Representatives of some 50,000 Catholics from across the Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth – covering Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, the Channel Isles and parts of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Dorset – met at St John’s Catholic Cathedral in Portsmouth on July 22 to witness the unveiling at 11am of Philip Jackson’s sculpture of St John the Evangelist in the presence of the Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster.

The statue is more than eight feet high.