Norwich, England, Aug 29, 2017 / 02:24 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On Tuesday EWTN opened its first studio and office in the U.K. at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, emphasizing its role in supporting the Church’s evangelization in the region.
In an Aug. 29 statement on the studio launch, EWTN Chairman and CEO Michael P. Warsaw called the opening of the facility “a particularly important” step for the network’s continued development in the U.K.
The new studio, he said, “will allow us to greatly expand our capacity to produce programming for our European channels as well as to more easily incorporate content from the U.K. into our other channels around the world.”
He said it’s appropriate that the new studio sits just steps away from the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, which annually draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all over the U.K. and the world, and which for centuries “has been one of the most important centers of Catholicism in Britain.”
With such strong pilgrim activity, Warsaw said he is “very happy that EWTN now has a presence in this extraordinary place and can share what happens here with our audience around the globe.”
Located in a converted house in the village of Walsingham, about 30 miles northwest of Norwich, the studio includes a street-level reception area and welcome center for visitors, where pilgrims can watch clips of EWTN’s most popular television shows, films, and documentaries.
One of the most important pilgrimage sites in Europe, the Walsingham shrine dates back to 1061, and is widely referred to as “England’s Nazareth.” Both Anglican and a Catholic chapels are located at the site, which has become a hub for ecumenical prayer and devotion.
Inspiration for the shrine came when a devout English noblewoman, Richeldis de Faverches, prayed to undertake a special task in honor of Our Lady.
As the story goes, in answer to the woman’s request, Mary appeared to her in a vision and took her to Nazareth, showing her where the Annunciation occurred. Mary then asked De Faverches to build a replica of the house in Walsingham to serve as a perpetual memorial of that moment.
The shrine was built and a religious community put in charge of it. In 1150, a priory was built by the Augustinian Canons, and eventually Walsingham became one of the largest, most well-known shrines in Medieval Christendom.
However, during the English Reformation, the priory was handed over to the commissioners of King Henry VIII in 1538, and the highly venerated statue of Our Lady of Walsingham was burned along with the shrine.
As a result, pilgrimages to the site ceased, and wouldn’t pick up again for another 300 years, until after the Catholic Emancipation of 1829.
In 1896, Charlotte Pearson Boyd purchased a small, 14th century chapel called the “Slipper Chapel” – one of the last en-route to Walsingham – and restored it for Catholic use. A year later, in 1897, Leo XIII issued a rescript stating that the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham would be restored.
Official pilgrimages started up again that same year, and visits to the site increased as greater numbers of pilgrims began filing into both the chapel and the shrine for devotion.
Walsingham currently attracts some 150,000 pilgrims during peak seasons.
In 2015, on the Feast of the Holy Family, Pope Francis gave the shrine the title of a minor basilica.
Warsaw voiced his hope in his statement that the opening of EWTN’s studio there would help to form a “strategic collaboration” with the shrine in order to help the site carry out “its mission to evangelize.”
Present alongside Warsaw at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new shrine was the shrine’s rector, Monsignor John Armitage, and Bishop Alan Hopes of East Anglia.
Msgr. Armitage said Walsingham “is very much the crossroads of the Catholic Church in England, and has been for over 950 years.”
“This is a place where pilgrims come from all over the country and indeed all over the world,” he said, explaining that the Church itself “needs to be at the crossroads.”
For an organization dedicated to communications such as EWTN, “to be at a place where people are coming from all sort of different aspects of the life of the Church is particularly important.”
“So we are delighted as a shrine to be able to welcome EWTN to come here as an organization in their own right, but at this place where so many pilgrims come from all over the world.”
Bishop Hopes also spoke about the new studio, saying the facility “will certainly be a center for evangelization.”
“EWTN right at the front of evangelization in the media…it enters people’s hopes, it enables them to join in the prayer and worship life of the Church,” he said. “It means that people can see the teaching aspects of the faith, so it’s a real mission in itself.
Just as Richeldis de Faverches responded to Mary’s wish by building a shrine in honor of the place where the Annunciation took place, EWTN will do the same in terms of building the Church, he said, explaining that the organization “always contributed (to the Church in England), but it’s assisting in that building up of the Kingdom, that proclamation of the Gospel.”
Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster sent a letter for the occasion, which was read aloud by Bishop Hopes at the ceremony.
Cardinal Nichols offered his gratitude for the addition of the studio, which he called a “valuable media center in the heart of our National Shrine.”
He praised the work of the media, noting that over the past 950 years “Walsingham has been a place of pilgrimage, proclaiming the joy of the Annunciation.”
