This Morning: Saints Barlow and Roe on the Son Rise Morning Show

Just a reminder that I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central today to continue our series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales. Anna Mitchell and I will discuss two more Benedictine martyrs among that number, Saint Ambrose Barlow and Saint Alban Roe.

Please listen live here on the Sacred Heart Radio website; the podcast will be archived here; the segment will be repeated on Friday next week during the EWTN hour of the Son Rise Morning Show (from 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. Eastern/5:00 to 6:00 a.m. Central).

Barlow and Roe, and Saint John Roberts, whom we discussed late in September, were included along with six other Benedictine martyrs, Mark Barkworth, William Scott, Philip Powell, Thomas Tunstall, George Gervase, and Thomas Pickering among the 136 beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929. They were all active missionaries in England while having professed monastic vows in Benedictine houses on the Continent. The Benedictines who suffered under Henry VIII had previously sworn the Oaths required of them, but their refusal to surrender their abbeys as Thomas Cromwell and Henry demanded in late 1539, showed their ultimate loyalty to their monastic vocations and the Church.

In addition to the nine Benedictine martyrs beatified in 1929, there are several other martyrs from that order beginning with Henry VIII's reign with the Dissolution of the Monasteries and ending in Charles II's during the Popish Plot. According to my categorization of the different causes of martyrdom during and after the Long English Reformation, Benedictines suffered as Supremacy Martyrs during the reign of Henry VIII, as Recusant Martyrs during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I, and one as a Popish Plot martyr during the reign of Charles II.

The Benedictine Supremacy martyrs are:
Blessed John Beche, Abbot of Colchester, 1 December 1539
Blessed Hugh Faringdon, Abbot of Reading, 15 November 1539 
Blessed Richard Whiting, Abbot of Glastonbury, 15 November 1539
Blessed John Rugg, 15 November 1539
Blessed John Thorne, 15 November 1539 

Blessed Roger James, 15 November 1539
(All beatified on 13 May 1895 by Pope Leo XIII)

The Benedictine Recusant martyrs are:
St. John Roberts, 10 December 1610

St. Ambrose Barlow, 10 September 1641

St. Alban Bartholomew Roe, 21 January 1642
Blessed Mark Barkworth, 27 February 1601
Blessed George Gervase, 11 April 1608
Blessed Maurus Scott, 30 May 1612
Blessed Thomas Tunstall, 13 July 1616
Blessed Philip Powell (sometimes spelled Philip Powel), 30 June 1646

The Benedictine Popish Plot martyr is:
Blessed Thomas Pickering, 9 May 1679 (Benedictine lay brother) 

Saint Ambrose Barlow, pray for us!

Saint Alban Roe, pray for us!

Saint Benedict, pray for us!