History
The archdiocese grew out of a missionary territory called the Apostolic Vicariate of England which was canonically erected in 1622. With the re-emergence of the Roman Catholic Church in England after the suspension of the Penal laws in 1687, this original apostolic vicariate was broken up and its name changed to the Apostolic Vicariate of London District on 30 January 1688. By decree of Pope Pius IX the apostolic vicariate was elevated to the rank of metropolitan archdiocese on 29 September 1850, as it remains today.
There have been several instances in the history of the Catholic Church in Westminster when its followers were persecuted by English governments: most notably during the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603) and during the shorter administration of Oliver Cromwell, the republican Lord Protector (1653-1658).
Read more about this topic: Roman Catholic Archdiocese Of Westminster
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Like their personal lives, women’s history is fragmented, interrupted; a shadow history of human beings whose existence has been shaped by the efforts and the demands of others.”
—Elizabeth Janeway (b. 1913)
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“False history gets made all day, any day,
the truth of the new is never on the news
False history gets written every day
...
the lesbian archaeologist watches herself
sifting her own life out from the shards she’s piecing,
asking the clay all questions but her own.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)