The Fortnight for Freedom: Recusants Yesterday and Today

In the midst of The Fortnight for [Religious] Freedom (which ends tomorrow) came the Supreme Court's decision on so-called "same sex marriage" which has raised more concerns for religious freedom than even the ACA and its contraception mandate. The dissenting judges and the deciding judges both addressed the issue. Justice Kennedy said:

Finally, it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines,may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned. The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered. The same is true of those who oppose same-sex marriage for other reasons.

So don't worry--religious people can still advocate and teach and privately live their religious beliefs about marriage--even though they are bigoted and mistaken. Chief Justice John Roberts notes the problems with Kennedy's emphasis:

Federal courts are blunt instruments when it comes to creating rights. They have constitutional power only to resolve concrete cases or controversies; they do not have the flexibility of legislatures to address concerns of parties not before the court or to anticipate problems that may arise from the exercise of a new right. Today’s decision, for example, creates serious questions about religious liberty. Many good and decent people oppose same-sex marriage as a tenet of faith, and their freedom to exercise religion is—unlike the right imagined by the majority—actually spelled out in the Constitution. Amdt. 1.

Respect for sincere religious conviction has led voters and legislators in every State that has adopted same-sex marriage democratically to include accommodations for religious practice. The majority’s decision imposing samesex marriage cannot, of course, create any such accommodations. The majority graciously suggests that religious believers may continue to “advocate” and “teach” their views of marriage. Ante, at 27. The First Amendment guarantees, however, the freedom to “exercise” religion. Ominously, that is not a word the majority uses.

Hard questions arise when people of faith exercise religion in ways that may be seen to conflict with the new right to same-sex marriage—when, for example, a religious college provides married student housing only to opposite-sex married couples, or a religious adoption agency declines to place children with same-sex married couples. Indeed, the Solicitor General candidly acknowledged that the tax exemptions of some religious institutions would be in question if they opposed same-sex marriage. See Tr. of Oral Arg. on Question 1, at 36–38. There is little doubt that these and similar questions will soon be before this Court. Unfortunately, people of faith can take no comfort in the treatment they receive from the majority today.

Perhaps the most discouraging aspect of today’s decision is the extent to which the majority feels compelled to sully those on the other side of the debate. The majority offers a cursory assurance that it does not intend to disparage people who, as a matter of conscience, cannot accept samesex marriage. Ante, at 19. That disclaimer is hard to square with the very next sentence, in which the majority explains that “the necessary consequence” of laws codifying the traditional definition of marriage is to “demea[n] or stigmatiz[e]” same-sex couples. Ante, at 19. The majority reiterates such characterizations over and over. By the majority’s account, Americans who did nothing more than follow the understanding of marriage that has existed for our entire history—in particular, the tens of millions of people who voted to reaffirm their States’ enduring definition of marriage—have acted to “lock . . . out,” “disparage,” “disrespect and subordinate,” and inflict “[d]ignitary wounds” upon their gay and lesbian neighbors. Ante, at 17, 19, 22, 25. These apparent assaults on the character of fairminded people will have an effect, in society and in court. See post, at 6–7 (ALITO, J., dissenting). Moreover, they are entirely gratuitous. It is one thing for the majority to conclude that the Constitution protects a right to same-sex marriage; it is something else to portray everyone who does not share the majority’s “better informed understanding” as bigoted. Ante, at 19.

This post also includes the comments made by Thomas, Alito, and Scalia, noting that Kennedy et al have effectively narrowed the meaning of religious liberty to "advocating" and "teaching" a faith's doctrine on marriage. After two thousand years in the Catholic Church, for example, of consistent teaching that marriage is between one man and one woman, and is as indissoluble as Jesus's love for His Church, that doctrine is now bigoted and "mean", and anyone who upholds it is a mean bigot. To quote Alito:

Today’s decision usurps the constitutional right of the people to decide whether to keep or alter the traditional understanding of marriage. The decision will also have other important consequences.

It will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy. In the course of its opinion, the majority compares traditional marriage laws to laws that denied equal treatment for African-Americans and women. E.g., ante, at 11–13. The implications of this analogy will be exploited by those who are determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent.

