A plaque commemorating four Catholic martyrs has been blessed in Oxford.Bishop William Kenney CP, an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Birmingham, carried out the ceremony on October 25.
The four martyrs, who were beatified in 1987, included two secular priests – George Nichols and Richard Yaxley – and two laymen, Thomas Belson, a young member of a local land-owning family, and Humphrey Pritchard, who worked in the Catherine Wheel Inn in Oxford where they were captured. They were executed in 1589.
Bishop Kenney, on behalf of the Archbishop of Birmingham Vincent Nichols, led a procession of 180 people in the footsteps of the martyrs, from the site of the Bocardo prison where the priests were held to the site of the town gallows where they died, in Holywell Street.
Bishop Kenney preached on the meaning of martyrdom for Catholics today at the traditional Solemn High Mass which preceded the procession.
The pilgrimage, the fourth annual pilgrimage in honour of Oxford’s Catholic martyrs, was organised by the Latin Mass Society.
Mass took place in the priory church of the Dominican community in Oxford, Blackfriars, which was packed to the doors for the occasion.
Blessed Thomas Belson has living descendants in the Oxford area and a number of these, led by Dorrien Belson, attended the proceedings.
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(Source: TC)