Catholic Church in Jersey

However, throughout the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church did not concern itself with overly political changes and the island continued to be part of the Norman diocese of Coutances.

The island embraced the French Calvinist form of Protestantism during the Reformation and the orders were received to remove all signs of Catholicism in 1547 with the Act of Dissolution of the Colleges and Chantries, which had been applied to Jersey in the Act of Uniformity 1549:[2] numerous wayside crosses were destroyed, along with religious statues and other symbols.

In the 1830s and 1840s the island's Catholic community knew growth with the influx of Irish labourers coming to work on major building projects such as the new harbour.

Towards the end of the 19th century Catholic teaching and nursing orders — the De La Salle brothers, Jesuits and Little Sisters of the Poor — settled in Jersey.

[7][8] Minorities of the Catholic faith in Jersey are not negligible, as Mass in certain churches (such as Saint Thomas's, pictured right) is regularly held in Portuguese and Polish and only occasionally today in French.

Our Lady of the Annunciation Church
The Hermitage of Saint Helier lies in the bay off Saint Helier , Jersey and is accessible on foot at low tide.
To mark the millennium in 2000, a cross was erected in each of the 12 parishes to replace the wayside crosses that fell subject to the iconoclasm of the 16th century. Here, the millennium cross of Saint Helier bears the Jèrriais inscription À la glouaithe dé Dgieu ( To the glory of God ).
Saint Thomas Church's spire is prominent in Saint Helier skyline