St Francis is a Roman Catholic parish in the diocese of Aberdeen. The present church was built as result of the burgeoning North Sea oil and gas industry bringing more and more people to the city in the 1970's. What is now the church hall was built first (parish founded in 1958), then in the early 1980's the church itself was built, in a mediterranean architectural style (parish enlarged in 1982). The foundation stone was blessed by Pope John Paul II during his visit to Scotland in 1982.
The story of the beginnings of the church was recalled by a parishioner as follows:
'Whilst the present permanent church may well have been encouraged by the oil boom which was under way by the 1970s and 1980s, when I arrived in the parish in 1963 the building was at least four or five years old.
I remember Canon Malaney telling me how he had the job of finding a site for the parish to build its first church, and a site was earmarked on St Johns Terrace where there was a vacant site just past the bottom of Springfield Road, but he was not happy with that because of the lack of parking space.
One evening he was taking a walk down Deeside Drive, where some houses were being built at the time, and gazing at the large empty spaces to the west, when a stranger came up and started to chat about the houses to be built there, and asked if Fr M was interested in getting a house. Fr M said he was really wondering if there was a space fit to build a church. They talked about it for a little and both agreed that the space on the side of the Drive would be about right. Fr M was then surprised to hear the stranger say “Well if that is what you need, you shall have it.”
It turned out that he was Mr Bisset the builder and he owned most of the vacant land in the area, which he was about to sell to Betts. Apparently he transferred the site to the church in a good deal, which included the St John's Terrace site being handed over to his firm, but the whole thing was very favourable to the Church. Father Malaney was very matter of fact about it but everyone else thought it was a small miracle! The St Johns Terrace site is now occupied by a large detached house.'
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