Perhaps recognizing how its reasoning may be used, the majority attempts, toward the end of its opinion, to reassure those who oppose same-sex marriage that their rights of conscience will be protected. Ante, at 26–27. We will soon see whether this proves to be true. I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools.

And it is already happening: there is already a call for ending tax exemptions for churches that do not accept the Supreme Court's new definition of marriage. Dissent will not be tolerated. A newspaper won't allow any letters arguing against so-called "same sex marriage" and then had the temerity to exult at the ruling and say: "And we are all more free as a result." Except for those people not free to express their opinions in the The Patriot-News, of course, if they defend traditional marriage, because those viewpoints are now considered the same as "racist, sexist or anti-Semitic" comments--if you're not for so-called "same sex marriage", you are against it; if you are for traditional marriage (one man and one woman) you are against so-called "same sex marriage". Either way, you are a mean bigot. The editor was shocked that readers thought he was squelching discussion, even though he was. Somehow he could not express himself clearly: if what he wanted to limit was insulting speech or personal attacks, he did not say that and their policy still does not say that.

The Federal Government of the United States of America, through the Supreme Court and with the support of the President of the United States (who hopes others will evolve as he has), has issued new acts of Uniformity and Supremacy. 

As Father Robert Barron reminds us, we've been here before:

In the earliest centuries of the Church’s life, thousands—including Peter, Paul, Agnes, Cecelia, Clement, Felicity, Perpetua, Sebastian, Lawrence, and Cyprian—were brutally put to death by officials of the Roman Empire. In the fourth century, St. Ambrose was opposed by the emperor Theodosius; in the eleventh century, Pope Gregory VII locked horns with the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV; in the nineteenth century, Bismarck waged a Kulturkampf against the Catholic Church in Germany, and in the twentieth century, more martyrs gave their lives for the faith than in all the previous centuries combined.

And George Weigel reminds us of the Catholic recusants of England--who would not swear to the religious doctrine proclaimed and enforced by Elizabeth I and her Parliaments:

In sum, we are already in new penal times, with the penalties in question being cultural reprobation (through public shaming and bullying) as well as legal sanction. The latter is going to intensify after Obergefell v. Hodges, and so, almost certainly, will the former. The cultural forces that believe themselves vindicated by Obergefell may take a few days to celebrate; but magnanimity in argument has not been their strong suit to date, and there is little reason to think that magnanimity in victory is on their future agenda. So what are today’s recusant Catholics (and other recusants) to do?

Weigel cites St. Edmund Campion as an example:

A healthy dose of Campion’s wit and intelligence will serve recusant Catholics and other recusant Americans well in a post-Obergefell United States. For the argument over marriage was lost in the culture before it was lost in the law. And therefore the only answer to this new moment of irrationality, and the various forms of persecution that will be part of it, is to convert the culture, calling it back to its Biblical and philosophical roots — and doing so by displaying, as Campion did, the nobility of lives lived in solidarity with others, speaking the truth persuasively and with wit out of concern for their happiness and salvation. It won’t be the rack and the Tyburn Tree, this time around. But legal pressure, ridicule, bullying, social ostracism, and professional disadvantage are going to be as likely after Obergefell as they were ubiquitous before.

And then he recalls Blessed John Henry Newman:

Some 300 years after Campion, and 44 years after Catholic emancipation, another saintly English scholar, John Henry Newman, spoke at the opening of a seminary in Olcott, offering this caution to the faculty and students gathered for the dedication ceremonies: "The trials which lie before us are such as would appall and make dizzy such courageous hearts as St. Athanasius, St. Gregory I, or St. Gregory VII. And they would confess that, dark as the prospect of their own day was to them severally, ours has a darkness different in kind from any that has been before it." Why? Because the new “darkness,” grounded in a religious indifference that would inevitably turn into anti-religious hostility, would be one in which Catholics would once again be “regarded as . . . the enemies . . . of civil liberty and of national progress.”

