Nearly 3,000 people were attracted to a festival celebrating Catholic life and culture at which poets and philosophers, Gregorian chant and ceilidh bands, mantillas and guitars coexisted in creative harmony.

“What is it that has happened in England just at this time? Something strange is passing over this land …” So said a fairly recent convert to Catholicism, John Henry Newman, at St Mary’s College, Oscott, in July 1852. “The past has returned, the dead lives,” he proclaimed, allegedly moving Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman, the first Archbishop of Westminster, and the rest of the newly restored Catholic hierarchy gathered in the colourful Gothic revival chapel to the point of tears. “The English Church was, and the English Church was not, and the English Church is once again.”

When Newman spoke of the surprise and commotion of a Catholic revival, he probably didn’t anticipate anything like the hustle and bustle that would be found in the same location one July weekend 174 years later. At the WeBelieve festival, the grounds of Oscott were teeming with monks and nuns, families pitching tents, children tearing down paths on tricycles, teenagers and young adults queuing up to grab milkshakes before vespers.

WeBelieve was intended to offer a “feast of Catholic culture” that would highlight the Church’s diversity – musically, artistically, liturgically and culturally. There were tents dedicated to talks on the themes of Truth, Beauty and Goodness – theology, the arts, and everything to do with living out one’s faith in daily life – as well as a tent for children’s activities and one for teenagers. A giant blue tent called St Peter’s, seating around 1,000 people, was the setting for the celebration of Mass on each day of the festival, with eclectic liturgies featuring everything from praise and worship songs and guitars to Gregorian chant. Mass in the pre-Vatican II rite and a Syro-Malabar Holy Qurbana were celebrated in the college chapel.

John Withers, the festival director, told me that the point of any festival is to “nourish culture”. This truly was a Catholic Glastonbury. There was a performance of the ancient Syro-Malabar “Margam Kali” circle dance, which enacts the arrival of St Thomas the Apostle in Kerala. Award-winning mezzo-soprano Sophie Clarke led a Gregorian chant workshop and a sacred music session for children, while the Southwell Consort, a polyphonic choir, animated the Latin liturgies. The Dove’s Eye Collective offered meditative and folk inspired worship music and 99.ONE, Jesus Youth UK’s official band, provided contemporary praise and worship. There was a film festival, an open mic night, writing workshops for both children and for adults, poetry readings by Sally Read and others, and deep-dives into every aspect of faith and the arts from speakers including Fr Patrick van der Vorst, Rupert Shortt, Simon Gaine OP and Alexander Bailey CO.

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