Shrewsbury: Millennium Essays for a Catholic Diocese (review)

Shrewsbury: Millennium Essays for a Catholic Diocese. Edited by John P. Marmion. (Bath, England: Downside Abbey. 2000. Pp. viii, 264.)

This is not a systematic history, but a collection of ten essays about various aspects of life and development in Shrewsbury, one of thirteen new dioceses in England and Wales established by Pope Pius IX in 1850. Originally consisting of Shropshire, Cheshire, and the six northern counties of Wales, the territory of the diocese was reduced in 1895 to just Shropshire and Cheshire, which form the focus of this book.

In his introduction, "Recusant Roots: From Dissolution to Resurrection," Canon Marmion, the Shrewsbury Diocesan Archivist, notes that on the eve of the Reformation English society had been permeated by a religious tradition for a thousand years. In the two counties studied, this tradition was represented by nearly one hundred monastic foundations. Then came the dissolution of the religious houses and the period of Catholic recusancy. Marmion examines recusant devotions, Catholic Emancipation, and the return of the religious.

In "Shrewsbury--A Catholic Community" Peter Phillips tells how the town of Shrewsbury bears witness to the slow emergence of an urban Catholic community. Far into the eighteenth century Catholic life was centered on the extended family of the landed gentry, whose chaplains served as priests to Catholics in the surrounding area. The first independent Catholic chapel in Shrewsbury was built in 1776.

Phillips treats the competition between laity and clergy for leadership, the immigration of French and Irish Catholics, outbreaks of anti-Catholic feeling, the generosity of Lord Shrewsbury, the church architecture of A. W. Pugin, and the restoration of the hierarchy in 1850. He details the work of the Sisters of Mercy and the Catholic Young Men's Society, as well as the legacies of Bishops Brown, Allen, and Moriarty. By 1949 the Catholic community in Shrewsbury had become an integral part of the larger community, making its own warmly accepted and welcomed contribution to the life of the town.

In "The Struggle for the Schools" Marmion highlights the work of the Catholic Poor Schools Committee in negotiating with the government for a share in education grants. By 1869 nearly every parish had a primary school, even if it required a major struggle to maintain it and to find and pay suitable teachers. It was left to the religious orders to found Catholic secondary schools.

The next step was to consolidate Catholic schools to enable them to survive financially and to meet government standards. The 1967 Education Act brought more government money and a call for full comprehensive secondary education. Catholics in Shrewsbury responded by forming five regional groupings of schools. By the end of the twentieth century there were almost 120 Catholic schools in the diocese.

Peter Phillips writes about Bishop James Brown, N. D. O'Halloran about the Christian Brothers, C. J. Boyle about the Irish in Birkenhead, and M. Campion McCarren about the return of the women religious. Other topics include the village of Acton Burnell by E. Maurice Abbott and Dom Aidan Bellenger, nineteenth-century devotions by Michael Morton, the Hooton Hall sacramental register by W. P. Jeffrey, and John Hall, parish priest of Macclesfield, by E. Maurice Abbott.

The book has several weaknesses: some overlapping of topics, quite a few typographical errors, and no index. Nevertheless, it gives an informative and interesting picture of a major diocese during an important period in English Catholic history.

Mark A. Miller
Corning, New York

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