It is probably a sign of my increasing old codgerdom that, if I hear the phrase ‘a hundred years ago’ I immediately think of the 19th century, forgetting that, by the end of next year, we shall be a quarter of the way through the 21st. A hundred years ago was in fact 1924, when my parents were already in their teens.

In that year, a new Roman Catholic Diocese was established in North West England. Until then, Lancashire north of the Ribble, including Furness, had formed part of the Liverpool Diocese, whilst Cumberland and Westmorland belonged to the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle. Now, the whole North West from the Ribble upwards was to be part of the Diocese of Lancaster, with the church of St Peter, Lancaster, built in the 1850s, as the new cathedral. Soon afterwards, the first bishop was appointed by the Pope: he was Dom Thomas Wulstan Pearson OSB, a Prestonian and a Benedictine monk of Downside Abbey.

This may lead to a degree of confusion among older readers, who will remember a Bishop Thomas Pearson as Auxiliary Bishop of Lancaster and Bishop in Cumbria. This was Thomas Bernard Pearson, a younger cousin of Thomas Wulstan, appointed as assistant bishop at the request of the latter’s successor, Bishop Thomas Edward Flynn.

Now under the leadership of its seventh bishop, Garstang native Paul Swarbrick, the Lancaster  Diocese still strives, in cooperation with other Christian Churches, to be a presence of Christ in North West England.

Written by Fr Anthony Keefe, Chaplain to the Monastery of Our Lady of Hyning

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