LANCASTER, DIOCESI di. — City and diocese in England. It has a population of 887,007 inhabitants, of whom 111,464 are Catholics, distributed among 88 parishes,
served by 157 diocesan priests and 69 religious priests, one seminary, 7 male and 17 female religious communities; in 1948 there were 583 conversions.
The diocese was created by Pope Pius XI through the apostolic constitution Universalis Ecclesiae sollicitudo of 22 November 1924, by subdivision of the archdiocese of Liverpool and the dioceses of Hexham and Newcastle. It comprises the counties of Lancashire (north of the River Ribble), Westmoreland, and Cumberland. It is a suffragan see of Liverpool. The Cathedral is dedicated to St Peter.
The first bishop was Thomas Wulston Pearson O. S. B., consecrated in 1925 and deceased on 1 December 1938; his successor is Thomas Edward Flynn, consecrated on 24 July 1939; the auxiliary bishop is Msgr. Thomas Bernard Pearson, consecrated on 25 July 1949. The diocese is exceedingly rich in historical memories, having given many martyrs and confessors to the Church, among them the blessed martyrs John Finch (1584), William Marsden (1586), John Boste (1594), James Duckett (1602), Richard Herst (1628), William Harcourt (1679), and the venerable martyrs George Haydock (1584), George Beesley (1591), Edward Bamber (1646). Many of them suffered martyrdom at Lancaster. Moreover, the blessed Edmondo Campion continued his glorious apostolate in the Fylde (north-west Lancashire). Relics of the martyrs remain, such as chalices or portable altars used by them, at Claughton on Brock, Fernyhalgh, Catforth, and elsewhere. Pilgrimages are made to Catforth in summer. Near Blackpool was born the great confessor Cardinal Guglielmo Allen (1520–94), founder of the English seminaries of Dowai (1568) and Rome (1578).
A renowned historian who was born in Winchester, John Lingard, was rector of the mission at Hornby, near Lancaster, from 1811 until his death in 1851. Many missions in Lancashire, within this diocese, date back to the times of persecution; among them are Mary's, Preston, Claughton on Brock, Whitehaven, Fernyhalgh, Newhouse, Great Eccleston, Westby, Scorion.