Issue 44 winter 24 - Journal - Page 104
be static; further artefacts and new followers may well
arrive over time. Indeed, soon after installation of his
relics, Romero was blessed and beatified in San Salvador
on 23rd May 2015 and then canonised & sainted in
Rome on 14th November 2018. What started as a
“Romero Space” for the martyr became a diocesan
“Shrine” on beatification, then since 2023 a national
shrine for the saint. In response, the character of my bust
stand were referenced already in 2019 with an additional
scheme of shrine gates, dividing St Patrick’s Chapel from
St Oscar Romero’s Shrine, albeit not irrevocably.
Reconciliation & Succour
Since Romero’s devotion arrived in this region of
England, the world has plunged deeper into strife and
conflict, generating more migration and modern forms of
slavery among the community of the dispossessed. Already during the current decade, one part of St Joseph’s
chapel, the part where the destruction of WWII is displayed, has been a place of prayer during the pandemic,
then for peace in the conflict in Ukraine, and a wall of
solace for survivors of abuse in the church. And so Joseph,
the worker parent of the Christ child, has come to share
his chapel with a newly designated chapel of Peace &
Reconciliation16, for the oppressed, for those who toil and
labour, for those who come to find rest.
Above, In 2013 the case made was for the cross set sideways to the
nave, Romero’s bust set up looking into the “Prayer Space”, later
divided from St Patrick
Initially the cross stood in a reticent relationship to the
cathedral’s nave, its arms forming an architectonic
narthex within St Patrick’s chapel. In 2023 the spigot detail was rotated, the reliquary cross turned and Romero’s
bust relocated to address the nave with greater presence
across the devotional aisle.15
Above, Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, framed by FA Walters,
architect of Wonersh
There was an unclaimed artefact in the, now closed,
Seminary of St John at Wonersh: Canon Pritchard’s17 gift
in 1922/23 of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, an icon
copy from the Redemptorist’s church of St Alphonsus in
Rome in a marble frame by FA Walters. Marking the centenary, the clergy had the icon set up outside the priests’
sacristy in 2024 in the 19th Century corridor that AWN
Pugin originally designated as a Cloister.
Closing
These then are the principal shrines, which I have had
the honour to incorporate into the spiritual life of the
cathedral. Suffusing the cathedral’s perimeter with a
plenitude of new devotions, they embody spirituality for
generations yet to come.
Above, “Resurrection” now faces the nave, the south wall ‘warmed’
by Keim paint
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