abstract
| - Westminster became the metropolitan see and its occupant the practical Catholic equivalent of the archbishops of Canterbury. This new structure replaced the four Vicars Apostolic who had ministered to English Catholics since the seventeenth century though the new bishops (as Vicars Apostolic of old) always saw themselves in continuity with the pre-Reformation Church. The Catholic Church did not restore pre-Reformation dioceses with Catholic bishops, but rather erected new ones, because of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act of 1851, which favored the established Church of England. Likewise, there could not be a Catholic archbishop of Canterbury. Instead, the archdiocese of Westminster was created with its own archbishop. In like manner, the Archbishop of Westminster was not declared Primate of All England, though he and his successors always saw themselves as successors to Canterbury's Catholic archbishops, hence the resembalance of the coat of arms of the two Sees, with Westminster believing it has more reason to claim it because it features the pallium, no longer given to the Archbishop of Canterbury. By contrast, in Scotland, where the Reformed Church did not maintain an episcopate, the old dioceses were reestablished as Catholic. In Ireland, however, only after the Church of Ireland was disestablished, was the Catholic Church allowed to have its own archbishop of Armagh in residence at Armagh as Primate of All Ireland, performing liturgical functions there. Now both Churches have competing dioceses.
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