Chronology of Catholic Dioceses:Note on names of Catholic jurisdictions in England after the reestablishment of the Catholic hierarchy

It is a habit regarding the Catholic Church in England and Wales not to use denominations that were already used for the older Dioceses before the Anglican Reformation.

As the names and boundaries of Anglican Dioceses are in most cases conservative (very few recent innovations), some important towns (such as Leeds and Northampton, Plymouth) have a Catholic Diocese and not an Anglican one. Where Anglican and Catholic Sees coincide, the names are usually different.

In the middle of the 19th century, Pope Pius IX decided to restore the English Catholic heirarchy (until then the episcopal pastors of English Catholicism had been bishops with fictional sees in "infidel parts".) This move was denounced by English Protestants as "aggression" and a law was passed preventing Catholics from using any Anglican episcopal title: hence Catholic dioceses ended up with names such as "Westminster" rather than "London", "Hexham" rather than Durham. As there are Anglican dioceses both in Sheffield and Norwich, the correspondent Catholic sees are respectively named after a castle in Sheffield (Hallam) or have a broader geographical denomination (East Anglia).

In Scotland, the Catholic church simply, to Anglican chagrin, used the old names, since the Episcopal Church in Scotland was not state-established.

The Anglican objections to two bishops having the same diocesan title did not prevent them later adopting names already in use by the Catholic bishops. Wherever an Anglican diocese has the same name as a Catholic one - Liverpool, Southwark, Birmingham, Portsmouth - it was established after the Catholics had laid claim to the title. Liverpool, Birmingham and Southwark were erected as Catholic sees in 1850 - the Anglican dioceses with the same names are from 1880, 1905 and 1905, respectively. The Catholic see of Portsmouth dates back to 1882, the Anglican see of Portsmouth was erected in 1927.

Here is a list of Anglican dioceses in England as of 2001.

Province of the North

Metr.: York - suffr. Sodor and Man, Carlisle, Newcastle, Durham, Ripon, Bradford, Blackburn, Liverpool, Manchester, Chester, Wakefield, Sheffield, Southwell

Province of the South

Metr.: Canterbury - suffr. Lichfield, Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Norwich, Saint Edmundsbury and Ipswich, Ely, Peterborough, Coventry, Birmingham, Worcester, Hereford, Gloucester, Bristol, Oxford, Saint Albans, Chelmsford, Canterbury, Chichester, Rochester, Southwark, London, Guildford, Portsmouth, Winchester, Salisbury, Bath and Wells, Exeter, Truro, Diocese in Europe.

-CT (based on input from Dr Alberto Mioni, with http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/newman-secondspring.html as an important source. )

av Webmaster publisert 08.09.2004, sist endret 08.09.2004 - 12:11