PONTIFICAL BEDE COLLEGE MARKS 150TH ANNIVERSARY

VATICAN CITY, DEC 9, 2002 (VIS) - The community of the Pontifical Bede College, celebrating the 150th anniversary of its founding, was welcomed by the Holy Father today who said he joined them "in giving praise to God for the many graces that have come to the Church through the work of the College in the years since its foundation."

"It was a time of great turbulence," he observed, "when Blessed Pope Pius IX established what became the 'Collegio Pio'. Society was in turmoil, and the Church was not spared the troubles of the age. In England, a number of Anglicans had decided to seek ordination in the Catholic Church; and this prompted the Pope to establish the College. At the end of the 19th century, again in unsettled times, the College had a new surge of life and in 1897 became the Pontifical Bede College, in honor of the great English saint and scholar whom Pope Leo XIII was about to proclaim a Doctor of the Church at that time."

Pope John Paul also recalled that "in 1960 the College moved to its present site in the shadow of St. Paul's Basilica, ... and has opened its doors to students from many countries. This is a great service offered to the whole Church by the bishops of England and Wales, and I thank them for their generosity."

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