Mass for Polish air crash victims
A Requiem Mass is to be held in the UK for the victims of the Smolensk air disaster, it has been announced.
Prominent members of the Polish community, including the Polish ambassador to the UK, will attend the Mass at Westminster Cathedral in London next week.
The president of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, and his wife Maria were among 96 people killed in the plane crash in western Russia on April 11.
The disaster - described as the worst in Poland's post-war history - claimed the lives of a swathe of Poland's elite, including political, military and church leaders.
Mr Kaczynski and his delegation had been on their way to the 70th anniversary commemorations of the April 1940 massacre of 22,000 Polish officers by the Soviet secret police.
The Catholic community in England and Wales has been boosted by an influx of Polish workers in recent years.
The principal celebrant at the Mass will be the Archbishop of Westminster and leader of Catholics in England and Wales the Most Rev Vincent Nichols.