“In this new chapter of its history, I welcome the opportunity for the shrine and EWTN to work together as servants of the New Evangelization,” he said, adding that he is looking forward to visiting the studios himself while in Walsingham for the Westminster pilgrimage in October.
All television and radio channels EWTN produces for the U.K. and Ireland are currently available on the Sky satellite platform, and cable and video streaming platforms throughout the area. The network also transmits two additional television channels for the European continent.
The Walsingham studio in particular was made possible thanks to the work of Saint Clare Media-EWTN, Ltd., the network’s non-profit affiliate in Britain. They conduct marketing, fundraising, and the production of programming for EWTN’s radio services in the U.K., and they are also create and distribute news content in collaboration with EWTN’s global news outlets.
Warsaw joined EWTN in 1991 and worked in senior management positions in television production, satellite operations and technical services. In 2000 he became president of EWTN, and in 2009 he assumed the post of CEO. In 2013 he was named chairman of the board.
EWTN was founded launched in 1981 by Mother Angelica of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration. The largest religious media network in the world, it reaches more than 268 million television households in more than 145 countries and territories.
In addition to 11 television channels in multiple languages, EWTN platforms include radio services through shortwave and satellite radio, SIRIUS/XM, iHeart Radio, and over 500 AM and FM affiliates. EWTN publishes the National Catholic Register, operates a religious goods catalogue, and in 2015 formed EWTN Publishing in a joint venture with Sophia Institute Press. Catholic News Agency is also part of the EWTN family.
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Um, he should be retired & sent to the Mr mccarick home for mitres gone south…
All of humanity was created by God. As Christians we are called to love God above all things, with all our hearts, with all our souls and with all our minds and TO LOVE OUR NEIGHBOR AS OURSELVES. I think that includes Muslims.
To truly love someone is to desire and will what is best for them, in this life and the life to come. Is it better for Muslims to stay Muslim, or to hear the Gospel and, by God’s grace, become Catholic?
Many Christian missionaries through the ages, including several early Franciscans who were stoned to death in Morocco, have given their lives for testifying and preaching the Gospel among the followers of the religion of peace. Many more Christians have been killed and enslaved by the triumphant armies of the religion of peace. See this scholarly interview by CWR Fr. Connolly:
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2020/12/16/the-forgotten-history-of-christian-slavery-under-islam/
Of course Miss Rosemary. Neighbor means neighbor. We don’t exclude anyone from that love. God made us all.
Ah yes, but Christ Has Revealed True Love requires desiring Salvation for one’s beloved, so how can one be Loving anyone if they first and foremost do not desire that person’s Salvation?
I agree.
I think Leo has lost his mind establishing a prayer room at the Vatican for islamists. I doubt if Orthodox Christian Church would hear anything of this nonsense.
Indeed. The Orthodox Churches have had Islam rattling their gates for 1400 years. The know exactly what is at risk.
I was hoping he would be different, but it’s becoming more apparent that Pope Leo is a Francis clone.
I look forward to the new welcoming of immigrants by the Vatican.
To borrow and injunction, Pope Leo, tear down those walls.
TPR: instead of asking Uganda to accept our criminal “migrants”, I think we ought to advocate sending all of our illegal aliens to the Vatican. They’ll be delighted to receive them all as they would Christ. One million illegals should fit comfortably inside those wall of Vatican City State
Yes,, Yes Yes I completely agree with you.
Redux you are not making sense.
Here is your recent comment in Chapp’s CWR article on Dilexit.
‘ DiogenesRedux
October 14, 2025 at 1:10 am
ELIAS GALY: Are you advocating the weaponizatuon of the Eucharist to advance a political cause? Because that’s exactly what this was. I hope you’re not virtue signaling. ‘
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2025/10/10/reflections-on-dilexi-te-the-first-magisterial-document-of-leo-xivs-papacy/
Presumably the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican City State is responsible for overseeing the Vatican’s forward-looking abortion initiatives?
At least Cupich should be able to count on the support of abortion expert and Dark Vatican friend Senator Durbin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWqKPWO5T4o
Bingo. The same analogy came up in discussion the other day with daily communicants. We observe a boy’s club, the faithful abandoned while the lads climb the ladder and proclaim their personal truths as doctrine.
It doesn’t cut the mustard.
Deep State Leo.
The good news Cupich is leaving Chicago. The bad news is that Pope Leo next selection will likely be similar to Cupich.
The news will be news when the appointment is made! Not before. If you must speculate, speculate with Charity.
