Preview: Venerable Robert Schuman and the Anniversary of the Schuman Declaration

May 9 this year is the 75th Anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, a harbinger of the European Union, written by Venerable Robert Schuman in 1950. We'll continue our series of historical anniversaries on the Son Rise Morning with a discussion of its importance and its author (mostly) on Monday, February 24. I'll be on at my usual time, at the top of the second national hour of the Son Rise Morning Show on EWTN, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

The Schuman Declaration was a proposal made by the French foreign minister Robert Schuman for France and West Germany to share production of coal and steel under a single authority. That authority was later called the European Coal and Steel Community. From this date, May 9 the European Union (the EU) takes its founding date and celebrates Europe Day.

Since trade and economic issues aren't the most exciting topics so early in the morning, I'd like to focus on Venerable Robert Schuman and the Catholic Christian background of his vision for the EU. 

Robert Schuman was born in Luxembourg on June 29, 1886. His father was a German citizen because he had been born in Alsace-Lorraine during one of those times it was held by Germany, but his mother was a native of Luxembourg, and Robert grew up speaking Luxembourgish, a Western German language. When Alsace-Lorraine was returned the French after World War I Schuman became a French citizen. (Then it back to German control under the Nazis and returned to France at the end of WWII, where it has stayed since.)

Schuman was a devout Catholic and a student of Saint Thomas Aquinas; he never married and lived an almost monastic life in practicing his faith. In many ways he was inspired by the Middle Ages as this address from 1949 demonstrates:

We are carrying out a great experiment, the fulfillment of the same recurrent dream that for ten centuries has revisited the peoples of Europe: creating between them an organization putting an end to war and guaranteeing an eternal peace. The Roman church of the Middle Ages failed finally in its attempts that were inspired by humane and human preoccupations.  

Another idea, that of a world empire constituted under the auspices of German emperors was less disinterested; it already relied on the unacceptable pretensions of a ‘Führertum’ (domination by dictatorship) whose 'charms' we have all experienced.

Audacious minds, such as Dante, Erasmus, Abbé de St-Pierre [priest and author of a plan for "perpetual peace" in the 18th century], Rousseau, Kant and [Pierre Joseph] Proudhon ["the father of anarchism"], had created in the abstract the framework for systems that were both ingenious and generous. The title of one of these systems became the synonym of all that is impractical: Utopia, itself a work of genius, written by Thomas More, the Chancellor of Henry VIII, King of England. . . .

We are still at the start of things. We would do well to bridle our impatience. If not, we are likely to make the doubters more distrustful and what is more serious, endanger not only the experiment but also the whole idea of a united Europe. 

Schuman knew an abstract Utopia wouldn't work for a united, peaceful Europe; it couldn't be forced by a Fuhrer or planned by a philosopher, so he began the development of a European Union with trade agreements and cooperation between two former enemies, France and (West) Germany.

As Catholic World Report announced on June 19, 2021:

Pope Francis has declared venerable the French statesman Robert Schuman, known as a key “founding father” of the European Union.

After a June 19 meeting with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the pope advanced the sainthood causes of Schuman and six others.

“Schuman dedicated his life to serving the common good, seeking peace and reconciliation with Germany to create a community of European states,” Fr. Bernard Ardura, an official in charge of proposed French canonizations, told AFP.

Schuman’s efforts were “the work of a Christian, which serves as an example,” said Fr. Ardura, even if the statesman “remained very discreet about his personal life and his faith.”

Last year, the bishop of Metz asked Catholics to pray a novena for peace through Venerable Schuman's intercession:

Archbishop Philippe Ballot of Metz has urged Catholics in his northeastern French diocese to make a prayer novena for world peace through the intercession of the Venerable Robert Schuman (1886-1963), one of the founders of post-World War II Europe and a candidate for sainthood.

The archbishop and the Saint Benedict Institute [Institut Saint Benoit], an association in his diocese that is leading the cause for Schuman's canonization, set the nine days of prayer from February 16 to 24.

In announcing the initiative, Archbishop Ballot noted the many armed conflicts currently raging in the world and asked people to pray for an end to three in particular -- those between Russia and Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia, and Hamas and Israel. He said the novena for Schuman's intercession should encourage all believers to become "guardians of a brotherhood that is possible".

Recalling the late European statesmen as a "faithful architect of peace who conducted his secular activities as an apostolate", the novena includes different texts to meditate upon each day and a final prayer that implores God for peace through Schuman's intercession. 

Although Venerable Robert Schuman's vision for a united Europe was inspired by his Catholic faith--even the flag of the European Union has Marian imagery*--when the EU's Constitution was being drafted, Pope Saint John Paul II had to urge the framers to remember the Judaeo-Christian roots of Europe:

Multiple are the cultural roots that have contributed to reinforce the values just mentioned: from the spirit of Greece to that of Roman law and virtue; from the contributions of the Latin, Celtic, Germanic, Slav and Hungarian-Finnish peoples, to those of the Jewish culture and the Islamic world. These different factors found in the Jewish-Christian tradition the power that harmonized, consolidated and promoted them. By acknowledging this historical fact in the process leading to a new institutional order, Europe cannot deny its Christian heritage, since a great part of its achievements in the fields of law, art, literature and philosophy have been influenced by the evangelical message. Not giving in to a temptation to be nostalgic or to be content mechanically to repeat past models, but being open to the new challenges emerging, Europe will need to draw inspiration with creative fidelity from the Christian roots that have defined European history.

Historical memory demands it; but also and above all, it is essential to its mission. Europe is called today to be a teacher of true progress, to spread a globalization of solidarity without marginalization, to take part in building a just and lasting peace within it and in the world, to bring together different cultural traditions to give life to a humanism in which the respect for rights, solidarity and creativity will allow every man and woman to fulfil his/her noblest aspirations.

But the EU Constitution did not include any mention of Judaeo-Christian heritage in its final form in 2004; it also did not pass the required approval in individual national voting. The EU later adopted the Treaty of Lisbon instead as the document for the functioning of the EU, including how a member state exits (Brexit) the treaty.

*Arranged in a circlet, a dozen stars represent the constellation of Corona and are seen as a crown in paintings of the Virgin Mary as Stella Maris. The circle of twelve stars also signifies royalty and implicitly structures of government (as in a Round Table). The flag's designer, Arsène Heitz, has acknowledged that Revelation 12:1 ["And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars"] inspired him. He stated that the idea for the stars came to him from the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Rue du Bac in Paris and the Miraculous Medal.

If you read French, there's more information about the Cause for the Beatification and Canonization of Venerable Robert Schuman at the Institut Saint Benoit.

