Our Parish Church
Our Parish Church is St Mary and St Joseph in Pocklington
St Mary & St Joseph's Parish
Parish Priest: Rev James Blenkinsopp
Mass Times:
- SATURDAY: 7:00PM
- SUNDAY: 9:30AM
- TUESDAY & THURSDAY: 6:00PM
- FRIDAY: 9:30AM
Contacts:
48 Union Street,
POCKLINGTON
YO42 2JN
Tel: 01759 303126
Email: pocklingtoncatholicchurch@rcdmidd.org.uk
Website: https://www.smjpocklington.org.uk
Baptisms, First Holy Communion, and Confirmation are by arrangement with the parish priest, Fr. James Blenkinsopp.
Pocklington’s Roman Catholic heritage traces its roots to the first chapel on the site of SS Mary & Joseph’s church in the early 1800s; but goes back centuries before that. It includes Tudor martyrs; the decline of the town’s main families for clinging on to their faith; and some leading Catholic figures, including a Pocklington-born bishop who turned down approaches to be the country’s highest prelate.
The town has been a religious centre since Saxon times, when Pocklington was a large minster parish, sending out priests to say mass in a dozen surrounding villages. Papal records contain a handful of medieval documents relating to Pocklington and the church’s manor house in New Street in the 14th and 15th centuries.
The world changed when Henry VIII broke from Rome; and Pocklington went on to play a key part in the opposition to his reformation. Henry closed the nearby priories – there were five in the villages around Pocklington – and over the next half century townsfolk played leading roles in Tudor uprisings, with a dozen locals executed by the crown.
Source:
Parish website (content is a summary of the talk given by Phil Gilbank in February 2017)