Catholic Church in England and Wales
The Catholic Church in England and Wales is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in full communion with the Holy See. Its origins date from the 6th century, when Pope Gregory I through a Roman missionary and Benedictine monk, Augustine, intensified the evangelization of the Kingdom of Kent, linking it to the Holy See in AD 597.
This unbroken communion with the Holy See lasted until King Henry VIII ended it in 1534. Communion with Rome was restored by Queen Mary I in 1555 following the Second Statute of Repeal and eventually finally broken by Elizabeth I's 1559 Religious Settlement, which made "no significant concessions to Catholic opinion represented by the church hierarchy and much of the nobility".
For 250 years, the government forced members of the pre-Reformation Catholic Church known as recusants to go underground for academic training in Catholic Europe, where exiled English clergy set up schools and seminaries for the sons of English recusant families. The government also placed legislative restrictions on Catholics, some continuing into the 20th century, while the ban on Catholic worship lasted until the Catholic Relief Act 1791. The ban did not, however, affect foreign embassies in London, although serving priests could be hounded. During this time, the English Catholic Church was divided between the upper classes, aristocracy and gentry, and the working class.
The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales claims 6.2 million members.
That makes it the second largest single church if Christianity is divided into separate denominations. In the 2001 United Kingdom census, Catholics in England and Wales were roughly 8% of the population. One hundred years earlier, in 1901, they represented only 4.8% of the population. In 1981, 8.7% of the population of England and Wales were Catholic. In 2009, following the 2004 enlargement of the European Union, when thousands of Central Europeans came to England, an Ipsos Morioka poll found that 9.6% were Catholics in England and Wales. In the 2021 census, the total Christian population dropped to 46%.
In North West England one in five are Catholic, a result of the high number of English recusants in Lancashire and large-scale Irish migration in the 19th century particularly centred in Liverpool.
History
Roman Britons and early Christianity
Much of Great Britain was incorporated into the Roman Empire during the Roman conquest of Britain, starting in AD 43, conquering lands inhabited by Celtic Britons. The indigenous religion of the Britons under their priests, the Druids, was suppressed; most notably, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus launched an attack on Anglesey in AD 60 and destroyed the shrine and sacred groves there. In the following years, Roman influence saw the importation of several religious cults into Britain, including Roman mythology, Mithraism and the imperial cult. One of these sects, then disapproved of by the Roman authorities, was the Palestinian-originated religion of Christianity. While it is unclear exactly how it arrived, the earliest British figures considered saints by Christians are St. Alban followed by SS Julius and Aaron, all in the 3rd century.Eventually, the position of the Roman authorities on Christianity moved from hostility to toleration with the Edict of Milan in AD 313 and then enforcement as state religion following the Edict of Thessalonica in AD 380, becoming a key component of Romano-British culture and society. Records note that Romano-British bishops, such as Restitutus, attended the Council of Arles in 314, which confirmed the theological findings of an earlier convocation held in Rome in 313. The Roman departure from Britain in the following century and the subsequent Germanic invasions sharply decreased contact between Britain and Continental Europe. Christianity, however, continued to flourish in the Brittonic areas of Great Britain. During this period, certain practices and traditions took hold in Britain and in Ireland that are collectively known as Celtic Christianity. Distinct features of Celtic Christianity include a unique monastic tonsure and calculations for the date of Easter. Regardless of these differences, historians do not consider this Celtic or British Christianity a distinct church separate from general Western European Christianity.
Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons
During the Heptarchy, the English people were converted to Christianity from Anglo-Saxon paganism, from two main directions:- Iona, through its subordinate house Lindisfarne, linking the Northumbrian element of the Church to the culture of the Church in Ireland; and
- in the south, first through Kent and then spreading out to Wessex, the Gregorian mission of the late 6th century, when Pope Gregory the Great sent Augustine of Canterbury and 40 missionaries directly from Rome. This element, linked to the Continent through marriage alliances, had more of a Romano-Frankish orientation. Although the Celtic Britons de facto retained their Christian religion even after the Romans pulled out, unlike the Gaels and the Romans the Welsh did not make any significant effort to evangelise the pagan Anglo-Saxons and indeed greatly resented them, as is related by Bede in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum.
