MENEVIA, Diocese of. – In the county of Cardiff in England, with the exception of Glamorgan-shire and Monmouthshire. According to the 1931 census, it had 932,480 inhabitants, of whom 21,350 were Catholics distributed across 61 parishes, served by 75 secular priests and 130 regular clergy; it also had a seminary (St Mary's College), 28 male and female religious communities; in 1948 there were 141 conversions.
In 1840 this province (Principality of Wales) was divided between Newport and Shrewsbury. Then, in 1895, Leo XIII renewed the Apostolic Vicariate of Wales (excluding the Diocese of Newport), presided over by Bishop Francis Mostyn, titular bishop of Ascalon, of Welsh lineage and Catholic faith; and on 12 May 1898 he established the episcopal see of M., the Latin title of the ancient Diocese of St. David's (probably derived from the Menapia of the Romans), of which Bishop Mostyn became the first ordinary. Patrons of M.: Our Lady of Help of Christians, St. David, and St. Winefride.
The cathedral of St. David was begun by Bishop Peter de Leia (1176–1203), with additions especially by Bishops H. Gower (1328–147) and E. Vaughan (1509–23). Great veneration was paid to the relics of St. David (canonized by Callistus II); popular tradition held that two pilgrimages to St. David were equivalent to one to Rome: “Meneviam pete, Romam adire si vis; Merces aequa tibi redditur hic et ibi; Roma semel dat quantum dat bis Menevia tantum.” The last Catholic bishop died in 1554. The bishops of M. since 1895 were, in addition to Francis Mostyn (1895–1921, later Archbishop of Cardiff, 1921–39), Francis Vaughan (1926–35), Michael McGrath (1935–40, later Archbishop of Cardiff), Daniel Joseph Hannon (1940–46), and John Petit (1946).
The church of Our Lady of Sorrows in Wrexham serves as a pro-cathedral. At Holywell is the miraculous spring of St. Winefride, a perpetual pilgrimage site even during persecution. The ancient cathedrals of St. David's, Bangor, and St. Asaph are now used by Protestants; of several abbeys, such as Valle Crucis and Talley, only ruins remain. At Valle Crucis a solemn Mass was celebrated in June 1947.
Many saints have made this region famous, among them St. David, St. Non, St. Teilo, St. Benos, and St. Winefride the martyr. After the apostasy, M. has produced the blesseds Richard Gwyn (1584), John Roberts (1610), Philip Powell (1646), John Lloyd (1679), and the venerables Humphrey Pritchard (1589), William Davies (1593), Edward Morgan (1642), and others.
The diocese is a suffragan of Cardiff. The episcopal residence is at Wrexham.