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Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Vincent Nichols and former deputy leader of the Labour Party and writer Lord Roy Hattersley discuss the history and development of the Catholic Church and its community in Britain and Ireland.

Hattersley has just written a major new history of Catholicism in Britain and Ireland, The Catholics The Church and its People in Britain and Ireland, from the Reformation to the Present Day. It is the first book to tell the story of Catholics in Britain in a single volume. It tells how Catholicism survived in Britain despite years of persecution and institutional discrimination following Henry VIII’s break with Rome. Hattersley is an atheist and the son of a Roman Catholic priest who renounced the priesthood and the church to marry.

Nichols is the 11th Archbishop of Westminster and is effectively the spokesman for the Catholic Church in England and Wales. He trained for the priesthood in Rome and was appointed Archbishop of Birmingham in 2000. He was installed as Archbishop of Westminster in 2009 and was elevated to Cardinal by Pope Francis in 2014.