Venerable Robert Schuman, pray for us!

Pope Saint John Paul II, pray for us!

Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): Robert Schuman as the Deputy for Moselle in France in 1929.

Saint Thomas More and the Princes in the Tower: New Evidence?

Last December, Channel 5 in the UK broadcast a documentary on the mystery of the fate of the Princes in the Tower--one of whom was the uncrowned King Edward V--titled Princes in the Tower: A Damning Discovery. 

The BBC History Magazine's December 2024 issue, which I perused in a local chain book/game/gift/toy store, featured an interview with two historians about that "damning discovery". Whom does that discovery damn? Hint: Not Saint Thomas More.

The evidence is that King Edward V's gold chain was handed down by a wealthy London woman in her will -- and that woman was the sister-in-law of Sir James Tyrell, the man Thomas More identified as the organizer of the murder of the Princes in the Tower at King Richard III's command.

Tim Thornton, Professor of History at the University of Huddersfield, found the will and shared his discovery with Jason Watkins and Tracy Borman, an historian and chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces during the documentary. From the BBC History article, Thornton explains his methodology:

One of the key sources we have on the disappearance is a detailed account written around 30 years later by Thomas More. He will be a familiar name to people interested in the Tudor era, and his account is the first that identifies how the deed was done and who was to blame. More claims that two individuals – Miles Forest and John Dighton – carried out the murder for an agent of Richard III called Sir James Tyrrell.

When I began looking at More’s account, I was working against a background of very great scepticism about his story. Many people believed it was a simple exercise in propaganda on behalf of the Tudors – Richard’s enemies who were on the throne at the time. Other people have suggested that More was more interested in literary flair and political philosophy than historical accuracy; he was writing an abstract account of how a country can fall into tyranny.

First, Thornton found a letter from More written while he was on embassy in Bruges and Miles Forest, son of the Miles Forest named above was a messenger, carrying More's letters back to England. Then he found the will of Lady Margaret Capell, widow of Sir William Capell or Capel, bequeathing a chain which had been King Edward V's, which her husband had left to her. (Margaret was a daughter of Sir John Arundell VII of Cornwall by his second wife, Katherine Chideocke or Chiddiock.)

Thornton adds another twist to the story:

It’s also worth noting that the Capells’ lawyer in the 1510s was a man called John More – the father of (you guessed it) Thomas More. So not only have we identified a physical object from the princes that survived in the hands of the sister-in-law of the man that More says organised the murders, but we’ve also established another connection with More himself.

I'd note that we don't have the chain nor do we have any record of the chain to test its provenance; there's some evidence on paper, but nothing concrete. Nevertheless, Tracey Borman expressed careful enthusiasm about the discovery:

As someone who has followed the story of the princes so closely throughout my whole career, I would say that this is undoubtedly the most significant discovery, not just in recent years, but in my entire tenure as a historian. I haven’t heard anything more compelling in this case than Tim’s latest discovery. This is the next chapter and it’s a hugely significant one.

She admits the discovery may strengthen the case against King Richard III, suggesting more evidence that he ordered the princes murdered. 

There's also a BBC News story summarizing the discovery. Other pictures are available at the University of Huddersfield website. And there's an article  (with open access now), "Sir William Capell and A Royal Chain: The Afterlives (and Death) of King Edward V" in History: The Journal of the Historical Association.

A further note: Lady Margaret Capell's will has been described before in a book by Susan E. James, Women's Voices in Tudor Wills, 1485–1603: Authority, Influence and Material (Ashgate, 2015):

The bequest was intended to entail the chain, the Capel bed with anchor badges, and other items to her grandchildren and the Capel family

"his faders cheyne which was younge kyng Edwarde the Vth's. To have the forsaid stuffe and cheyne during his life with reasonable werying upon that condicion that after his decease I will that yt remain and be kept by myn executors to the use of Henry Capell and Edward Capell from one to another, And for default of these two children, I will that my daughter Elizabeth Paulet shal'have the forsaid goodes".

I guess the next link in the mystery would be to find the chain!

Image Credit (Public Domain): The Two Princes Edward and Richard in the Tower, 1483 by Sir John Everett Millais, 1878, part of the Royal Holloway picture collection. Edward V at right wears the garter of the Order of the Garter beneath his left knee.

Chesterton on the "Book of Common Prayer"

Hilaire Belloc commented on Thomas Cranmer's masterpiece of English prose in the Book of Common Prayer as I noted in my review of Mysterium Press's edition of Cranmer last week. Belloc was born and raised in a Catholic family; his friend G.K. Chesterton was a convert to Catholicism after sharing the Anglo-Catholic faith of his wife Frances for years. As an Anglican, Chesterton used the Book of Common Prayer in church services; as a Catholic (after 1928), he looked back on the experience.

The late Father John Hunwicke (+April 30, 2024), a former Anglican minister who converted to Catholicism as a member (and priest) of the Anglican Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, posted some comments from Chesterton about the Book of Common Prayer on his blog. He does not give the source, however, but I wonder if they're from a collection of columns from the Illustrated London News. This post from the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society doesn't give the source either.

From Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment, May 2, 2018:

" ... why has the old Prayer-Book a power like that of great poetry upon the spirit and heart? The reason is much deeper than the mere avoidance of journalese. It might be put in a sentence; it has style, it has tradition; it has religion; it was written by apostate Catholics. It is strong, not in so far as it is the first Protestant book, but in so far as it was the last Catholic book. 

"As it happens, this can be proved in the most practical manner from the actual details of the prose. The most moving passages in the old Anglican Prayer Book are exactly those that are least like the atmosphere of the Anglicans. They are moving, or indeed thrilling, precisely because they say the things which Protestants have long left off saying; and which Catholics still say. Anybody who knows anything of literature knows when a style lifts itself to its loftiest efforts; and in these cases it is always to say strongly what we [Catholics] still endeavour to say, however weakly; but which nobody else ever endeavours to say at all. Let anyone recall for himself the very finest passages in the Book of Common Prayer, and he will soon see that they are concerned specially with spiritual thoughts and themes that now seem strange and terrible; but anyhow, the reverse of common."

Father Hunwicke further commented: More of this tomorrow; it comes from a collection of his pieces published in 1935, the year before he died (he had converted in 1922). When you read my next instalment, you will grow, I suspect, more and embarrassed about .... modern Catholic culture.

Here is the second post and here is the third.

