Diocese of Plymouth

Diocese of Plymouth Dioecesis Plymuthensis
The Cathedral Church of St Mary and St Boniface, Plymouth. The Cathedral Church of St Mary and St Boniface, Plymouth.
Location
Country	England
Territory	Cornwall Devon Dorset
Ecclesiastical province	Southwark
Metropolitan	Archdiocese of Southwark
Deaneries	5
Coordinates	50°35′28″N 3°59′13″W / 50.591°N 3.987°W
Statistics
Area	12,831 km2 (4,954 sq mi)
Population Total Catholics	(as of 2019) 3,847,700 69,100 (1.8%)
Parishes	60
Information
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Sui iuris church	Latin Church
Rite	Roman Rite
Established	29 September 1850
Cathedral	Plymouth Cathedral
Secular priests	102
Current leadership
Pope	Leo XIV
Bishop	Nicholas Hudson
Metropolitan Archbishop	John Wilson
Vicar General	Canon Paul Cummins
Map
Diocese of Plymouth within the Province of Southwark
Website
plymouth-diocese.org.uk

The Diocese of Plymouth (Latin: Dioecesis Plymuthensis) is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in England. The episcopal see is in the city of Plymouth, Devon, where the bishop's seat (cathedra) is located at the Cathedral Church of St Mary and St Boniface.

History

Erected as the Diocese of Plymouth in 1850 by Pope Pius IX, from the Apostolic Vicariate of the Western District, the diocese has remained jurisdictionally constant since. Since 1965, the diocese has been a suffragan see of the Ecclesiastical Province of Southwark; before then, from 1850 to 1911 it was in the Province of Westminster, then from 1911 to 1965 in the Province of Birmingham.

In December 2023, Christopher Whitehead from the Diocese of Clifton was appointed bishop-elect of the diocese, replacing Bishop Mark O’Toole, who had been appointed as Archbishop of Cardiff a year prior. His episcopal ordination was due to take place on 22 February. On 1 February, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales released a statement that Whitehead was under canonical investigation, and that the ordination would not take place, no reason was given.

On 13 September 2024 it was announced that Pope Francis had appointed Philip Moger as bishop of the Diocese of Plymouth. He was due to be installed as bishop on Saturday 9 November at the Cathedral Church of St Mary and St Boniface, Plymouth. On 6 November, however, Moger issued an apology stating he intended to postpone his installation until termination of the investigation of personal issued raised. Mentions of due process in his statement raised the question of if Moger was subject to a canonical inquiry.

In February 2025, Pope Francis accepted Moger's request to step down from his appointment as Bishop of the Diocese of Plymouth. The diocese remained under the leadership of diocesan administrator Canon Paul Cumminns, until the appointment of Bishop Nicholas Hudson. Bishop Hudson was installed on 29th November 2025.

Details

The diocese covers the counties of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset, stretching from Penzance and the Isles of Scilly in the west, to parts of Bournemouth in the east. It is divided into five deaneries: Cornwall, Dorset, Exeter, Plymouth, and Torbay. There are chaplaincies at the universities of Bournemouth, Exeter and Plymouth.

Armorial

Although Catholic dioceses in England and Wales will not be granted official coat of arms by the College of Arms, many do impale heraldic designs on the coat of arms of the bishops. From 1855 and the second Bishop of Plymouth, William Vaughan to 1985 and the seventh bishop, Cyril Restieaux, the bishops placed the diocesan coat of arms next to their own. Bishop William Vaughan's tomb in Plymouth Cathedral features the diocese's coat of arms. From 1985, those coat of arms no longer were used and in 2013 Bishop Mark O'Toole impaled a different design next to his own, a ship on the sea and a star. However, in 2026, Bishop Nicholas Hudson impaled his coat of arms with the original diocesan one.

Bishops

Ordinaries

• George Errington (Appointed on 27 June 1851 – Translated to Westminster as coadjutor archbishop on 30 March 1855)
• William Vaughan (Appointed on 10 July 1855 – Died on 24 October 1902)
• Charles Maurice Graham (Succeeded on 25 October 1902 – Retired on 16 March 1911)
• John Joseph Keily (Appointed on 21 April 1911 – Died on 23 September 1928)
• John Patrick Barrett (Appointed on 7 June 1929 – Died on 2 November 1946)
• Francis Joseph Grimshaw (Appointed on 2 June 1947 – Translated to Birmingham as metropolitan archbishop on 11 May 1954)
• Cyril Edward Restieaux (Appointed on 9 April 1955 – Retired on 19 November 1985)
• Hugh Christopher Budd (Appointed on 19 November 1985 – Retired on 9 November 2013)
• Mark O'Toole (Appointed on 9 November 2013 – Translated to Cardiff as metropolitan archbishop and Menevia on 27 April 2022)
• Nicholas Hudson (Appointed on 29 November 2025)

Coadjutor Bishops

• Charles Maurice Graham (1891-1902)
• James Moor (1890), did not take effect

Other priests of this diocese who became bishops

• Robert Brindle, appointed auxiliary bishop of Westminster in 1899, and then Bishop of Nottingham in 1901.
• Robert Bernard Brownlow, appointed Bishop of Clifton in 1894

Churches

Cornwall: Bodmin (SS Mary & St Petroc), Tintagel (St Paul the Apostle), Falmouth (St Mary's)

Devon: Exeter Sacred Heart, Plymouth Cathedral of St Mary and St Boniface, Torquay (Assumption of Our Lady) and Torquay (Our Lady Help of Christians and St Denis)

Dorset: Dorchester (Holy Trinity), Weymouth (St Joseph)

Monasteries, abbeys and priories: Buckfast Abbey, Ivybridge St Austin's Priory, Lanherne Carmelite Community, Sclerder Abbey

See also

• Catholic Church in England and Wales
• List of Catholic churches in the United Kingdom

Canonical status and jurisdiction

Roman Catholic Diocese of Plymouth is a diocese of the catholic church of the Catholic Church.

