The Dedication of the Cathedral

This Thursday, 19th May 2022, is the Feast of the Dedication of our Cathedral Church of St. John the Evangelist. It is in fact the 140th anniversary of the formation of our Diocese of Portsmouth, for it was on that day in 1882 that Pope Leo XIII created the Diocese of Portsmouth from the western portion of the Diocese of Southwark (founded in 1850). Southwark had become too large for one bishop, extending as it did from London to Bournemouth, and from Oxford to Dover and over to the Channel Islands. The obvious place for the Cathedral and curia of the new diocese was Winchester, but the Ecclesiastical Titles Act did not allow a Catholic diocese to take the same name as an Anglican one. So, plans were drawn up to establish the new see at Southampton, with St. Joseph’s Bugle Street as the pro-cathedral. However, the construction of a large parish church in the middle of Portsmouth had begun, and so it was decided to make that the future cathedral instead. Bishop John Vertue (1826–1900) was the first bishop of the new diocese. He was consecrated by Cardinal Manning on 25th July 1882 and on 10th August 1882, the new cathedral opened. The new bishop had about 70 priests and 40 missions. Bishop Vertue was succeeded by Bishop John Cahill, his Vicar General, and during his time, a number of religious orders established houses in the Diocese. Thus in 1901, Benedictines from Solesmes settled on the Isle of Wight at Quarr and Benedictine nuns at Ryde. Benedictine monks from St. Edmund’s in Douai, France, arrived in Upper Woolhampton shortly after this and in 1903 they founded Douai Abbey. This Thursday, then, let us thank God for the gift of our Cathedral and our Diocese, and please pray for us all and not least for me too.