To bring the warning even more up-to-date, Pope Benedict XVI referred to Tyburn Tree during the vigil before John Henry Newman's beatification in September 2010:

Newman’s life also teaches us that passion for the truth, intellectual honesty and genuine conversion are costly. The truth that sets us free cannot be kept to ourselves; it calls for testimony, it begs to be heard, and in the end its convincing power comes from itself and not from the human eloquence or arguments in which it may be couched. Not far from here, at Tyburn, great numbers of our brothers and sisters died for the faith; the witness of their fidelity to the end was ever more powerful than the inspired words that so many of them spoke before surrendering everything to the Lord. In our own time, the price to be paid for fidelity to the Gospel is no longer being hanged, drawn and quartered but it often involves being dismissed out of hand, ridiculed or parodied. And yet, the Church cannot withdraw from the task of proclaiming Christ and his Gospel as saving truth, the source of our ultimate happiness as individuals and as the foundation of a just and humane society.

The recusant martyrs of England, whom I have been highlighting during this Fortnight for Freedom really suffered--as did those who did everything but suffer execution through fines, imprisonment, and exile, thwarted hopes and contributions to their native culture. Some of the martyrs were brutally tortured, racked, chained, pressed to death, flogged, and hung, drawn, and quartered. We have seen nothing yet approaching their sufferings here.

The Fortnight for Freedom: St. John the Baptist

Today is the Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist.

Only two other birthdays are celebrated on the Church Calendar: The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise, saints and blesseds are remembered on the dates of the deaths (or perhaps the "translation" of their remains or some other important date--not usually their birth date). The saint's day of earthly death is the beginning of their eternal life in Heaven. This site offers the reason for honoring St. John the Baptist on his birthday--because he was cleansed from Original Sin, baptized as it were, when Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth and he leapt in his mother's womb when the unborn Jesus in Mary's womb came near him. St. Augustine pointed to this understanding of St. John the Baptist's holy birth.

(St. John the Baptist has another feast, that of his Beheading, on August 29, and a friend of mine pointed out that the Orthodox churches honor St. John the Baptist even more often: September 23 —Conception of St. John the Forerunner; January 7 — The Synaxis of St. John the Forerunner (immediately after Epiphany); February 24 — First and Second Finding of the Head of St. John the Forerunner; May 25 — Third Finding of the Head of St. John the Forerunner; June 24 — Nativity of St. John the Forerunner, and August 29 — The Beheading of St. John the Forerunner!)

Devotion to St. John the Baptist is ancient in the Church and his Nativity was celebrated with a vigil and with bonfires on the feast. This site points out a pilgrimage site in Norfolk before the English Reformation demonstrating devotion to the saint as a martyr, as it had a replica of the head of St. John the Baptist. The image was destroyed at some point during the Reformation, of course.

Another mark of devotion to St. John the Baptist in England was the presence of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John in England, suppressed by Henry VIII. He had Sir Thomas Dingley and Sir Adrian Fortescue executed under Attainder in July of 1539 and seized the order's property in England:

The Order’s lands throughout Western Europe were managed by communities of its members called Commanderies, which were gathered into provinces called Grand Priories. In Britain the estates were administered from a Commandery at Clerkenwell, London, from about 1140. This became a Priory in 1185, with responsibility for other Commanderies that had been set up in Scotland and Wales as well as throughout England. Ireland became a separate Priory.

In the 1140s the Priory in Clerkenwell was set up as the English headquarters of the Order. When King Henry VIII split from the Catholic Church and established a new Anglican Church, the Order in England was dissolved and all its lands and wealth were seized by the Crown. The Order was briefly restored by Henry’s Catholic daughter, Queen Mary, who granted it a Royal Charter. However, on the accession of her Protestant sister, Queen Elizabeth I, the Order in England was dissolved for good.

One may, today, however visit the Museum of the Order of St. John in London today.

