LIVERPOOL, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - City and archdiocese in England; it comprises the south-western part of Lancashire.

Out of 2,374,824 inhabitants (1931 census) it counts about 432,292 Catholics, distributed in 198 parishes served by 501 secular priests and 188 regulars, 40 male religious communities and 82 female ones, and one diocesan seminary; in 1948 there were 1,234 conversions. Patrons of the diocese: the Immaculate Conception, St. Joseph, St. Kentigern.

At first Lancashire was part of the Kingdom of Northumbria and of the diocese of York, but already in 642 the southern part was transferred to the Kingdom of Mercia and to the diocese of Lichfield. In 1542 Henry VIII founded the new schismatic diocese of Chester, which included southern Lancashire, and it became Protestant under Queen Elizabeth. Its so-called bishops were great persecutors of the faithful of Lancashire, which had many glorious martyrs, such as the Ven. George Haydock (1584), the Ven. John Thules (1616) and the Blessed Edmund Arrowsmith (1628). From 1688 to 1840 Lancashire was part of the apostolic vicariate of the North (Northern District), which in 1840 was divided into three parts, namely the Districts of: 1) Northern (Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland and Durham), 2) Yorkshire and 3) Lancashire, which included Cheshire. The diocese was created by Pope Pius IX on 29 Sept. 1850. On that date Lancashire was divided between the dioceses of L. and Salford, while Cheshire became part of the diocese of Shrewsbury. On 22 Nov. 1924 Pope Pius IX, by the apostolic constitution Universalis Ecclesiae sollicitudo, detached from the diocese of L. the region of Lancashire north of the river Ribble, creating the new diocese of Lancaster.

The first bishop of L. was George Hilary Brown (d. 1856). He was succeeded by Alexander Goss (1856-72), then Bernard O'Reilly (1873-94), who founded the Seminary of Upholland in 1880 (opened in 1883). There followed Thomas Whiteside (1894-1921); from 1911, Frederic William Keating (1921-1928) and the present Msgr. Richard Downey.

The pro-cathedral is dedicated to St. Nicholas; the cathedral is under construction. Its suffragan dioceses are those of Hexham-Newcastle, Lancaster, Leeds, Middlesbrough and Salford.

LIVERPOOL, ARCHDIOCESE of - Cathedral.(phot. British Council)

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: AAS, 17 (1925), pp. 129-31; J. Hughes, s. v. in Cath. Enc., VII, pp. 314-15; The Catholic Directory 1950, London 1950, pp. 211-33.

Enrico G. Rope

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Liverpool, Archdiocese of

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