THE P RTAL
July 2014
Page 3
Portal Editorial
Jackie Ottaway reports on a very
happy occasion at Warwick Street
M
any readers
will have been to Portugal,
to the Shrine of Our Lady at Fatima, or on holiday
to the Algarve. But Portugal is England’s oldest ally.
Ratified at the Treaty of Windsor in 1386, between
England (succeeded by the United Kingdom) and
Portugal it is the oldest alliance in the world that is still
in force — with the earliest treaty dating back to the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1373.
When the Catholic Faith in England was proscribed,
embassies like that of Portugal in London played a vital
part in the survival of the Faith in England. Because an
embassy is the territory of the country it represents,
and not of the host country; it was possible for Mass to
be celebrated there even in the harshest of times.
were in Portuguese.
Also present at the Mass were His Most Eminent
Highness Fra’ Matthew Festing, Prince and Grand
Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta,
who is an honorary vice-president of the Friends of
the Ordinariate, and His Excellency Fra’ Ian Scott of
English people could attend
Andross, Grand Prior of the Priory (Order of Malta)
Not only was Mass celebrated, but English people of England.
could attend. Prevention was impossible, as any
Mgr Newton, referring to the welcome of English
interference with the ingress of people to the Embassy
would have resulted in similar action against the Catholics to the Embassy, said, “I assume they did
this because they shared a common faith, were in
English Embassy, in this case, in Portugal.
communion with their Catholic brothers and sisters
At one time, the Portuguese Embassy in London and expressed that in a tangible way, which was