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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Westminster is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in England, historically however it has always been styled the Diocese of Westminster. The archdiocese consists of all of London north of the River Thames and west of the River Lea, together with the borough of Spelthorne and the county of Hertfordshire, which lies immediately to London's north. The diocese is led by the Archbishop of Westminster, who serves as pastor of the mother church, Westminster Cathedral, as well as the metropolitan bishop of the Metropolitan Province of Westminster. Since the re-establishment of the English Catholic dioceses in 1850 each Archbishop of Westminster, including the incumbent, Archbishop Vincent Gerard Nichols, has been created a cardinal by the Pope in consistory, often as the only cardinal in England. It is also customary for the Archbishop of Westminster to be elected President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales providing a degree of a formal direction for the other English bishops and archbishops. However he is not formally a primate, though has special privileges conferred by the Papal Bull ''Si qua es''. The diocese is one of the smallest dioceses in England and Wales in geographical area, but the largest in terms of Catholic population and priests.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://rcdow.org.uk/diocese/ )〕 It is legally established as a diocese, though canonically an archdiocese. The suffragan sees of Westminster are the dioceses of Brentwood, East Anglia, Northampton and Nottingham. ==History== The diocese essentially covers the same region as the Church of England Diocese of London as it was before the English Reformation until 1850, adopting, like most dioceses across England, an alternative name (originally because of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act 1851) but based on the centuries-old divisions of the country. The archdiocese effectively survived the period of Catholic oppression in English history as a missionary territory established by canons accepted by Rome in 1622 as the Apostolic Vicariate of England which was in public law pronounced in England and Wales illegal as counter to the established church. The mostly clandestine apostolic vicariate covering the country was divided so that the Apostolic Vicariate of London District formed on 30 January 1688 coinciding with a degree of freedoms. By decree of Pope Pius IX this entity gained its elevation to the rank of a metropolitan archdiocese on 29 September 1850. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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