The National Catholic Library opensA special message of good wishes from the Pope and a mass attended by the most important personalities of the British Catholic world marked the opening, with a new name, of the “National Catholic library” in the U.K. For the first time the unique collection of over 70 000 books, periodicals and booklets on religious subjects including biographies and history books – not yet available on the Internet – have their own place, in the St. Michael Abbey, in Farnborough, Hampshire. The on-line connection, along with a site in London where visitors will have access to the catalogue, order books and consult them every week, are the next goals of the curators of the library who undertook for this purpose a fund-raising campaign collecting over 1.5 million pounds. The appeal was made during a mass in the church of Saint Etheldreda, in the heart of London. The “National Catholic Library” will also be in charge of the so-called “St. Cecilia’s Guild”, an organization, hosted within the community of East Hendred Benedictine nuns near Oxford, which supplies audio-books to the blind. In 1920 Benedict XV sent a message of support to the Catholic library and the present pope followed his wake, thus highlighting the importance of this resource which is once again available to readers.
