmund’s, Waterloo.
He had three appointments as curate: St Oswald, Ashton-in-Makerfield, from 1942 to 1944; St Joseph, Birkdale, from 1944 to 1959 and St Mary, Woolton, from 1959 to 1966. In April 1966 he was appointed Parish Priest of the then recently established parish of St Joseph the Worker, Kirkby. This was to be his only appointment as Parish Priest, though he was also Administrator of St Lawrence, Kirkby, between March 1981 and September 1985. He retired, after thirty years as Parish Priest, in April 1996.
It was whilst in Kirkby that he became a champion for the poor and disenfranchised. He became a community activist, setting up a credit union and an unemployment resource centre. On 1st September 1989 he was appointed an Honorary Canon of the Metropolitan Cathedral Chapter, and in 2012 he received an Honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Liverpool Hope University in recognition of his lifelong work with the poor, and also his significant role in the establishment of the Northern Catholic Conference.
He helped countless people through his ministry as Parish Priest, Spiritual Director of the Cursillo Movement in the Archdiocese, and his involvement with the ‘Healing Masses’.
For over thirty years (1984 until his death) he served as one of seven priest trustees of the Sherburne Heatley Trust, a trust fund established in 1845 for the support of ecclesiastical education.
He died on Thursday, 19th April 2012. His Funeral Mass was celebrated at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, on 1st. May, Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, and was followed by interment in SS. Peter and Paul's churchyard, Crosby. May he rest in peace.