A “promotion” to the 109-acre Vatican city-state, rather than to a dicastery of the Holy See. And, as in the United States, when some House members are elected to the Senate, this can improve the average IQ of both houses. Waiting now to see who will replace Cardinal Cupich in Chicago…
Groundskeeper at the Leo XIV estate is nothing to sneer about. Besides there’s the camaraderie of two windy men from the Windy City.
A charitable construction of this appointment is that Cupich has been kicked upstairs to a largely ineffectual post at the Vatican. He’ll likely do less damage there than in Chicago.
I’m shocked, shocked I tell you. Most all the American catholic media outlets and pundits have been assuring us Leo wasn’t Francis 2.0 and claiming Leo didn’t side with Cupich in the Derbin award scandal. Not only has Leo not accepted Cupich’s resignation, he’s now given him yet another position, also meaning Cupich is staying on in Chicago for the foreseeable future.
I had such Hope, such joy at Pope Leo’s election. I thought I saw in him a good man, a holy man. But, no I was mistaken. It hurts my heart to see he really is Francis 2.0, as the saying goes. I remind myself that God is in charge so all is unfolding in accordance with his will.
His Will or His permissive will?
God does not Will that we accommodate a blasphemy of The Holy Ghost, due to the hardening of our hearts.
God wills that we are Faithful and Abide In The Word Of God Incarnate.
Every day I am more disappointed in Francis 2.0. Is this a reward for the havoc and cruelty Cupich has wreaked in Chicago? Nothing on China as they advance with their control of the Church; no ultimatums to those committing ACTUAL genocide of Christians in Nigeria; a big increase in the number of bishops in the US denying the TLM and sneering at altar rails, kneeling for communion, etc (why? because they KNOW Leo is Francis Lite, Francis with kinder words and the trick of wearing traditional vestments)…. but Cupich gets this.
If only we could hope and trust that this appointment was in the best interests of God…
And the damage to the Church continues
A meaningless membership shared with 5 other Cardinals, and a President (Sister Petrini!) and two Secretaries-General on top. Perhaps a first feathered step in getting the over-age Cupich out of Chicago and maybe out of the country and into regal Vatican episcopal obscurity?
My thought as well…when somebody high up the food chain causes a major scandal for the CEO, promoting them somewhere where they can do less damage is SOP. Will have to see who is tapped to replace him before commencing hair pulling, but frankly, past reinstituting pomp and circumstance, have yet to see much of any getting back on course for the Church…not yet, anyhow…
Unless I’m missing something, Cupich will be out of Chicago and US!
This is a sad appointment. I am getting more and more disappointed in this pope as he makes appalling decisions such as appointing Cupich. I am not a Trad! I am a common-sense American Catholic who realizes that promoting the ethics of normalizing homosexual acts in the Church, as in okaying homosexual marriage, is part of Cupich’s plan.
One look at the sordid group of prelates appearing on the loggia with Leo, smiling and glad-handing with each other at his election to the papacy, and it was easy to predict the direction this was going to go. Since he is clearly smarter and more politically astute than was the bombastic, ham-fisted Francis, Leo will probably end up doing far more damage to the Church. God help us…
Let’s get one thing straight: The Catholic Church does not exist to serve the hierarchy (bishops, cardinals and popes). The hierarchy exists to serve the People of God…
Pope Leo is getting close to strike three in my books. Rewarding a cardinal for despicable behavior (honoring the Senate’s most strident pro-abortion member), is a recipe for a disastrous papacy. The verdict is still out, but I am not as hopeful as I had been for this pope. It’s troubling, to say the least.
The Cupich pontificate-by-proxy…twelve more years lies ahead.
Oh dear.
Are we seeing bishop Fulton Sheen’s counter church slowly gaining traction ?
Hope not.
Leo, are you suffering from SDS (Sheen Derangement Syndrome)?
Au contraire.
This remarkable Irish prophet warned about the ape counter church.
One world religion with something for everyone at the Vatican nowadays.
Pachamama if you wish, a Muslim prayer mat in a small Vatican mosque, a seat for a Protestant monarch, pride parades on request, care for creation prayers (rather than true worship to the Creator), a Chinese communist prelate for prayers to Xi.
But please no traddies.
Yes, no traddies!
No reminder of the essence of Catholicism when the existential Church is so far removed… Rather like Dorian Grey, Ecumenical New Church has a queer aversion to mirrors.
Traddies are that mirror.
Demotion by Promotion
Quite a few years ago now ChurchMilitant organised a ranking by vote of the American bishops at the time. Blaise Cupich ranked as the worst.