Blessed Thomas Atkinson and His Rosary

Blessed Thomas Atkinson had returned to England as a missionary priest in 1588 and was executed in York on March 11, 1616 (four hundred years ago today) when he was 70 years old: 

Thomas Atkinson, of Yorkshire, England, studied for the priesthood in Reims, France, where he was subsequently ordained in 1588 around the age of forty-two. Returning to England, he traveled about on foot to minister to his fellow Catholics, becoming a special friend of the poor among them. It was only after breaking a leg that the indefatigable priest resorted to traveling by horse instead. His labors in the service of persecuted Catholics became so well known that, to escape arrest by the Protestant authorities, he could only journey safely by night. In the end, he was betrayed by an informer and captured while staying at the home of a Catholic family. Then about seventy, Father Atkinson was led to prison together with the couple that had hosted him, and their children. The “incriminating evidence” found by the government officials in the priest’s possession consisted of Rosary beads and the text of an indulgence. Condemned to death by drawing and quartering, Father Atkinson is said to have faced death “with wonderful patience, courage, and constancy, and signs of great comfort.”

He was beatified by Blessed John Paul II in 1987 as one of the Eight-five Martyrs of England and Wales. Obviously, as he had served his Catholic flock for decades, quietly and unnoticed, he was no danger to the state. But he was captured during a period of James I's reign when fear of Catholicism was heightened and the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbott, was much in favor of persecuting Catholics.

Four Hundred Years: The Pontifical Scots College

The Pontificial Scots College is celebrating its four hundredth anniversary of priestly formation this week, according to various news releases. Although the college was founded in 1600 to educate Catholics from Scotland who could not study their faith at home, it was in 1616 that it began preparing young men for the priesthood and missionary work in Presbyterian Scotland:

The Pontifical Scots College in Rome was founded on 5th December 1600 by Pope Clement VIII. It provided an education for young Scottish Catholic men who, due to the laws against Catholics, could not receive a Catholic education at home.

Inspired by St John Ogilvie, the sixteen students studying at the College vowed in 1616 to return to Scotland as priests, one year after the Saint’s martyrdom in Glasgow.

During the centuries that followed, the college sent a steady supply of priests to Scotland, being closed only when the French invaded Rome in 1798 and again during the Second World War. For two hundred years Jesuits and Italian secular clergy directed the College, but since 1800 the Rectors have all been from within the ranks of the secular clergy in Scotland.

St. John Ogilvie was hung and drawn in Glasgow on March 10, 1615. The Jesuit Institute has a page with various media, including holy cards, about St. John Ogilvie, who was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1976. The Archdiocese of Glasgow has been marking the 400th anniversary year of St. John Ogilvie's martyrdom since March 10, 2015, and is wrapping the year with vespers last night and Mass on the feast today. The Jesuits in Britain website summarizes his life and martyrdom:

St John Ogilvie was born in Scotland in 1579, the son of Sir Walter Ogilvie of Drum-na-Keith, Banffshire, and raised a Calvinist. He was sent abroad to further his education and was converted to the Catholic faith.   He entered the Jesuit novitiate in Vienna in 1599 and was ordained in Paris in 1610. After a spell teaching in Rouen, he was allowed to return as a missionary to Scotland where he arrived disguised as a horse dealer in 1613.   Within a year he was betrayed and arrested in Glasgow.  He spent many months in prison under torture defiantly refusing to denounce the pope’s supremacy.   On 10th March 1615 he was tried for high treason, found guilty and executed at Glasgow Cross and his body buried in an unmarked grave.  He was beatified in 1929 and, after a miracle was attributed to his intercession, he was canonised in Rome in 1976.   He is Scotland’s only martyr of the reformation period.