This Morning: New Series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales

As promised, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show with Anna Mitchell at about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central to begin our new series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, leading up to the 50th anniversary of their canonization on October 25, 1970.

Please listen live here; the podcast will be archived here.

It's interesting to note that on the Vatican website, the homily Pope Paul VI preached at the Mass and Canonization is mostly in Italian, with an introduction in English welcoming Cardinal John Carmel Heenan, Archbishop of Westminster, other Catholic bishops and priest, and laity from England. He also welcomed the official representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Reverend Doctor Harry Smythe and other Anglicans. But when he discusses the reasons for the canonization and presents some of the martyrs individually, that portion of the homily is only in Italian. There is a translation into Portuguese, if that's helpful to you.

He concluded with another portion in English:

May the blood of these Martyrs be able to heal the great wound inflicted upon God’s Church by reason of the separation of the Anglican Church from the Catholic Church. Is it not one--these Martyrs say to us--the Church founded by Christ? Is not this their witness? Their devotion to their nation gives us the assurance that on the day when--God willing--the unity of the faith and of Christian life is restored, no offence will be inflicted on the honour and sovereignty of a great country such as England. There will be no seeking to lessen the legitimate prestige and the worthy patrimony of piety and usage proper to the Anglican Church when the Roman Catholic Church--this humble “Servant of the Servants of God”--is able to embrace her ever beloved Sister in the one authentic communion of the family of Christ: a communion of origin and of faith, a communion of priesthood and of rule, a communion of the Saints in the freedom and love of the Spirit of Jesus.

Perhaps We shall have to go on, waiting and watching in prayer, in order to deserve that blessed day. But already We are strengthened in this hope by the heavenly friendship of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales who are canonized today. Amen.

The New York Times covered the event and noted the emphasis on ecumenism and inter-faith harmony, but also noting that some Catholics unhappy with the changes in the liturgy protested the event.

On Friday this week, I'll offer you a preview of the first three martyrs we'll discuss, three of the protomartyrs of the English Reformation under Henry VIII:

John Houghton, Carthusian Prior, London Charterhouse
Augustine Webster, Carthusian Prior, Epworth Charterhouse (Isle of Axholme, Lincolnshire)
Robert Lawrence, Carthusian Prior, Beauvale Charterhouse, Nottinghamshire

New Series on the SRMS: 50 years of the 40 Martyrs

Before Matt Swaim, Anna Mitchell and I began the series on Lenten and Easter reflections based on St. John Henry Newman's sermons, we had been doing a series on the great anniversaries this year: events, births, deaths, etc, from the Battle of Thermopylae to the birth of Karol Wojtyla (Pope St. John Paul II).

One of the anniversaries to mark this year is October 25, 1970, the 50th anniversary of the canonization of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales by Pope St. Paul VI. So we are starting a new series on the Son Rise Morning Show on Monday, June 8 (at the usual time, 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern). Each Monday morning, we will highlight two (or three) martyrs, concluding on Monday, October 26 the day after the anniversary.

Please listen live here; the podcast will be archived here.

To start us off, on Monday, June 8, I'll talk to Anna about the time and the context of the canonizations in 1970, 35 years after St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More were canonized by Pope Pius XI--eleven of these 40 martyrs had been beatified with Fisher and More by Pope Pope Leo XIII in 1886 (84 years before); 29 more of these 40 martyrs had been beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929 (41 years before).

So why did Pope Paul VI canonize these 40 martyrs in 1970? Why were there some who thought the timing inopportune?

For answers, we turn to this article from the weekly English edition of L'Osservatore Romano on October 29, 1970, preserved for us in the EWTN library.

To examine the second question first: Pope Paul VI and Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had met in Rome and issued The Common Declaration by Pope Paul VI and the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Michael Ramsey on March 24, 1966. They agreed to enter into a dialogue, seeking unity:

In willing obedience to the command of Christ who bade His disciples love one another, they declare that, with His help, they wish to leave in the hands of the God of mercy all that in the past has been opposed to this precept of charity, and that they make their own the mind of the Apostle which he expressed in these words: ‘Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus’ (Phil 3:13-14).

They affirm their desire that all those Christians who belong to these two Communions may be animated by these same sentiments of respect, esteem and fraternal love, and in order to help these develop to the full, they intend to inaugurate between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion a serious dialogue which, founded on the Gospels and on the ancient common traditions, may lead to that unity in truth, for which Christ prayed.

The dialogue should include not only theological matters such as Scripture, Tradition and Liturgy, but also matters of practical difficulty felt on either side. His Holiness the Pope and His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury are, indeed, aware that serious obstacles stand in the way of a restoration of complete communion of faith and sacramental life; nevertheless, they are of one mind in their determination to promote responsible contacts between their Communions in all those spheres of Church life where collaboration is likely to lead to a greater understanding and a deeper charity, and to strive in common to find solutions for all the great problems that face those who believe in Christ in the world of today. . . .