Even though the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (BCP) revised some of the rubrics, etc., much of Cranmer's English prose, including the Litany and the Collects, etc., remained, as this interview about the 1662 BCP notes:

This quality is one that the 1662 BCP preserves from Cranmer’s work more than a century earlier. It reflects the orality of mid-sixteenth century written English. This is also why people notice its strong cadences. It was written for the ear. That’s a great usability advantage because it increases memorability.

So Belloc and Chesterton agreed on the excellence of Cranmer's English prose! ChesterBelloc!

Preview: The 20th Anniversary of the Election of Pope Benedict XVI

If we're remembering the 20th anniversary of Pope Saint John Paul II's death and funeral, it makes sense that we're also remembering the 20th anniversary of the election of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI on April 19, 2005! So that's our next historical anniversary to discuss on the Son Rise Morning Show--and another anniversary Matt Swaim or Anna Mitchell and I will have personal memories of to share, I'm sure. 

On Monday, February 17, we'll discuss this papal anniversary at the top of the second national hour of the Son Rise Morning Show on EWTN, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

Anyone's memories of Pope Saint John Paul II's funeral Mass would surely include Cardinal Ratzinger's homily, in which he offered a meditation of the meaning of Christ's words to Saint Peter after the Resurrection, "Follow me" in the life of the late pope, with its conclusion:

None of us can ever forget how in that last Easter Sunday of his life, the Holy Father, marked by suffering, came once more to the window of the Apostolic Palace and one last time gave his blessing urbi et orbi. We can be sure that our beloved Pope is standing today at the window of the Father’s house, that he sees us and blesses us. Yes, bless us, Holy Father. We entrust your dear soul to the Mother of God, your Mother, who guided you each day and who will guide you now to the eternal glory of her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

As Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Ratzinger then preached an important sermon in St. Peter’s Basilica before the Papal Conclave. As George Weigel would comment later:

During his homily at the Mass pro eligendo Romano Pontifice [for the election of the Roman Pontiff] on April 18, 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger cautioned his fellow-cardinals that John Paul II’s successor would have to deal with an emerging “dictatorship of relativism” throughout the western world: the use of coercive state power to impose an agenda of dramatic moral deconstruction on all of society.

Some Catholic commentators charged that Ratzinger’s warning was so over-the-top that he could never be elected pope. Others thought the formula “dictatorship of relativism” a neat summary of a grave threat to freedom and believed that a man with the courage to call things by their true names would make a fine pontiff.

Professor Tracey Rowland also comments on this homily here. 

It may have seemed unlikely, but a day later Ratzinger was elected pope after only four ballots!

After giving his blessing, Pope Benedict XVI spoke a few words:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
After the great Pope John Paul II, the Cardinals have elected me, a simple and humble labourer in the vineyard of the Lord.
The fact that the Lord knows how to work and to act even with inadequate instruments comforts me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers.
Let us move forward in the joy of the Risen Lord, confident of his unfailing help. The Lord will help us and Mary, his Most Holy Mother, will be on our side. Thank you.

He did not want to be elected pope; he'd wanted to retire for years to read and study and write, but had remained in the Curia to serve Pope John Paul II. Commenting on the Papal Conclave in 2009, "At a certain point, I prayed to God, 'Please don't do this to me,'" he recalled. "Evidently, this time he didn't listen to me." 

Pope Benedict XVI outlined the goals for his pontificate on April 20 in comments after Mass in the Sistine Chapel with the Cardinals of the Conclave. After 20 years, it's fascinating to read what he said to those who'd elected him:

I am preparing to undertake this special ministry, the "Petrine" ministry at the service of the universal Church, with humble abandonment into the hands of God's Providence. I first of all renew my total and confident loyalty to Christ: "In Te, Domine, speravi; non confundar in aeternum!". . . .

Thus, as I prepare myself for the service that is proper to the Successor of Peter, I also wish to confirm my determination to continue to put the Second Vatican Council into practice, following in the footsteps of my Predecessors and in faithful continuity with the 2,000-year tradition of the Church. This very year marks the 40th anniversary of the conclusion of the Council (8 December 1965). As the years have passed, the Conciliar Documents have lost none of their timeliness; indeed, their teachings are proving particularly relevant to the new situation of the Church and the current globalized society.

Then, he began to speak of himself in the third person as the successor of Saint Peter:

With full awareness, therefore, at the beginning of his ministry in the Church of Rome which Peter bathed in his blood, Peter's current Successor takes on as his primary task the duty to work tirelessly to rebuild the full and visible unity of all Christ's followers. This is his ambition, his impelling duty. He is aware that good intentions do not suffice for this. Concrete gestures that enter hearts and stir consciences are essential, inspiring in everyone that inner conversion that is the prerequisite for all ecumenical progress. . . .

The current Successor of Peter is allowing himself to be called in the first person by this requirement and is prepared to do everything in his power to promote the fundamental cause of ecumenism. Following the example of his Predecessors, he is fully determined to encourage every initiative that seems appropriate for promoting contacts and understanding with the representatives of the different Churches and Ecclesial Communities. Indeed, on this occasion he sends them his most cordial greeting in Christ, the one Lord of us all.

The Church of today must revive her awareness of the duty to repropose to the world the voice of the One who said: "I am the light of the world. No follower of mine shall ever walk in darkness; no, he shall possess the light of life" (Jn 8: 12). In carrying out his ministry, the new Pope knows that his task is to make Christ's light shine out before the men and women of today: not his own light, but Christ's.

And then switched back to first person in his concluding remarks:

Mane nobiscum, Domine! Stay with us, Lord! This invocation, which is the principal topic of the Apostolic Letter of John Paul II for the Year of the Eucharist, is the prayer that wells up spontaneously from my heart as I prepare to begin the ministry to which Christ has called me. Like Peter, I too renew to him my unconditional promise of fidelity. I intend to serve him alone, dedicating myself totally to the service of his Church.

To support me in my promise, I call on the motherly intercession of Mary Most Holy, in whose hands I place the present and future of the Church and of myself. May the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and all the Saints also intercede for us.

With these sentiments I impart to you, Venerable Brother Cardinals, to those who are taking part in this rite and to all who are watching it on television and listening to it on the radio, a special, affectionate Blessing.

He made further remarks on April 22 to the departing cardinals. On Sunday the 24th, he received the Pallium and the Fisherman's Ring. On Saturday, May 7, he took possession of the Chair in Saint John Lateran as the Bishop of Rome:

This is the task of all Peter's Successors: to be the guide in the profession of faith in Christ, Son of the living God. The Chair of Rome is above all the Seat of this belief. From high up on this Chair the Bishop of Rome is constantly bound to repeat: Dominus Iesus - "Jesus is Lord", as Paul wrote in his Letters to the Romans (10: 9) and to the Corinthians (I Cor 12: 3). To the Corinthians he stressed: "Even though there are so-called gods in the heavens and on the earth... for us there is one God, the Father... and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom everything was made and through whom we live" (I Cor 8: 5).

