Crux

HUSBANDS BOSWORTH, United Kingdom – Nearly 2,000 people live in Husbands Bosworth, a quaint village in the south of Leicestershire, where stands the large, ancient All Saints’ Anglican Church. Only once every six weeks do services take place at All Saints, which is part of a multi-church Anglican parish comprising several villages. The local Catholic church, Saint Mary’s, offers two Masses each Sunday, drawing people from the village and elsewhere. If you do not live in Husbands Bosworth, Saint Mary’s is hard to find. It is hidden behind rows of trees near Bosworth Hall, the owners of which are a recusant family. Recusants are the ones who kept the Catholic faith in England after the English Reformation. All Saints’ Anglican Church in Husbands Bosworth, Leicestershire, England, on April 26, 2026. (Credit: Charles Collins/Crux Now.) The entire village of Husbands Bosworth is within the parish territory of Our Lady of Victories in the town of Market Harborough, but Saint Saint Mary’s belongs to the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, which was established by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 to serve former Anglicans who wish to observe their particular ritual use. RELATED: 2026 may be a turning point in Anglican-Catholic dialogue Before the Ordinariate took charge of Saint Mary’s, the Masses in Husbands Bosworth were served by the Market Harborough clergy. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the diocese decided to shut it down. That’s when Father Matthew Pittam, a member of the Ordinariate, jumped at the chance to set up a parish in the village. “Particularly because of the history of families maintaining the Faith since the Reformation,” Pittam told Crux Now, “there was at one time quite a number of these Catholic families who were always Catholic and had chapels in their houses, or built churches in their estates.” Saint Mary’s was established by the family in the late 1800s. “We spoke to the family that owned the church, and they agreed we could come here,” Pittam told Crux Now. Saint Mary’s is the only Catholic church between Market Harborough and Lutterworth, and only about a quarter of its attendees are former Anglicans. “They weren’t Anglo-Catholic before; they were local people who worshiped in Anglican churches. They went to a normal middle-of-the-road Church of England church,” the priest said. St. Mary’s Catholic Church near Bosworth Hall in Husbands Bosworth, Leicestershire, England, on April 26, 2026. (Credit: Charles Collins/Crux Now.) Crux Now attended the Mass at St. Mary’s the day before the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, was due to meet Pope Leo XIV in Rome. The liturgy at Saint Mary’s was different from both the Mass celebrated by the vast majority of Catholics around the world and also from the Traditional Latin Mass. The priest mostly faces the altar. There is more Latin, and when English is used, it is a more traditional form. There are several different prayers during the service. In November of 2009, Pope Benedict XVI created a legal framework for the Personal Ordinariates – special jurisdictions – to serve formerly Anglican parishes and faithful who came into full communion with Rome and desired to maintain their liturgical traditions. Less than two years later, in January 2011, Benedict XVI established the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham for England, Wales, and Scotland. It is one of three Personal Ordinariates, the others being the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter for the United States and Canada, and the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross for Australia and Japan. RELATED: Why are some Anglican bishops leaving for Catholicism? The “Anglican Use” liturgy was more celebrated in North America and Australia. Most Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England had started using their version of the post-Vatican II Catholic rite. Pittam admitted that as an Anglo-Catholic becoming a Catholic priest in the Ordinariate, he had to learn the Anglican Use Mass, since he had always used the post-Vatican II Missal while in the Church of England. Now he says he very much prefers the Ordinariate liturgy. Just weeks before Mullally’s inauguration, the Vatican held a meeting with the leaders of the Ordinariates and published a text stemming from this meeting on March 24, the day before Mullally’s formal installation. RELATED: Former Anglican bishop ordained a Catholic priest in London The Vatican document said the “Anglican heritage” in the Catholic Church included a distinctive “ecclesial ethos” marked by broad participation of both clergy and laity in the Church’s life and governance. It also said the Ordinariates promote a pastoral culture in which divine worship and daily life are profoundly interconnected and enjoy a strong tradition of preaching grounded in Scripture, “recognizing that nourishing people intellectually is an integral part of nourishing their souls.” This is not suggesting there is a battle between the Catholic Church and the Church of England, Pittam says, noting that Saint Mary’s and All Saints often work together. At the same time, splitting a parish between six churches and meeting less than once a month doesn’t help a congregation. “There are people who don’t move around,” the priest told Crux Now. “One of our aims would be a presence in the village, so that people could gently start to have a connection to this place that could blossom into something else in the future,” he said. “As Christianity has pulled out of villages in terms of the Church of England, there is a vacuum, really. Certainly, we have a role to play here,” the priest said. “Anglicans can bring their traditions with them,” Pittam added. “I like to think of it as Catholicism with an English accent.” The Ordinariate has a 99-year lease on the parish, giving it stability. This is actually somewhat rare in the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. Ordinariate Masses are often held in borrowed churches belonging to the local diocese. “When the Ordinariate has its own place and becomes the prominent thing, then it flourishes,” the priest said. Pope Leo’s meeting with Mullally highlights the changing nature of Catholic-Anglican dialogue; the local village might be the place to truly understand it. Follow Charles Collins on X: @CharlesinRome

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