Through the great men and women of the English Church we can see the continuous inspiration of the Catholic Faith in England as an unbroken tradition shaping life and work, history and culture, for more than fourteen centuries.

In this book a group of distinguished authors with varying interests, champion the achievements of twenty-three seminal figures in the history of the English Church - from the seventh century to the present time - who through their Catholic witness have made a contribution to the spiritual, intellectual, ethical and physical welfare of the nation which can be fairly described as 'heroic'. Heroism takes many different forms. Self-evidently heroic are the martyrs of the penal years who sacrificed their lives for the sake of the Faith, others earn their place in this book because their achievements in many different fields of endeavour are truly heroic - as queens, wives and mothers, in education, nursing and social teaching, in journalism and literature, and in challenging the nation's conscience and our national consciousness. The continuity of the Catholic witness in England is often overlooked because of the dislocation caused by the English Reformation, the three subsequent centuries of suppression of the Church, and the rewriting of history to create a new national myth. However, in these lives we can see the impact of Catholicism across the centuries and find inspiration for our own times.

Joanna Bogle, Leonie Caldecott , Simon Caldwell, Judith Champ, Mgr Antony Conlon, Mark Elvins OFMCap., Patti Fordyce, Andrea Fraile, Dominic Savio Hamer CP, Etheldreda Hession OSB, Emily Keyte, Mac McLernon, Dora Nash, Fiorella Nash, Josephine Robinson, Penny Roker RSM, Tracey Rowland, Gemma Simmonds CJ, Pauline J. Shaw MFIC, John Skinner and Lucy Underwood share with us their English Catholic Heroines.