External links

• Official website

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Diocese of Plymouth — (PLYMUTHENSIS, PLYMUTHÆ)

Plymouth consists of the County of Dorset, which formed a portion of the old Catholic Diocese of Salisbury, whose last ruler, Cardinal Peto, died in March, 1558; also of the Counties of Devon and Cornwall with the Scilly Isles, which formed the ancient Diocese of Exeter, whose last Catholic bishop, James Turberville, died on 1 November, 1570. Since the Reformation these counties have, with more or less of the rest of England, been governed by three archpriests and fourteen vicars Apostolic, the last of whom, called Vicar Apostolic of the Western District (1848), was William Hendren, Bishop of Uranopolis. In the Brief "Universalis Ecclesiæ" (29 September, 1850), Pius IX separated the three counties from the Western District and formed them into the new Diocese of Plymouth: the rest of the district to be the new Diocese of Clifton, to which Bishop Hendren was forthwith translated, and the Diocese of Plymouth was placed under his temporary administration.

Reverend George Errington (1804-86) of St. John's Church, Salford, was appointed by the Holy See first Bishop of Plymouth, and on 25 July, 1851, consecrated there, together with the first Bishop of Salford, by Cardinal Wiseman. On 7 August he was installed at St. Mary's church, East Stonehouse, Devon, which mission included its neighbour, Plymouth, wherein no Catholic place of worship existed. In this Ultima thule and poor district he found 17 secular and 6 regular priests, and 23 missions including three institutes of nuns. No railways had reached the diocese except the Great Western to Plymouth, and a short mining railway established between Truro and Penzance at the extreme of Cornwall. A goodly number of the clergy did not belong to the diocese but were temporarily accepted. On 26 November, 1853, the bishop established his cathedral chapter, consisting of a provost and, by permission from Rome under the above difficulties, seven instead of ten canons for the time. In February, 1854, he held a synod at Ugbrooke Park, the seat of Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, and, amongst his synodal acts, established a clerical conference with its dean for each county. By 30 March, 1855, he had traversed the whole diocese for purpose of visitation and conferring confirmation, when bulls from Rome of that date appointed him Archbishop of Trebizond and Coadjutor cum jure successionis to Cardinal Wiseman of Westminster. William Vaughan (1814-1902), Canon of the Clifton Diocese, was nominated second Bishop of Plymouth, and on 16 September, 1855, consecrated by Cardinal Wiseman in Clifton pro-cathedral. Encouraged by generous offers of assistance from Edmund Polifex Bastard of Kitley, Yealmpton, Devon, and from Miss Letitia Trelawny of Cornwall, Bishop Vaughan on 28 June, 1856, laid the foundation stone of the Cathedral of Our Immaculate Lady and St. Boniface, Apostle of Germany (born at Crediton, Devon), solemnly opened it on 25 March, 1858, and on 22 September, 1880, in the twenty-fifth year of his episcopate, he consecrated the Cathedral. attended the Vatican Council throughout, in 1869-70. Between 10-12 March, 1888, the diocese, by a triduum of prayer, celebrated the bishop's Golden Jubilee of fifty years' priesthood. By the end of 1891 the Diocese of Plymouth, through the bishop's energetic supervision, became well established. It had 49 secular and 48 regular clergy, 52 public churches, and 15 chapels of communities, as well as ten orders of men and sixteen of nuns. Early in 1891 Bishop Vaughan requested from Rome a coadjutor-bishop. Leo XIII elected, from the Plymouth Chapter's terna, Charles Graham (1834), canon of Plymouth, on 25 September, 1891. On 28 October following he was consecrated titular Bishop of Cisamos, with right of succession, by Bishop Clifford of Clifton, in the Plymouth cathedral. Bishop Vaughan retired to St. Augustine's Priory, Newton Abbot, Devon, where, on 24 October, 1902, he died in his eighty-ninth year, and was buried in the priory cemetery. In October, 1902, Dr. Graham became third Bishop of Plymouth. Between 19 and 21 December, 1907, the diocese celebrated with a triduum the fiftieth anniversary of his priesthood: on this occasion he added a fresh member to the cathedral chapter. After a severe illness in 1910, Bishop Graham tendered his resignation of the see, which was accepted 9 Feb., 1911.

The recent expulsion of religious from France has, during 1910, raised the number of communities of nuns in this diocese to twenty-nine. The Catholic population is about one in a hundred, that is, 12,000, most of whom, being employed in the Government Army and Navy establishments, reside in Plymouth, Stonehouse, and Devonport. It is worthy of note that Bishop John Carroll of Baltimore, founder of the Hierarchy of the Church in the United States of America, was on 15 August, 1790, consecrated in Lulworth Church, Dorset, by Bishop Walmesley, Vicar Apostolic of the Western District. The Faith never failed during the Reformation at Lanherne, Cornwall, and at Chideock, Dorset, through the fidelity of the Lords Arundell. Blessed Cuthbert Mayne (q. v.), the protomartyr of pontifical seminarists, was a native of Devon.

OLIVER, Collections (1857); BROTHER FOLEY, Records of the English Province S. J. (London, 1877-83); CHALLONER, Memoirs of Missionary Priests; BRADY, English Hierarchy (London, 1877).

External links

• "Diocese of Plymouth". Catholic-Hierarchy.org. David M. Cheney.
• Roman Catholic Diocese of Plymouth website
• Plymouth Cathedral
• Grail Centre website
• GCatholic.org
• Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Diocese of Plymouth". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.