During this time of mission, Rome looked to challenge some different customs that had been retained in isolation by the Celts, owing in part to their geographical distance from the rest of Western Christendom. Of particular importance was the Easter controversy and the manner of monastic tonsure. Columbanus, his fellow countryman and churchman, had asked for a papal judgement on the Easter question, as did abbots and bishops of Ireland. This was particularly important in Northumbria, where the issue was causing factionalism. Later, in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, Bede explained the reasons for the discrepancy: "He left successors distinguished for great charity, Divine love, and strict attention to the rules of discipline following indeed uncertain cycles in the computation of the great festival of Easter, because far away as they were out of the world, no one had supplied them with the synodal decrees relating to the Paschal observance." A series of synods were held to resolve the matter, culminating with the Synod of Whitby in 644. The missionaries also introduced the Rule of Benedict, the continental rule, to Anglo-Saxon monasteries in England. Wilfrid, a Benedictine consecrated archbishop of York, was particularly skilled in promoting the Benedictine Rule. Over time, the Benedictine continental rule became grafted upon the monasteries and parishes of England, drawing them closer to the Continent and Rome. As a result, the pope was often called upon to intervene in quarrels, affirm monarchs and decide jurisdictions. In 787, for example, Pope Adrian I elevated Lichfield to an archdiocese and appointed Hygeberht its first archbishop. In 808, Pope Leo III helped restore King Eardwulf of Northumbria to his throne, and in 859, Pope Leo IV confirmed and anointed Alfred the Great king, according to Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Individual Benedictines seemed to play an important role throughout this period. For example, before Benedictine monk St. Dunstan was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury in 960, Pope John XII had him appointed legate, commissioning him to restore discipline in the existing monasteries of England, many of which were destroyed by Danish invaders.
Norman Conquest of England and part of Wales
Control of the English Church passed from the Anglo-Saxons to the Normans following the Norman conquest of England. The two clerics most prominently associated with this change were the continental-born Lanfranc and Anselm, both Benedictines. Anselm later became a Doctor of the Church. A century later, Pope Innocent III had to confirm the primacy of Canterbury over four Welsh churches for many reasons, but primarily to sustain the importance of the Gregorian foundation of Augustine's mission.During mediaeval times, England and Wales were part of western Christendom: monasteries and convents, such as those at Shaftesbury and Shrewsbury, were prominent institutions, and provided lodging, hospitals and education. Likewise, centres of education such as the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge were important. Members of religious orders, notably the Dominicans and Franciscans, settled in both universities and maintained houses for students. Archbishop Walter de Merton founded Merton College, Oxford, and three different popes – Gregory IX, Nicholas IV and John XXII – gave Cambridge the legal protection and status to compete with other European medieval universities. Augustinians also had a significant presence at Oxford. Osney Abbey, the parent house of the college, lay on a large site to the west, near the current railway station. Another Augustinian house, St Frideswide's Priory, later became the basis for Christ Church, Oxford.
Pilgrimage was a prominent feature of mediaeval Catholicism, and England and Wales were amply provided with many popular sites of pilgrimage. The village of Walsingham in Norfolk became an important shrine after a noblewoman named Richeldis de Faverches reputedly experienced a vision of the Virgin Mary in 1061, asking her to build a replica of the Holy House at Nazareth. Some of the other holiest shrines were those at Holywell in Wales, which commemorated St Winefride, and at Westminster Abbey to Edward the Confessor. In 1170, Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered in his cathedral by followers of King Henry II and was quickly canonised as a martyr for the faith. This resulted in Canterbury Cathedral attracting international pilgrimage and inspired the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
An Englishman, Nicholas Breakspear, became Pope Adrian IV, reigning from 1154 to 1159. Fifty-six years later, Cardinal Stephen Langton, the first of English cardinals and later Archbishop of Canterbury, was a pivotal figure in the dispute between King John and Pope Innocent III. This critical situation led to the creation of the Magna Carta in 1215, which, among other things, insisted that the English church should be free of ecclesiastical appointments fixed by the king.