Diocese of Southwark

DIOCESE OF SOUTHWARK. - City and diocese in England. It has a population of 5,083,495 inhabitants (1931 census), of whom about 280,000 are Catholics (1950), distributed in 238 parishes, served by 418 diocesan priests, besides 36 coming from outside pro tempore and 338 regulars. It has 288 public churches, 152 private and institutional ones, 49 male religious communities and 160 female ones, 275 schools. At Wonersh, Surrey, is located the diocesan Seminary; the "Training College" is at Mark Cross. In 1950 there were 1246 conversions, 9177 baptisms of children and 3568 marriages (including mixed ones).

The diocese, created by Pope Pius IX in 1850, comprises London south of the Thames, whose principal borough is S., and the counties of Surrey, Kent, and Sussex. Previously it also included the counties of Berkshire, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, and the Channel Islands, removed in 1882 to form the new diocese of Portsmouth. Patrons of the diocese are the Immaculate Conception, St. Thomas of Canterbury martyr and St. Augustine apostle of England. The residence is in S., whose Gothic cathedral on a design by Pugin dedicated to St. George (1848) was ruined by bombs in 1941, but it is hoped it will be repaired.

S. comprises the ancient dioceses of Canterbury, Rochester and Chichester, with a great part of Winchester. From 1688 to 1850 it formed part of the "District" or apostolic vicariate of London. It is very rich in historical memories. St. Augustine landed at Richborough (Kent) in 597, converted King Ethelbert, founded the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury (597) and the episcopal see of Rochester (604). St. Wilfrid evangelized the Kingdom of Sussex in 681-86 and founded the episcopal see of Selsey, transferred to Chichester in 1075. St. Simon Stock was born at Aylesford (Kent), ca. 1165: from him comes the Carmelite scapular. To S. belongs the whole glorious history of Canterbury from its first archbishop St. Augustine up to Cardinal Reginald Pole (1554-58), the martyrs of St. Elphege (1012), and St. Thomas (1170); St. John Fisher, slain by Henry VIII in 1535, was bishop of Rochester (1504-35), St. Edmund governed Canterbury (1234-40) and St. Richard Chichester (1245-53).

Very many and notable ancient churches (now Anglican) are found in its territory, e.g., the cathedrals of Canterbury, Rochester and Chichester, the churches of Shoreham, Sompting, Worth, Rye, Winchelsea, Barleston and St. Martin's at Canterbury, where Queen Bertha, the Christian wife of King Ethelbert, already listened to Mass before the arrival of St. Augustine, and others. Notable abbey ruins are found at Battle, Bayham, Lewes, Boxley, Waverley, Dover, Canterbury and elsewhere. The chapel of the convent at Mayfield, Sussex, the hall of a 14th-century Bishop's Palace. Of the modern churches, mention is made of: those of Arundel, Parkminster, Ramsgate, Wimbledon, Caterham, Horsham.

S. gave the following martyrs to the Church: St. John Fisher (1535), the blessed John Stone, Augustinian (1538), John Rugg (1539), David Gonson (1541), John Felton (1570), Thomas Felton (his son) and Edward Shelley (1588), Thomas Garnet (1608) and the venerable Thomas Cort and Thomas Belchiam, Franciscans of Greenwich (1538), Thomas Pilchard (1587), Edmund Duke (1590), Roger Filcock (1601), George Gervase (1608), Thomas Bullaker (1642). Among the confessors are to be noted the families of Roper (especially William Roper, son-in-law of St. Thomas More), Caryll, Hawkins, Gage, Weston and others. West Grinstead, Battle, Sutton Place were refuges for the faithful; the first has a continuous history of Catholic mission. Thomas Goldwell bishop of St. Asaph, the last bishop of Catholic England, was born in Kent; he died in Rome in 1585. Sir Thomas Hawkins translated the Cour Sainte (The holy Court) of the Jesuit Nicolas Caussin in 1650. John Caryll, nephew of the earl Caryll, was a friend of the poet Pope, Richard Challoner, the most devoted apostolic vicar of the London District (1758-81) was born at Lewes in 1691.

In 1883 the Carthusians founded Parkminster, the largest charterhouse in the world. In 1949 the Carmelites returned, reoccupied and repaired Aylesford, an event comparable to the rebirth of the Benedictine abbey of Buckfast in Devonshire.

Enrico G. Rope

ARCHAEOLOGY - As early as 1950, the discovery of a Roman villa began at Lullington Park, near Eynsford. This villa was destroyed by a fire around the end of the 4th century, and the upper floor collapsed into the cellar beneath it. Among the remains of this upper floor were found 2 marble busts, fragments of wall and roof, and a quantity of pieces of painted plaster.

After three years of work, the 6,000-7,000 pieces of plaster were reassembled by C. D. P. Nicholson and studied by Prof. J. Toynbee, giving an idea of the paintings. It is supposed that these fragments belonged to two painted rooms, one larger and one smaller, probably intended for worship. Coins of the emperors Arcadius, Honorius, Theodosius and Valentinian were found there. Prof. J. Toynbee has recently described the villa as one of the largest and most sumptuous among those so far discovered in England. The cultic character of the two rooms has not yet been demonstrated, but their Christian character is proved by the existence of the depiction of an orant and of two Constantinian monograms. Toynbee supposes that the larger room, immediately above the cellar, was an oratory or domestic chapel. Oriented east-west, it was 7 m wide (its length has not yet been determined), and a door in the western part of the north wall connected the larger room with the smaller one, which is supposed to have served as an antechamber for the catechumens. On the western wall of the large room there was a row of six painted figures (so far only five have been found) interspersed with columns. The figures wear colored garments decorated with pearls, with wide sleeves, tight at the wrist. Despite the fact that these paintings constitute only a part of the total decoration of the two rooms, they indisputably constitute the best examples so far discovered in England from the Roman period, while the orant and the monograms are a splendid confirmation of the spread of Christianity in Great Britain.

Enrico Josi