The Chair of Peter obliges all who hold it to say, as Peter said during a crisis time among the disciples when so many wanted to leave him: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe; we are convinced that you are God's holy one" (Jn 6: 68 ff.).

The One who sits on the Chair of Peter must remember the Lord's words to Simon Peter at the Last Supper: "...You in turn must strengthen your brothers" (Lk 22: 32). The one who holds the office of the Petrine ministry must be aware that he is a frail and weak human being - just as his own powers are frail and weak - and is constantly in need of purification and conversion.

At his first General Audience on Wednesday, April 27, he explained his choice of papal name:

After the holy death of my Venerable Predecessor John Paul II, the traditional Wednesday General Audiences are resuming today. Thus, we are returning to normality. At this first Meeting, I would like to begin by reflecting on the name that I chose on becoming Bishop of Rome and universal Pastor of the Church. I wanted to be called Benedict XVI in order to create a spiritual bond with Benedict XV, who steered the Church through the period of turmoil caused by the First World War. He was a courageous and authentic prophet of peace and strove with brave courage first of all to avert the tragedy of the war and then to limit its harmful consequences. Treading in his footsteps, I would like to place my ministry at the service of reconciliation and harmony between persons and peoples, since I am profoundly convinced that the great good of peace is first and foremost a gift of God, a precious but unfortunately fragile gift to pray for, safeguard and build up, day after day, with the help of all.

The name "Benedict" also calls to mind the extraordinary figure of the great "Patriarch of Western Monasticism", St Benedict of Norcia, Co-Patron of Europe together with Sts Cyril and Methodius, and the women Saints, Bridget of Sweden, Catherine of Siena and Edith Stein. The gradual expansion of the Benedictine Order that he founded had an enormous influence on the spread of Christianity across the Continent. St Benedict is therefore deeply venerated, also in Germany and particularly in Bavaria, my birthplace; he is a fundamental reference point for European unity and a powerful reminder of the indispensable Christian roots of his culture and civilization.

At the distance of 20 years, we can see how often Pope Benedict XVI expressed his feelings of concern that he would not be able to bear the burdens of this office without the prayers and support of all Catholics and especially without the collegiality and assistance of his brother bishops. I don't think this was false modesty or humility: he knew it was a hard job.

I look forward to remembering these events 20 years ago with my Son Rise Morning Show friends.

And since we're dealing with shared memories, we might also recall the day when Pope Benedict XVI resigned on February 11 (the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes) in 2013:  I was all set to talk to then-host Brian Patrick on the show about Shrovetide, Confession, pancakes and pancake races. Then-producer Matt Swaim emailed me with a change in topic: we would instead discuss Pope Benedict and the English Reformation, highlighting the September 2010 visit to Scotland and England, the establishment of the Anglican Ordinariate, and the beatification of John Henry Newman--all the ways Benedict had tried to heal the wounds of the sixteenth century disruption of the Catholic faith in England.

Saint Valentine, pray for us!

Saints Cyril and Methodius, pray for us!

Image Credit (Used by Permission): Benedict XVI during a canonization mass in 2010.

Book Review: Belloc on Cranmer

Please note that I received a copy of this book, Cranmer by Hilaire Belloc from Mysterium Press, the publisher, in exchange for my review and comments. The book is sold in the USA by Os Justi Press, but is as of this writing Out of Stock! More to come, I presume.

Something important to note about this book: Belloc wrote it based upon the work of Professor Alfred W. Pollard, Thomas Cranmer and The English Reformation. A brief notice dated on the Feast of the Assumption in 1931 at the beginning of the book tells us:

This is not a life of Cranmer: it is but a study of his character and motives, with exposition of, and emphasis upon, his literary genius and its legacy to the Church of England. . . .

Belloc explains that he has based most of the facts he narrates "on the scholarship of Professor Pollard, as must everyone since the publication of his monograph, which treats of Cranmer as a "Hero of the Reformation."

So the facts are Pollard's but the interpretation is Belloc's, I presume. I have not read Professor Pollard's book. Belloc reserved the right to provide some notes "to such few errors as appear in that work and call for correction."

Table of Contents:

1. The Beginning

2. Cambridge

3. The Accidental Entry

4. The Testing

5. The Call

6. The Divorce to Order

7. The First Peril

8. Back to Heel

9. The Bible

10. The Hoodwinking of Henry

11. The Second Peril

12. Cranmer Set Free

13. The Resistance of the English

14. The Third Peril

15. The Ordeal

16. The Fire

One thing about Belloc we can be certain of is that he has definite opinions of the characters in his historical studies! In his analysis of Thomas Cranmer's life and career in service to the Tudors and the Reformation, Belloc is convinced that aside from his great artistry in English prose, Cranmer had few qualities to recommend him. As the publisher's blurb attests: "A timid, furtive, scholar, unduly raised to aid the king’s divorce, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer lived a double life. Under the penalty of public ministry he burned within – forced to put his best years into the system which he yearned in secret to destroy, and to send back to the continent his own unlawful bride." 

He failed as a diplomat for Henry VIII's Great Matter on the Continent when ambassador to the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor, he was wavering in his loyalty to people and causes, and his main goal in life seems, in Belloc's mind, to be protecting himself and surviving. Until the end, perhaps.

Evidences of this survival instinct offered by Belloc: Cranmer did nothing to save John Frith, condemned to being burned alive at the stake for denying the Real Presence (and the doctrine of Purgatory) in 1533, while Cranmer did not believe in the Real Presence (it would not have been convenient to admit it at that time!); Cranmer, anachronistically speaking, threw Anne Boleyn under the bus once it was clear that she was going to be declared guilty and executed (his first peril). At first he protested that he couldn't really believe she would have been so unfaithful to Henry but soon acquiesced to reality. Belloc proposes that when Cranmer visited Anne Boleyn he used a technique--previously used against poor Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent in 1533--of seeming sympathy to extract more information. Belloc says that Anne Boleyn was convinced she'd be released and sent into exile in Antwerp at the end of her interview with Cranmer! Cranmer evaded disaster again when Cromwell fell--writing a letter to Henry VIII again to demonstrate that his fealty was to Henry VIII alone (his second peril).