In an ultimate example of the State dictating to the Church its worship and practice, the provisions of Elizabeth I's Act of Uniformity of 1559 all took effect on this feast:

Where at the death of our late sovereign lord King Edward VI there remained one uniform order of common service and prayer, and of the administration of sacraments, rites, and ceremonies in the Church of England, which was set forth in one book, intitled: The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of Sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies in the Church of England; authorized by Act of Parliament holden in the fifth and sixth years of our said late sovereign lord King Edward VI, intitled: An Act for the uniformity of common prayer, and administration of the sacraments; the which was repealed and taken away by Act of Parliament in the first year of the reign of our late sovereign lady Queen Mary, to the great decay of the due honour of God, and discomfort to the professors of the truth of Christ's religion:

Be it therefore enacted by the authority of this present Parliament, that the said statute of repeal, and everything therein contained, only concerning the said book, and the service, administration of sacraments, rites, and ceremonies contained or appointed in or by the said book, shall be void and of none effect, from and after the feast of the Nativity of St. John Baptist next coming; and that the said book, with the order of service, and of the administration of sacraments, rites, and ceremonies, with the alterations and additions therein added and appointed by this statute, shall stand and be, from and after the said feast of the Nativity of St. John Baptist, in full force and effect, according to the tenor and effect of this statute; anything in the aforesaid statute of repeal to the contrary notwithstanding.

And further be it enacted by the queen's highness, with the assent of the Lords (sic) and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by authority of the same, that all and singular ministers in any cathedral or parish church, or other place within this realm of England, Wales, and the marches of the same, or other the queen's dominions, shall from and after the feast of the Nativity of St. John Baptist next coming be bounden to say and use the Matins, Evensong, celebration of the Lord's Supper and administration of each of the sacraments, and all their common and open prayer, in such order and form as is mentioned in the said book, so authorized by Parliament in the said fifth and sixth years of the reign of King Edward VI, with one alteration or addition of certain lessons to be used on every Sunday in the year, and the form of the Litany altered and corrected, and two sentences only added in the delivery of the sacrament to the communicants, and none other or otherwise.

The Act of Uniformity also set out the penalties for those who refused to use The Book of Common Prayer and for those who refused to attend Church of England services. It made the celebration of the Catholic Mass, which Elizabeth I's father Henry VIII had attended up to three times a day, illegal. This is an obvious overreach--in our terms today--by the secular state over the Church in matters of worship and doctrine, and a clear violation of the freedoms of the Church guaranteed by the Magna Carta. Only one bishop, an elderly prelate, accepted the Elizabethan Acts of religious settlement--that's quite a turnaround from all the bishops save one (St. John Fisher) accepting Henry's Supremacy, etc. 

The illustration is Murillo's painting of St. John the Baptist as a child. 

The Nativity of St. John the Baptist and Elizabeth I's 1559 Act of Uniformity

Today is the Solemnity of the Birth of St. John the Baptist. Only two other birthdays are celebrated on the Church Calendar: The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise, saints and blessed are remembered on the dates of the deaths (or perhaps the "translation" of their remains or some other important date--not usually their birthdate). The saint's day of earthly death is the beginning of their eternal life in Heaven. This site offers the reason for honoring St. John the Baptist on his birhday--because he was cleansed from Original Sin, baptised as it were, when Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth and he leapt in his mother's womb when the unborn Jesus in Mary's womb came near him. St. Augustine pointed to this understanding of St. John the Baptist's holy birth.

(St. John the Baptist has another feast, that of his Beheading, on August 29, and a friend of mine pointed out that the Orthodox churches honor St. John the Baptist even more often: September 23 —Conception of St. John the Forerunner; January 7 — The Synaxis of St. John the Forerunner; February 24 — First and Second Finding of the Head of St. John the Forerunner; May 25 — Third Finding of the Head of St. John the Forerunner; June 24 — Nativity of St. John the Forerunner, and August 29 — The Beheading of St. John the Forerunner!)

Devotion to St. John the Baptist is ancient in the Church and his Nativity was celebrated with a vigil and with bonfires on the feast. This site points out a pilgrimage site in Norfolk before the English Reformation demonstrating devotion to the saint as a martyr, as it had a replica of the head of St. John the Baptist. The image was destroyed at some point during the Reformation, of course.

