The Diocese of Portsmouth will have 14 seminarians at the start of the new academic year, the highest number in living memory. Fr Gerard Flynn, Vocations Director for the Diocese, thanked people for their prayers and asked that they continuing praying for the current seminarians and for even more vocations. The seminarians are spread across six different seminaries, including Allen Hall in London, the Venerable English College in Rome and the Royal English College of Valladolid. The Portsmouth diocese now has one of the highest numbers of seminarians in England, ahead of dioceses such as Clifton, which has seven, and Southwark, which has 12.