Belloc emphasizes that even after Cranmer had rejected Catholic doctrine about the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Real Presence of Jesus in Holy Communion, adopting a Zwinglian (not Lutheran) view, while Henry VIII was alive, he celebrated Holy Mass consistently (although if he did not intend what the Church intends, none of those Masses was valid). He also notes that when Cranmer became the Archbishop of Canterbury, he was subservient to Thomas Cromwell, the Vicegerent of the King in Spirituals who took over administration of the Church in England (Cromwell had "supplanted the bishops" Belloc notes on page 109). Cromwell and Cranmer connive to sneak in Tyndale's English translation of Holy Bible against Henry VIII's objections to it, but Belloc wonders about Cranmer's frustration during the last years of Henry's reign as the King would not permit his changes in Catholic Church doctrine and liturgy. 

Once Henry dies, however, like King Hamlet's Ghost ("Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd,/No reckoning made, but sent to my account/With all my imperfections on my head:/O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!") and without a tomb prepared, "Cranmer [Is] Set Free"! Edward Seymour becomes Protector and guardian of the minor, King Edward VI, who is raised as thoroughly Protestant and anti-Catholic. As Belloc notes, Cranmer's main target was the Catholic Mass as a Sacrifice. It must be destroyed and replaced, gradually, given the Common's devotion to it, but irrevocably. He made other changes in prayer and belief, detailed in the 42 Articles of the Church of England in 1553, but these never took effect because of the brevity of Edward's reign.

On pages 184 and 185, while describing Edward VI's Coronation, Belloc explains how Cranmer elevated Edward VI so highly above the Church in authority and power that he was nearly Divine--the Divine Right of Kings. At the same address, Cranmer told the bishops they were no longer the Successors of the Apostles; the sees they'd received from Henry VIII--not from the Vicar of Christ in Rome--were forfeit until assigned to them by the new Vicar of Christ in England, Edward VI. What a prevenient blow to the project of the Tractarian Movement centuries later!

When it comes to the 1549/1552 Book of Common Prayer, however much Belloc regrets the liturgical and doctrinal changes Cranmer made, he admits there's "a quality of literary beauty, of excellence in English prose, unsurpassed in anything before or since his time." After listing all Cranmer's bad qualities (hypocrisy, timer-serving, cowardice, timidity) and good qualities (suavity, courtesy, kindness, etc), Belloc praises one special talent: "He was a master of the Word, he possessed the secret of magic. He had been granted power in that which is perhaps the highest medium we know of expression among men, English at its highest." (pp. 198-199) Belloc highlights the Litany, the Collects, the prefaces and other prayers as treasures of England.

Finally, the illness and decline of young king Edward VI, and the plan of Duke of Northumberland to thwart Henry VIII's will and plan for succession to bring Lady Jane Grey to the throne after the former's death, bring about Cranmer's third peril. If the Princess Mary, a devout Catholic comes to the throne, all his work to change the religion of England would be lost, so he goes along with the plot.

Northumberland, Paget, Grey, and others did not account for the loyalty of the people to the rightful heir--nor with Henry Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel (Belloc presumes) warning Mary of her arrest. They should have had her in custody before Edward died. As Belloc notes, however, even after Mary in declared rightful queen and begins her reign, she did not take immediate revenge--not until the Wyatt Rebellion. Then the executions (for those already found guilty of treason) and trials for heresy began.

In the last two chapters, "The Ordeal" and "The Fire", Belloc narrates the story of those heresy trials and of Cranmer writing his recantations of his denials of Catholic doctrine and practice, that is, of the heresies he had refused to adjure at trial, all in the hopes of saving his life after Ridley and Latimer and he had been found guilty of heresy, and after the other two bishops had been burned at the stake in Oxford. 

He seems to have repented with his pen most heartily. But when no pardon was given, he turned against all that repentance and went eagerly to the stake, running down Brasenose Lane, standing at the stake, repenting for his recantation, and holding his right hand that wrote that recantation "steadfastly into the flame. . . . till flame and smoke hid all. This is the way in which Cranmer died." (p. 255)

Belloc ends the volume there without commentary or analysis, which I find interesting. He lets Cranmer's last words and dying gestures speak for themselves. Otherwise, throughout the volume Belloc has provided the reader with thorough analysis of the all the controversies, plots, and events of Cranmer's involvement in Henry VIII's Great Matter, the rise and fall of queens, consorts, courtiers, and bishops, plots and negotiations, politics and policy, all in his own masterful style. 

I certainly hope that Mysterium Press will be able to publish more of Belloc's biographies of English monarchs, etc., and that Os Justi will offer them in the USA.

Image Credit (Public Domain): Cranmer burning at the stake from Foxe's Book of Martyrs.

Preview: The 20th Anniversaries of Pope Saint John Paul II's Death and Funeral

Among the ten or so anniversaries I have listed that we could discuss on the Son Rise Morning Show in this series, the death of Pope Saint John Paul II's on April 2, 2005 is the most recent. I remember praying for him in his last days and the MSM coverage of his death that Saturday night before Divine Mercy Sunday, the broadcast of his funeral--and the cries of "Santo Subito" at the end of that Holy Mass on April 8, 2005. 

So on Monday, February 10, we'll discuss this great Millennial Pope's death and funeral at my usual time, at the top of the second national hour of the Son Rise Morning Show on EWTN, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

On September 20, 2005, the Vatican issued its official report on the last days of "the great Pope John Paul II", recounting his worsening condition from March 31 to April 2:

On March 31, shortly after 11 in the morning, while he was in his chapel to celebrate Mass, the Holy Father suffered a severe episode,  which was followed by a spiking of his body temperature. At this point, the AAS (Acta Apostolicae Sedis) account makes it clear, officials of the papal household realized that John Paul II was near death. However, no official announcement was made until that evening. "The explicit wish of the Holy Father to remain at his residence was respected," AAS recounts.

Cardinal Marian Jaworski of Lviv administered the last rites at 7:17. But Pope John Paul remained conscious and composed, and joined in the celebration of Mass on the morning of the next day: April 1. However, the raging fever led to a condition of septic shock and the "complete breakdown of the cardio-vascular system" during that day. That evening, as thousands of young people gathered in St. Peter's Square to pray for the dying Pontiff, John Paul said the words that his spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls reported at that time: "I have searched for you, and now you have come to me, and I thank you."

Early on Saturday, April 2, Pope John Paul was slipping in and out of consciousness, AAS reports. Mass was celebrated at his bedside, and he received the Secretary of State for a final time late in the morning. At about 3:30 in the afternoon, speaking in Polish in a feeble voice, John Paul said, "Let me go to the Father's house." Those were his last words, AAS discloses for the first time.

