SHREWSBURY, Diocese of. - City and diocese in England. It has a population of 1,331,706 inhabitants (1931 census), of whom 106,000 are Catholics (1950 census), distributed in 81 parishes, served by 138 diocesan priests and 85 regulars, 13 male religious communities and 27 female; in 1950 there were 250 conversions, 3301 infant baptisms, marriages (mixed included)
1450. The diocese has 106 public churches, 27 private, 42 elementary schools.
It was created by Pope Pius IX in 1850, and comprises the counties of Shropshire and Cheshire. Before 1895 it also included the Welsh counties of Carnarvon, Flint, Denbigh, Merioneth, Montgomery and Anglesey, which in 1895 were constituted as the apostolic vicariate of Wales, and then in 1898 the diocese of Menevia. Patrons are Our Lady Help of Christians and St. Winefride, whose relics were transferred from Gwytherin in Denbighshire to the Benedictine abbey of S. (founded in 1883) in 1138. It is a suffragan of Birmingham. Since 1949 the bishop has been John A. Murphy, whose predecessors were James Brown (1851-81), Edmund Knight (1881-95), John Carroll (1895-1897), Samuel Webster Allen (1897-1908), Hugh Singleton (1908-34), Ambrose James Moriarty (1934-49). The Cathedral (1856) is dedicated to Our Lady Help of Christians and to St. Peter of Alcantara.
Before the so-called "Reformation", Shropshire, north and east of the river Severn, and Cheshire were part of the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, while Shropshire south of the Severn was part of the diocese of Hereford. In 1541 King Henry VIII erected the schismatic diocese of Chester, which became Catholic under the Catholic Queen Mary (1553-58). Occasionally, for example for some years from 1075, the bishop of Coventry and Lichfield had transferred his see to Chester. From 1688 until 1840 Shropshire was included in the Midland District and Cheshire in the Northern District. From 1840 to 1850 Shropshire was part of the Central District and Cheshire of that of Lancashire.
During the persecution, Shropshire gave the Church 3 martyrs, namely the Bl. R. Johnson (1582), R. Martin, a layman, and E. Campion, both in 1588, and Cheshire 6, the Bl. John Shert (1582), Ralph Crockett, Thomas Holford and Robert Wilcox (all in 1588) and the Ven. John Sandys (1586). Many families remained faithful, for example those of Plowden, Berington, Clough and Blount. Worthy of mention is also the illustrious jurist and confessor Edmund Plowden (1517-84), who under Elizabeth refused the office of chancellor, because he frankly professed the Catholic faith.
The diocese is rich in historical monuments, such as the churches (now Protestant) of St. Mary at S. Ludlow, Church Stretton, Acton Burnell, Clun, Nantwich, St. Werburgh (Cathedral) and St. John at Chester, Malpas and many others, among them the monastic ruins of Buildwas (1135, Cistercian), Wenlock (1080, Cluniac), Haughmond and Lilleshall (12th century, Augustinian) with other lesser ones. At Wenlock St. Milburga founded a convent as early as the 8th century, which was destroyed by the Danes in 874. At Sandbach in Cheshire there are two Anglo-Saxon stone crosses. At Acton Burnell in Shropshire the English Benedictines from Douai found refuge and hospitality from 1795 until 1814, when they went to Downside.
Bibliography3 works
Enrico E. G. Rope