Local Priest Celebrates 50 Years Of Service To Communities

A local Catholic priest celebrated his 50-year anniversary with a Mass followed by a reception at Oldham Athletic Football Club on 13 June.

Father Phil Sumner has been serving the community of Oldham for the past 25 years, before which he served for 25 years in Moss Side and Hulme. His priesthood was not one of simply serving his own church communities, but the wider community as well.

“The celebrations were amazing as more than 500 guests attended, and the atmosphere was excellent,” Sumner said. “Five different choirs sang at the event including in English, Indian, Filipino, African and a young people’s choir singing with a soloist - Samantha Bagaporo."

He added that about 15 priests attended from across the country. His brother read scripture which he had recited when Sumner was first ordained 50 years ago.

“I was thanked by members of the Hindu and Muslim communities of Oldham for my contributions over the years. It was a multicultural celebration with guests from Moss Side, and even as far as Scotland.

“I wanted to focus on all my guests, it was about them more than myself. The local communities have been a blessing for me over the past 50 years. People from different communities prepared food. A lot of people have told me they were moved by the event,” he said.

After riots erupted in Moss Side in 1981, Sumner was on the streets to observe and to listen to the anger of the rioters. He then became well known for his work, along with others, to improve, from an all-time low, relations between the police and the African Caribbean communities of that area.

Following the riots in Oldham, in May 2001, he was asked by his bishop to move to Oldham. There he worked, with others, to establish and maintain the Oldham Interfaith Forum, which has been at the front-line of building cohesion between the different communities of the borough ever since.

In 2006 he won the individual and overall awards for ‘Diversity and Equality’. That same year he was named in a British national newspaper as among the top fifty British “campaigners, thinkers and givers transforming our world”.

He has been a witness on BBC 4’s ‘The Moral Maze’, once on multiculturalism and once on the decolonisation of the university curriculum.

In 2025 he was given a Mayor’s Appreciation award for services given to and on behalf of the people of Oldham.

Abdul Kareem, chairman of the Oldham Mosques Council who gave a speech at the event, said: “Phil has been working with all the faith communities through the Interfaith Forum.

“Whenever there have been community tensions, we have worked together to calm things down through dialogue. It’s difficult work.

“When it comes to bringing the wider community together, the Interfaith Forum has an annual gathering - The Festival of Light - where people from Oldham’s different religious communities come together.

“Churches have falling numbers across the country, so it was amazing to attend the event with a packed audience,” he said. “It shows how much people look up to him as he is a man of integrity.”