The provisions of Elizabeth I's Act of Uniformity of 1559 all took effect on this feast:

Where at the death of our late sovereign lord King Edward VI there remained one uniform order of common service and prayer, and of the administration of sacraments, rites, and ceremonies in the Church of England, which was set forth in one book, intituled: The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of Sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies in the Church of England; authorized by Act of Parliament holden in the fifth and sixth years of our said late sovereign lord King Edward VI, intituled: An Act for the uniformity of common prayer, and administration of the sacraments; the which was repealed and taken away by Act of Parliament in the  first year of the reign of our late sovereign lady Queen Mary, to the great decay of the due honour of God, and discomfort to the professors of the truth of Christ's religion:

Be it therefore enacted by the authority of this present Parliament, that the said statute of repeal, and everything therein contained, only concerning the said book, and the service, administration of sacraments, rites, and ceremonies contained or appointed in or by the said book, shall be void and of none effect, from and after the feast of the Nativity of St. John Baptist next coming; and that the said book, with the order of service, and of the administration of sacraments, rites, and ceremonies, with the alterations and additions therein added and appointed by this statute, shall stand and be, from and after the said feast of the Nativity of St. John Baptist, in full force and effect, according to the tenor and effect of this statute; anything in the aforesaid statute of repeal to the contrary notwithstanding.

St. John the Baptist, the Forerunner, Prophet and Martyr, pray for us!

In Wichita, Kansas tonight, at Blessed Sacrament Church, Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Liturgy of the Roman Rite will be celebrated at 19:00 hours! (7:00 p.m.)

Image credit: (public domain) Birth of St John the Baptist by Artemisia Gentileschi c. 1635

Elizabeth I's Other Tutor

Among the Tudor tutors, I've read about John Cheke and Roger Ascham, but BBC History Magazine introduces another tutor of Elizabeth I--and he's one who might have influenced her religious beliefs:

Elizabeth's Faithful Tutor

Simon Adams and David Scott Gehring explain how the Virgin Queen's little-known teacher may have influenced the religious policies of her reign

Elizabeth I enjoys the reputation of being the best-educated of British queens and, as a result, her schooling has been the subject of much discussion.

Her most famous tutor was the Cambridge academic Roger Ascham, who has left the only account of what she studied. However, Ascham’s time with her was brief, from mid-1548 until the beginning of 1550. He was preceded by his pupil and friend, William Grindal, who taught Elizabeth from 1545 until he died of the plague in January 1548.

Grindal and Ascham taught the future queen Latin and Greek, but they were not her only tutors. Giovanni Battista Castiglione (who later became a groom of her Privy Chamber) taught her Italian, and Jean Belmain taught her French, as he did her brother, Edward VI.

The received account of Elizabeth’s education will now have to be completely revised, for she had another tutor in the classical languages, a man who actually served longer than either Grindal or Ascham. He was Johannes Spithovius (John Spithoff), also known as Monasteriensis, from his probable place of birth, somewhere near Münster in north-western Germany.

Spithovius was initially a pupil of the Lutheran reformer, Philip Melanchthon, but he matriculated at the University of Copenhagen in 1542 and was appointed Professor Paedigogicus in 1545. He came to England in 1549 with recommendations from Melanchthon and others to Archbishop Cranmer. Cranmer, together with the Strasbourg reformer Martin Bucer (who had just taken refuge in England himself), recommended Spithovius to the princess in the summer of 1549. . . .

Spithovius records a conversation in February with Sir Thomas Smith over forms of worship. According to a much-debated policy memorandum, the ‘Device for the Alteration of Religion’, Smith was to be appointed the chair of a committee to review the order of worship in advance of the parliament of 1559.

He was also authorised to consult with other learned men. Since no evidence that the committee had actually met has been discovered, scholarly opinion has generally dismissed the proposal as abortive. Thanks to Spithovius’s report it can now be established that the committee did exist.

The fact that it was still at work after the parliament opened may explain why the crown did not introduce the bills for the religious legislation at the beginning of the session.

Elizabeth held Spithovius in considerable regard and his possible influence on her opens up a range of new questions. Though few records of his period as tutor (1549–53) have been left to us, we know that this was a psychologically formative chapter in Elizabeth’s life. And, although we have no clear idea of what he taught her, his presence in her household is further evidence of the cosmopolitan nature of her education.

