Catholic and Irish? 1929–1939

During the episcopate of Thomas Shine the character of Catholic practice in the diocese of Middlesbrough changed to reflect the priority that he gave to the Irish population that was in the majority. This provides an opportunity to examine the underlying rationale to the Catholicism that was so closely bound to the concept of Irish and Catholic that somewhat unfairly pervaded the manner in which Catholicism in England was regarded still by many non-Catholics. Among the hierarchy, only Bishop Cotter of Portsmouth, with a similar background to Shine, gave the same priority to his Irish constituency and, from the limited information available, acted in a similar manner, particularly in regard to the presbyterate. For the rest of the bishops it seemed as though in most of the country their long-held policy of Irish assimilation into the English Catholic Church appeared successful, although in the larger towns and cities there would probably be a church that was regarded locally as “Irish”.

Shine was very much a man of Ireland, both in upbringing and priestly formation, and shared the fears of the Irish bishops in regard to Irish moral rectitude and the necessity of producing ‘good’ Catholics. He was very aware that within the diocese of Middlesbrough there was a large number of Irish immigrants who were prey to the same errors and temptations as their compatriots at home, and that among them were people escaping from the consequences of their actions in the fight for independence as well as those who wished to escape enforced piety or the sheer poverty of Ireland in that period. As a result his actions and initiatives in the spiritual and devotional life of Catholics in the diocese of Middlesbrough, in building a church that was clerically dominated and also in many ways inward looking upon the ‘needs’ of the Irish constituency, show a greater resemblance to the concerns of the Irish Church and leave behind the concerns of his predecessor to establish a Catholicism native to Yorkshire and England.