Roman Catholic Diocese of Northampton
The Diocese of Northampton () is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic church in England and Wales and suffragan of Westminster. Its see is in Northampton. The Cathedral of Our Lady Immaculate and St Thomas of Canterbury is the mother church of the Diocese. Location The diocese now covers the counties of Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire under their pre-1974 historic boundaries. Until 1976, the counties of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk were also included; since then they have formed the Diocese of East Anglia. History When Augustine of Canterbury came from Rome in 597 he concentrated on the areas of Kent and Essex, but thirty years later the area that the Northampton Diocese covers finally received the Christian message, with the arrival of the missionary Birinus and the foundation of his see at Dorchester-on-Thames in 636. Nevertheless, the real evangelisation of the people who dwelt in the diocese was achieved through the labours and missionaries of the isle of Lindisfarne, off the Northumbrian coast. Notable amongst them was Chad of Mercia, whose see, established at Lichfield in 669, included the present diocese of Northampton. From the time of the Reformation until 1850, Catholic dioceses ceased to exist in Britain. However,