He certainly increased her understanding of the Lutheran world and she may have gained a reading knowledge of German from him. In view of the complexities of the 1559 religious settlement, it is no less interesting that Smith asked Spithovius about Danish and Saxon practice regarding religious ceremonies.

Without question, whatever the ultimate explanation of the settlement, it was not made in ignorance of Lutheran opinion.

For a limited time you may access the article (and download a .pdf) in The English Historical Review on which this article is based.

The curious aspect of this discovery of Spithovius' influence on the Elizabethan settlement is that his influence was Lutheran--while the Thirty-Nine Articles reflect a greater Reformed or Calvinist influence, at least in soteriology. In fact, the article concludes on a less than conclusive note--except when it comes to Catholicism:

Spithovius’ membership of Elizabeth’s Edwardian household, together with his conversation with Smith, will undoubtedly revive the question of Elizabeth the quasi-Lutheran. Certainly, her direct exposure to Germanic Lutheranism was—at the minimum—far more extensive than heretofore thought. Yet, whatever Smith’s wider review of the prayer-book involved, it was not embodied in the settlement. Any conclusions about the conversation must also take into account the two important statements Elizabeth made on the future settlement in February: the evasive response to Vergerio on the Confession of Augsburg and the Lenten sermons. The choice of the Lenten preachers was not a casual one, and Spithovius was not alone in seeing the sermons, delivered before Elizabeth and a large public audience, as a declaration that no compromise with Catholicism was intended.

St. John the Baptist and The English Reformation

Today is the Solemnity of the Birth of St. John the Baptist. Only two other birthdays are celebrated on the Church Calendar: The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise, saints and blessed are remembered on the dates of the deaths (or perhaps the "translation" of their remains or some other important date--not usually their birthdate). The saint's day of earthly death is the beginning of their eternal life in Heaven. This site offers the reason for honoring St. John the Baptist on his birhday--because he was cleansed from Original Sin, baptised as it were, when Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth and he leapt in his mother's womb when the unborn Jesus in Mary's womb came near him. St. Augustine pointed to this understanding of St. John the Baptist's holy birth. (St. John the Baptist has another feast, that of his Beheading, on August 29, and a friend of mine pointed out that the Orthodox churches honor St. John the Baptist even more often: September 23 —Conception of St. John the Forerunner; January 7 — The Synaxis of St. John the Forerunner; February 24 — First and Second Finding of the Head of St. John the Forerunner; May 25 — Third Finding of the Head of St. John the Forerunner; June 24 — Nativity of St. John the Forerunner, and August 29 — The Beheading of St. John the Forerunner!)

Devotion to St. John the Baptist is ancient in the Church and his Nativity was celebrated with a vigil and with bonfires on the feast. This site points out a pilgrimage site in Norfolk before the English Reformation demonstrating devotion to the saint as a martyr, as it had a replica of the head of St. John the Baptist. The image was destroyed at some point during the Reformation, of course.

Another mark of devotion to St. John the Baptist in England was the presence of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John in England, suppressed by Henry VIII. He had Sir Thomas Dingley and Sir Adrian Fortescue executed under Attainder in July of 1539 and seized the order's property in England:

The Order in Britain

From the beginning the Order grew rapidly and was given land throughout Western Europe. Its estates were managed by small groups of brothers and sisters who lived in communities that provided resources to the headquarters of the Order. These communities were gradually gathered into provinces called Priories or Grand Priories.

In Britain these estates were first administered from one of the communities (called a Commandery) at Clerkenwell, London from about 1140 and the original Priory Church was built at the same time.

However, over time, the extensive amount of land the Order owned in Britain meant that it needed to be managed by several different Commanderies. In 1185 the Commandery at Clerkenwell became a Priory, and had responsibility for Commanderies that had been set up in Scotland and Wales as well as the ones in England. Ireland became a separate Priory.

Henry VIII

In 1540 the Order was suppressed by King Henry VIII, as part of the process known as the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It was restored and incorporated by Queen Mary I in 1557, but when Queen Elizabeth I again confiscated all its estates in 1559 she did so without annulling its incorporation. These acts by English Sovereigns did not directly affect the Order in Scotland, but the influence of the Reformation ended the Order’s activities there in about 1564. The Order in Britain then fell into abeyance.