Early on Saturday evening the Pope lapsed into a coma, and monitors showed a sharp drop in his vital functions. As the Pontiff breathed his last, the first prayers of the feast of Divine Mercy were said at his bedside. At 9:27-- after having run an electrocardiogram for more than 20 minutes, in accordance with the Vatican norms-- Dr. Renato Buzzonetti, the Pope's longtime personal physician, formally declared the Pope dead.

 As I recall the U.S. mainstream secular media reporting on these events, many of the correspondents seemed stunned by the devotion of the young people in Saint Peter's square and the outpouring of devotion to Pope John Paul II in the days and nights after as people lined up to see his body in the Saint Peter's Basilica! And the funeral Mass with the huge crowds there and in Poland where the liturgy was simulcast in a huge field near Krakow where he had often celebrated Mass.

Mark and I watched the broadcast on NBC; George Weigel was one of the commentators and he was thrilled as the cries of "Giovanni Paulo", "Magnus", and "Santo Subito" filled the square. Brian Williams (remember him?) commented that Pope John Paul II had really lived up John Lennon's "Imagine" lyrics: "Imagine no possessions . . ." when the author never did himself. And you might recall that then-Prince Charles postponed his wedding to Camilla so he could represent his mother along with Tony Blair, then Prime Minister, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

Those were incredible days as the scenes from Rome, Krakow, Paris, New York and other cities dominated the news cycle. Of course, there was some criticism of his pontificate but for the most part, the news reports were respectful.

Pope Saint John Paul II, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): "Borne on the shoulders of the Papal gentlemen, the coffin of Pope John Paul II is taken from the altar for the Rite of Interment. Archbishop Piero Marini, then-Master of Pontifical Liturgical Ceremonies, preceded the casket." (Eric Draper, photographer)

Another Builder of "Priest Holes" or "Hides" in England

When I discussed the Stuart-era Catholic Martyrs with Deal Hudson on his Church and Culture program, we highlighted Saint Nicholas Owen, the Jesuit lay-brother, tortured to death by English authorities in the wake of the Gunpowder Plot. We spoke of him as the great engineer and builder of numerous "priest holes" or "hides" in Recusant houses in England. 

There was, however, another great engineer and builder of these hiding places, Father Richard Holtby, SJ (1553–1640). He worked mostly in Yorkshire and the 1885-1900 Dictionary of National Biography has a quite a detailed entry about his life and mission to Catholics in the Recusant era, written by Thompson Cooper (who was an expert in the Mason-Gurney system of shorthand!). 

After studying at both Cambridge and Oxford (where he studied with the future martyr Alexander Briant at Hart Hall*) Holtby left England and was received into the Catholic Church after arriving at Douai to study at the English College in August 1577:

He was ordained priest at Cambrai 29 March 1578. A year later he was sent to English mission, and he laboured with great zeal in the northern counties. In 1581 Father Edmund Campion [Saint!] paid him a visit, and while staying in his house composed the famous ‘Decem Rationes,’ and urged him to join the Society of Jesus. Holtby accordingly went in the following spring to Paris, where he was admitted into the society in 1583, and he passed his novitiate at Verdun. After spending four years in the study of theology in the university of Pont-à-Mousson, he was appointed about 1587 superior of the Scotch College there. The father-general, Aquaviva, sent him back to England in 1589. In 1603 he was professed of the four vows. After the execution of Father Henry Garnett he was appointed superior or vice-prefect of the English mission, and during his three years’ tenure of that office he appears to have resided in London.

After some controversy with the archpriest George Blackwell on whether or not Catholics could take James I's new Oath of Allegiance, he left London. Here are some of Cooper's comments on Father Holtby's priest holes and other efforts:

He was a skillful mechanic, and constructed many cleverly contrived hiding-places for the persecuted priests. He could also ply the needle to make vestments and altar-cloths. . . . He died in the Durham district on 14 May (O.S.) 1640. ‘Of no other English Jesuit,’ remarks Dr. Jessopp, ‘can it be said that he exercised his vocation in England for upwards of fifty years, and that, too, with extraordinary effect and ceaseless activity, without once being thrown into gaol or once falling into the hands of pursuivants; and quietly died in is bed in extreme old age.’

Father Holtby also contributed to the history of recusancy and persecution in England, according to Cooper:

His works are: ‘On the Persecution in the North,’ 1594 manuscript at Stonyhurst College, printed by Morris in ‘Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers,’ iii. 103-219, and partially printed in Dodd’s 'Church History,’ ed. Tierney, iii. 75-148. and ‘Account of Three Martyrs’ (namely Page, Lambton, and Waterson, priests), manuscript at Stonyhurst College; printed by Morris in ‘Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers,’ iii. 220-30.

How remarkable that he was able to serve the Catholics of England for so many years, especially with his connections to martyrs like Saint Alexander Briant and Saint Edmund Campion!

*Hart Hall, now Hertford College, was for a time a refuge for recusant Catholics under Philip Randall, its principal from 1549 to 1556. John Donne was a student there (when he was Catholic!) in 1583/4.

Randall died on March 11, 1599 and was buried at St. Peter-in-the-East, now the Library of St. Edmund Hall.

Book Review: "The Gospel in Gerard Manley Hopkins"

Please note that I bought this book at Eighth Day Books. 

I have been reading and studying the life and poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins since I was a undergraduate English major, and before. This may be one of the very best books about him that I have ever read. I think the organization of the book facilitates its impact: Ellsberg supports her analysis of Hopkins's life and works with his poetry and prose in each part. My review comments are included in the outline of the Contents below.

From the publisher, Plough Books:

Gerard Manley Hopkins deserves his place among the greatest poets in the English language. He ranks seventh among the most frequently reprinted English-language poets, surpassed only by Shakespeare, Donne, Blake, Dickinson, Yeats, and Wordsworth.

Yet when the English Jesuit priest died of typhoid fever at age forty-four, he considered his life a failure. He never would have suspected that his poems, which would not be published for another twenty-nine years, would eventually change the course of modern poetry and influence such poets as W. H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Geoffrey Hill, and Seamus Heaney. Along with his contemporaries Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, Hopkins revolutionized poetic language.

And yet we love Hopkins not only for his literary genius but for the hard-won faith that finds expression in his verse. Who else has captured the thunderous voice of God and the grandeur of his creation on the written page as Hopkins has?

Seamlessly weaving together selections from Hopkins’s poems, letters, journals, and sermons, Margaret Ellsberg lets the poet tell the story of a life-long struggle with faith that gave birth to some of the best poetry of all time. Even readers who spurn religious language will find in Hopkins a refreshing, liberating way to see God’s hand at work in the world.

