SALFORD, DIOCESI di. — In England. It comprises the divisions (Hundreds) of Salford and Blackburn in the county of Lancashire. It has a population of 2,711,215 inhabitants, of whom approximately 375,000 are Catholics distributed among 162 parishes, served by 422 diocesan and 106 religious priests; it has one seminary, 19 male and 46 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 347).
Besides the large Jesuit College at Stonyhurst, there are 175 public schools, 3 boys’ and 15 girls’ secondary schools, 2 hospitals, etc.
Before the Reformation this region formed part of the
diocese of Lichfield and then of that of Chester from 1553 to 1559. From 1668 to 1840 it was a “Northern district,” while from 1840 to 1850 it was that of Lancashire, which had resisted the change of religion; indeed, those who in Elizabeth’s time had yielded in order to avoid fines and other penalties subsequently recanted, especially through the work of Dr Allen, later cardinal. This diocese gave the Church the following martyrs: the blesseds T. Cottam (1582), J. Nutter (1584), W. Marsden (1586), R. Hurst (1628), A. Barlow (1641), J. Southworth (1654), and the venerables W. Thomson (1586), E. Osbaldeston (1594), J. Thules (1616), J. Woodcock and T. Whitaker (1646). Also noteworthy are J. Paslew, the last abbot of Whalley, hanged in 1537; the priest W. Hans, who died from his sufferings (1644); and the martyr of Chaigley near Stonyhurst, whose identity is uncertain, traditionally Philip Holden, slaughtered at the altar by the Cromwellians in 1648.
The confessor Laurenze Vaux, author of the excellent Cathechisme (1583), died in prison in 1585. Other notable confessors were J. Towneley, who suffered many years in prison; E. Rishton, translator and continuator of Niccolò Sanders’s De Schismate Anglicano, who died in 1585; the Jesuit Laurence Anderton, an apologist; and Anselm Beech (dom Anselm de Mancestria), who founded the English Benedictine monastery at Douai. Many families remained faithful, such as the de Traffords, Towneleys, Holdens, and Southworths, and maintained hidden chapels during the persecutions, such as Stonyhurst, Leagram, Samlesbury, Trafford, and others. In 1687 the first apostolic vicar, J. Leyburn, confirmed many of the faithful. In 1773 churches were opened at Blackburn and in 1774 at Manchester. There were anti-Catholic riots in some places in 1850 and 1867, but generally the Church lived in peace after emancipation. The diocese was restored on 29 September 1850; from then on its bishops were: Mgr W. Turner (1851–72), H. Vaughan, later cardinal (1872–92), J. Bilsborrow (1892–1903), L. Ch. Casartelli (1903–25); Th. Henshaw (1925–38), and from 1939 H. V. Marshall.
The diocese is suffragan to Liverpool. In 1873 it was consecrated to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Its patrons are Our Lady of Mount Carmel, St Joseph, and St Augustine, apostle of England. The annual procession on the Friday after Pentecost at Manchester, a magnificent manifestation of living faith, is noteworthy.
Besides the beautiful ruins of Whalley Abbey, the ancient churches of Ribchester, Whalley (with Anglo-Saxon crosses in the churchyards), and Manchester (now a Protestant cathedral) are notable; among the Catholic churches of modern times are Pleasington, Stonyhurst, and the cathedral of S.
Enrico E. G. Rope