One may, today, however visit the Museum of the Order of St. John in London today.

The provisions of Elizabeth I's Act of Uniformity of 1559 all took effect on this feast:

Where at the death of our late sovereign lord King Edward VI there remained one uniform order of common service and prayer, and of the administration of sacraments, rites, and ceremonies in the Church of England, which was set forth in one book, intituled: The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of Sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies in the Church of England; authorized by Act of Parliament holden in the fifth and sixth years of our said late sovereign lord King Edward VI, intituled: An Act for the uniformity of common prayer, and administration of the sacraments; the which was repealed and taken away by Act of Parliament in the [Page 459] first year of the reign of our late sovereign lady Queen Mary, to the great decay of the due honour of God, and discomfort to the professors of the truth of Christ's religion:

Be it therefore enacted by the authority of this present Parliament, that the said statute of repeal, and everything therein contained, only concerning the said book, and the service, administration of sacraments, rites, and ceremonies contained or appointed in or by the said book, shall be void and of none effect, from and after the feast of the Nativity of St. John Baptist next coming; and that the said book, with the order of service, and of the administration of sacraments, rites, and ceremonies, with the alterations and additions therein added and appointed by this statute, shall stand and be, from and after the said feast of the Nativity of St. John Baptist, in full force and effect, according to the tenor and effect of this statute; anything in the aforesaid statute of repeal to the contrary notwithstanding.

Finally, the Catholic Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Norwich, pictured above (source is Wikipedia commons) was built after Catholic Emancipation and Restoration the nineteenth century, and dedicated as the Cathedral in 1976:

The Cathedral of St John the Baptist is a fine example of the great Victorian Gothic Revival. Designed by George Gilbert Scott Junior, it was the generous gift to the Catholics of Norwich of Henry Fitzalan Howard as a thank-offering for his first marriage to Lady Flora Abney-Hastings. Duke Henry, following an approach by Canon Richard Duckett, commissioned the building and took a keen interest in every aspect of its design from its initial conception in the early 1870s to its completion and dedication in 1910. Until 1976 when it became the Cathedral of the new Diocese of East Anglia, this great church was believed to be the largest parish church in England.

Now a Grade 1 listed building, the Cathedral of St John the Baptist is one of Norwich’s iconic buildings, rising above the city skyline. Its external grandeur and magnificent interior, especially the fine stonework and beautiful stained glass make it well worth a visit for those interested in architectural history; they will also find an inspiring and tranquil place of prayer.

St. John the Baptist, the Forerunner, Prophet and Martyr, pray for us!

Another Act of Uniformity, August 24, 1662

After the Interregnum and with the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in England, Parliament also restored the Church of England, a thoroughly Anglican church allowing no variations. Under Parliament and Cromwell in the years before the Church of England had been dismantled and proscribed while various denominations and some radicals had taken over.

With the new Clarendon Code of legislation, the Book of Common Prayer was proclaimed again as the one guide to worship in this Act of Uniformity. The Episcopacy was also restored, and episcopal ordination required. The Book of Common Prayer adopted by Elizabeth I was to be used by all members of the Church of England. The Test Act of James I was revived and strengthened, requiring office holders to take communion in the Church of England and swear the Oath of Supremacy. As Winston Churchill notes in his A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, there was no spirit of compromise in the Cavalier Parliament.

About 2,000 ministers from the Interregnum church left upon this law's passage. Later acts in the Clarendon Code, the Conventicle Act of 1664 and the Five Mile Act of 1665 marginalized those former ministers further preventing them from gathering congregations in private residences or coming within five miles of towns or their former livings or teaching in schools. And the Test Act already referenced meant they would not be able to attend the University of Cambridge or the University of Oxford, as they had to swear that oath upon graduation.

It was in the Restoration period that the Authorized Version of the Holy Bible, the King James translation truly became popular, because it symbolized the stability of the Stuart Dynasty and the hierarchy of the Church of England. In rejecting the Interregnum period and restoring the monarchy Parliament and the Church of England sent firm signals that dissent and Puritanism especially were not welcomed or tolerated.