Edited with commentary written by Margaret R. Ellsberg

Foreword by Dana Gioia (I was surprised that Gioia did not mention Saint Robert Southwell, SJ or Richard Crashaw as religious poets in his survey of those who preceded Hopkins, who revived the genre)

Contents:

Part I. Incompatible Excellences: An Introduction

*Three Highlights

    --Transubstantiation: when Hopkins discovered this Catholic teaching: that the words spoken during the Canon of the Mass effect the change of bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, it was essential to his faith and his creativity: "never again could language prove merely decorative"

    --Creation: renewed constantly, even as it decays and dies: Hopkins's descriptions and drawings of nature: detailed and beautiful

    --Influence of Blessed Duns Scotus and haecceitas (pp. 12-13):

        " . . . Scotus's special take on the well-worn medieval debate concerning universals and particulars. . . . For Scotus, individual things always resulted from a process he called 'contraction' by which universals contracted down into haecceitas, the "thisness" of particular concrete things. . . . the concept of "selving" [for Hopkins].  . . . His idea of of selving blends with a Victorians taste for precise detail." 

*** One of the best explanations I've read of this essential concept for understanding Hopkins's creative impulses.

Part II. Christ Calls

*Highlights:

    --His conversion from Tractarian Anglicanism to Catholicism in 1866 (five other undergraduates at the time converted too)

    --His connection to Newman at the Birmingham Oratory and his communication to his father and family about his conversion

    --Error on page 19: Nicholas Wiseman was the first Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster appointed by Pope Pius IX in 1850, not Henry Manning, who would succeed him (error repeated in the chronology at the back of the book)

        Poems (1864-1868)

        Letters (1866-1874)

        Journals (1864-1875)

Part III. Reckoning with the Wreck

    --Hopkins joined the Jesuits in 1868 and stopped writing poetry; after the five German nuns died in the wreck because of the Falk Laws in the Kulterkampf, his superior asked him to write something!

    --written in the form of a Pindaric victory ode

        "The Wreck of the Deutschland"

        Letters (1877-1878)          

Part IV. What I Do Is Me

--Because Hopkins (such a brilliant scholar at Balliol) preferred Scotus over Aquinas, his academic career as a Jesuit was stymied

--He was moved around to different missions and seldom achieved measurable success

        Poems (1877-1882)

        Letters (1879-1883)

        Sermons (very Ignatian with composition of place, etc)

            Oxford (at St. Aloysius)

            Bedford Leigh

            Liverpool

        Spiritual Writings

        Retreat Notes

Part V. Wrestling with God

 --Time in Dublin in 1884-1890 at Newman's Dublin University, teaching Latin and Greek, grading exam papers from mostly disappointing students

--Deplorable housing (plumbing) conditions for the Jesuits; Hopkins ill and exhausted

        Poems (1884-1889)

        *the "Terrible Sonnets"

        *"That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection"

        Letters (1884-1890)

        Devotional Writings (1883-1889)

**Ellsberg moderates a debate between those who see a profound conflict between Hopkins's vocation as Catholic (Jesuit) priest and his talent as a poet; from the evidence of his poetry, letters, spiritual and devotional writings, and his sermons, it seems clear to me that he had found great peace with The Holy Trinity and with the faith of the Catholic Church. He never doubted; he had difficulties, as Newman says, but not doubts. His vision of God's Creation, of--to use another idea from Newman--the visible world and the invisible world and his poetic method were both secure. Hopkins would not change the latter even though Coventry Patmore nor others, even his friend Robert Bridges, could understand what he was achieving. 

I don't think that Hopkins had a "struggle with faith" (contrary to the publisher's blurb) as a theological virtue; he believed in God; he believed in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and in the Resurrection; he trusted in the beauty of Creation and God's love. That Faith was the source of his inspiration. Hopkins struggled with--as we all do--life: its disappointments and difficulties, our failures and frustrations, the misunderstandings of others. His poetry reflects how he reconciled life with Faith through his trust in God.

Back matter:

A Chronology

Endnotes

Selected Bibliography

Index of Titles and First Lines

Preview: The 800th Anniversary of Saint Thomas Aquinas's Birth

On Monday, February 3, we'll continue our series on the Son Rise Morning Show marking special anniversaries this year. We just celebrated the feast day of Saint Thomas Aquinas  on January 28--on the 1962 calendar and some Dominican calendars it's on the day of his death on March 7--and Dominicans and the Church are in the midst of a three year jubilee celebration. It began with the 700th anniversary of his canonization (1323 to 2023), continued with the 750th anniversary of this death (1274-2024), and concludes with the 800th anniversary of Thomas Aquinas' birth (1225 to 2025), so it seems appropriate to comment upon that last jubilee celebration.

I'll be on the air at my usual time at the top of the second national hour of the Son Rise Morning Show on EWTN, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

We know the date of his canonization, July 18, 1323, in Avignon by Pope John XXII; we know the date of his death, March 7, 1274 in the Cistercian Fossanova Abbey in Italy as he was en route to the Second Council of Lyon in France; we know the date of the original transfer of his remains from Fossanova to the Church of Jacobins in Toulouse, France, January 28, 1369. 

We don't know the date of his birth! According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "The end of 1225 is usually assigned as the time of his birth." That's helpful?

G.K. Chesterton offers some background on Saint Thomas's birthright, if not his birth date:

Thomas Aquinas, in a strange and rather symbolic manner, sprang out of the very centre of the civilised world of his time; the central knot or coil of the powers then controlling Christendom. He was closely connected with all of them; even with some of them that might well be described as destroying Christendom. The whole religious quarrel, the whole international quarrel, was for him, a family quarrel. He was born in the purple, almost literally on the hem of the imperial purple; for his own cousin was the Holy Roman Emperor. He could have quartered half the kingdoms of Europe on his shield-- if he had not thrown away the shield. He was Italian and French and German and in every way European.

[I cannot help but recall the student blooper reported by Richard Lederer in Anguished English: "Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was very large."] 

To this cosmopolitan comprehensiveness in his inherited position, he afterwards added many things of his own, that made for mutual understanding among the peoples, and gave him something of the character of an ambassador and interpreter. He travelled a great deal; he was not only well known in Paris and the German universities, but he almost certainly visited England; probably he went to Oxford and London; and it has been said that we may be treading in the footsteps of him and his Dominican companions, whenever we go down by the river to the railway-station that still bears the name of Black-friars. [?] But the truth applies to the travels of his mind as well as his body. He studied the literature even of the opponents of Christianity much more carefully and impartially than was then the fashion; he really tried to understand the Arabian Aristotelianism of the Moslems; and wrote a highly humane and reasonable treatise on the problem of the treatment of the Jews. He always attempted to look at everything from the inside; but he was certainly lucky in having been born in the inside of the state system and the high politics of his day.

