Holy Cross is Leicester's City-Centre Roman Catholic Church. It is served by the Dominican Friars.

A Priory of St. Clement was established in Leicester around 1247. This was suppressed in 1538, but in 1819 a church, schoolroom and priests house opened on Wellington Street.  Over the next 60 years, Holy Cross Church was extended several times and the cloister was completed.  In 1931 the first part of the present church - the Choir, Lady Chapel, Transepts and first two bays of the nave - was opened, and the former church became a parish hall.  Building resumed after World War II and the completed church was consecrated in 1958.

The Friars also provide Chaplains to Leicester and De Montfort Universities and to Leicester Royal Infirmary and they are involved in ecumenical and inter-faith groups, and in work with asylum-seekers.

A Choir of mixed voices sings each Sunday at the 11.00am Mass with Gregorian Chant, often drawn from Dominican sources, at the heart of its repertoire.

The musical tradition of Holy Cross can be traced back to 1819 and the first Director of Music, the French violinist and composer Charles Guynemer, who was a professor at the Paris Conservatoire until he went into exile in England on the defeat of Napoleon in 1815.