Because he and his family were so integrated into the power structures of his day, Thomas's choice of vocation as a young man (about 19 years old) was disappointing to his family. While he felt called to Saint Dominic's Order of Preachers, his family wanted him to become the Abbot of Monte Cassino, succeeding his uncle. He'd begun his studies at that Benedictine abbey but then went to study at the university in Naples, where he encountered the Dominican order. 

His brothers captured him as he was on his way to Paris with some friars and he was held in the family castles at Monte San Giovanni and Roccasecca near Aquino for almost two years. His mother Theodora finally relented, and helped him escape and he was lowered in a basket to Dominican friars waiting below. He'd been studying all the time and was ready to continue doing so under the direction of Saint Albert the Great at Paris and Cologne. And of course there's the famous story of his brothers tempting him with a prostitute: he forced her away from him with a burning log and marked the wall with a cross with it, then angels visited him in a vision, promising the virtue of perfect chastity!

Except for the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint John the Baptist we don't celebrate the births of saints as feasts on the Church calendar, but the renown of Saint Thomas Aquinas and his importance to Catholic theology and liturgy (the Feast of Corpus Christi), etc., means that this anniversary is important as it caps off the jubilees the Dominicans and the Church have been celebrating. 

In 2027, by the way, we could highlight the 460th anniversary of his being named a Universal Doctor of the Church in 1567 by Pope Saint Pius V and this year we could also remember that Pope Leo XIII named him the Patron of Catholic schools, universities, and colleges 145 years ago on August 4, 1880!

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us!

Image credits (both Public Domain): top right: Detail of The Apotheosis of Saint Thomas Aquinas by Francisco de Zurbarán, 1631; bottom left: Thomas is girded by angels with a mystical belt of purity after his proof of chastity. Painting by Diego Velázquez.

Preview: Gunpowder and Popish Plot Martyrs on "Church and Culture" with Deal Hudson

Yesterday, I recorded an interview with Deal Hudson for his Church and Culture program on Ave Maria Radio. Last August we talked about four Tudor era English Catholic Martyrs: two from the reign of Henry VIII and two from Elizabeth I's. 

This time we told the stories of four martyrs from the Stuart Dynasty: two from the reign of James I in the aftermath of the real Gunpowder Plot and two from Charles II's reign during the fake Popish Plot.

Background for the Gunpowder Plot ("Remember, remember, the Fifth of November"):

Catholic conspirators, frustrated by King James I not keeping his promise to be lenient with Catholics once he succeeded Elizabeth I, did plot to murder the king, his family, his Court, and members of Parliament by blowing up Parliament when they were all gathered there. They conspired to commit murder and terrorism to place James's Protestant daughter on the throne and through an uprising, take over the government and change England's state religion. It was outlandish, stupid, and sinful. 

The plot was discovered because one conspirator thought of a relative who would be in attendance and warned him not to go. Authorities searched the undercroft of the House of Lords and captured Guy Fawkes when he checked on the gunpowder, depicted above in an 1823 painting by Henry Perronet Briggs. 

He was tortured; other conspirators killed in a raid; others captured, tried, and executed as traitors (hanged, drawn, and quartered). Father Henry Garnet, SJ was also questioned and tried and executed: controversy about how much he knew about the Gunpowder Plot, how strenuously he advised against it, etc., has meant that he has not been beatified or canonized as a martyr. As I wrote in my review of Jessie Child's God's Traitors (the story of Vaux family's efforts to remain Catholic in Elizabethan and Stuart England) several years ago:

Anne Vaux feared that young men she knew well like Robert Catesby were plotting something horrible and she wanted Father Henry Garnet to tell them not to go forward with their plans. Did Father Garnet do enough? did he ask the right questions? respond forcefully enough to tell Catesby and Digby et al not to pursue whatever plot they had in mind? Those were questions he asked himself while in prison and even during his questioning. Although he did not instigate the plot or encourage the plot--he knew [something] about the Gunpowder Plot and he did not report it to the authorities, citing the seal of the confessional.

The aftermath of the Plot meant that Catholics were more restricted than before under the Popish Recusants Act of 1605 (finally repealed in 1829) with higher fines and a new oath, etc. And the government continued to search for any Jesuit priests in the country who might--because of their connection to Father Henry Garnet--have been involved in the conspiracy. Antonia Fraser wrote a book about Gunpowder Plot.

The two martyrs who suffered because of the fallout from the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 that I selected were Saint Thomas Garnet, SJ, and Saint Nicholas Owen, a Jesuit lay brother and the great designer and builder of Priest Holes in Catholic homes. They were arrested after hiding in Priest Holes in Hindlip Hall which Owen had built! 

Background for the Popish Plot:

Titus Oates, one of the perjurers behind the Popish Plot was not trustworthy: the Church of England didn't trust him. But once he started talking about a plot he'd discovered among Catholics to assassinate Charles II, who'd returned to the throne in 1660 after the English Civil War and Interregnum, and replace him with his brother James, the Duke of York, a Catholic convert, he found a willing audience.

He and William Bedloe developed the story for the plot, convinced authorities of its reality, and testified against several Jesuits and other Catholics. The way the Courts tried defendants--namely, the assumption that the accused was guilty and had to prove he wasn't-- and the established prejudice against Catholics (especially Jesuits; remember the Gunpowder Plot) meant it took a long time for the judges to catch on to the web of lies Oates and Bedloe got tangled up in. 

After numerous trials and executions Oates' perjury was finally recognized and he was convicted of sedition, imprisoned, and fined. During the reign of James II, he was convicted of perjury, imprisoned for life, and pilloried. William and Mary pardoned him and he died in obscurity in 1705. The most recent book about the Popish Plot is from Yale University Press, Hoax: The Popish Plot that Never Was by Victor Slater.

The two martyrs I selected for the Popish Plot or the Titus Oates Conspiracy of 1678/1679, are Blessed Richard Langhorne, a lay lawyer accused of aiding the conspirators and Saint John Kemble, an 80-year old priest who'd served in the west of England and Wales for 54 years. 

The hour-long segment will air during Church and Culture on Saturday, February 1 (3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Eastern/2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Central) and Sunday, February 2 (7:00 to 9:00 a.m. Eastern/6:00 to 8:00 a.m. Central). Listen live here. When the program has been added to the archive for Church and Culture I'll update my Facebook page.