As the L'Observatore Romano article notes, the canonization of these 40 Martyrs seemed to contradict the quotation from Saint Paul's Letter to the Philippians ("Forgetting those things which are behind"), and Dr. Ramsey opined that it was not timely, ecumenically speaking:

In more recent times—November 1969—the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Ramsey, had expressed his apprehension that this Canonization might rekindle animosity and polemics detriment to the ecumenical spirit that has characterized the efforts of the Churches recently. But the reaction of the press, lay, Anglican and Catholic, showed clearly that this concern—though shared by some Anglicans and Catholics—did not correspond to the view of the vast majority. Many people, in fact, both Anglicans and Catholics, were aware of the fact that, right from the beginning of the re-opening of the Cause, the policy of its Promoters had been characterized by an extremely serene and ecumenical note; what is more, they realized the positive repercussions it offers just in this field if it is presented in this very spirit.

In fact, public opinion seemed to accord with the postulator's view:

The vast majority of people understood all this. The most authoritative voice in this sense was that of the British Council of Churches, which made a public declaration on the matter on December 17th, 1969. Not only does it recognize the importance for the Catholic Church to venerate its Martyrs, to whom the survival of the Catholic Church in England and Wales is essentially due, but it also expressed satisfaction that the various Christian denominations are united today in recognizing the tradition of the Martyrs as a common element from which we must all draw strength disregarding denominational frontiers.

As to why the cause of the English martyrs was revived so many years after the previous beatifications and canonizations Fr. Paolo Molinari, SJ the postulator of the cause explained:

In still more recent times, the Hierarchy of England and Wales, conscious of the deep devotion to the martyrs who on different occasions had been declared blessed by the apostolic See, and aware that this devotion was addressed especially to some of the most popular of them was induced by the requests of the faithful and the multiplicity of favours obtained, to promote the canonization not of the whole host of these martyrs, but of a limited group of them. Right from the beginning of the negotiations, the Canonization Cause of these Martyrs was entrusted by the Hierarchy of England and Wales to Fr. Paolo Molinari, Postulator General of the Society of Jesus and President of the College of Postulators. He in turn nominated as Assistant Postulators Father Philip Caraman and James Walsh of the English Province of the Society.

Furthermore, there were miracles attributed to the intercession of the martyrs:

Even before the rehearing of the Cause, many reports of favours and apparently miraculous cures attributed to the intercession of our Blessed Martyrs, had come to the knowledge of the Catholic Hierarchy of England and Wales, which hastened to inform the competent Roman Authorities.

Catholics in England had been encouraged to honor the martyrs and to seek their prayers:

As a result of the intensification of the devotion of the faithful and their prayers, a good many events took place which looked like miracles. Sufficient data were collected about them to induce the Archbishop of Westminster, then Cardinal William Godfrey, to send a description of 24 seemingly miraculous cases to the Sacred Congregation.

The most striking of these and of the others that continued to be notified to the Postulation were first examined with special care by doctors of high repute. On the basis of their answers, two cases were chosen and the usual Apostolic Proceedings were instituted, and the acts were sent to the Sacred Congregation of Rites in Rome.

So on May 18, 1970, Pope Paul VI announced the canonization of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales:

"We greatly rejoice that unanimously you have asked that these blessed Martyrs of England and Wales be canonized; this is also our desire. It is our intention to enroll them among the saints and to declare them worthy of the honours that the Church attributes to those holy persons who have obtained their heavenly reward. With God's help, we will do this on the twenty-fifth day of October of this year in the Vatican Basilica".

The 40 Martyrs are, in the chronological order in which we'll discuss them on the Son Rise Morning Show (unless otherwise noted, they are priests; unless otherwise noted, they are seminary, non-order priests):

From the reign of Henry VIII:

John Houghton, Carthusian Prior, London Charterhouse
Augustine Webster, Carthusian Prior, Epworth Charterhouse (Isle of Axholme, Lincolnshire)
Robert Lawrence, Carthusian Prior, Beauvale Charterhouse, Nottinghamshire
Richard Reynolds, Briggitine Priest of Syon Abbey
John Stone, Augustinian Canon of Canterbury Abbey

From the reign of Elizabeth I:

Cuthbert Mayne
Ralph Sherwin
Edmund Campion, SJ
Alexander Briant, SJ
John Payne
Luke Kirby
Richard Gwyn, layman*
Margaret Clitherow
Margaret Ward
Swithun Wells, layman
Eustace White
Polydore Plasden
Edmund Gennings
John Boste
Philip Howard, layman
Robert Southwell, SJ
Henry Walpole, SJ
John Jones (Griffith), Franciscan*
John Rigby, layman
Anne Line

During the reign of James I:

Nicholas Owen, Jesuit lay-brother
Thomas Garnet, SJ
John Roberts, OSB*
John Almond

During the reign of Charles I and/or the Civil War/Interregnum period:

Edmund Arrowsmith, SJ
Ambrose Barlow, OSB
Alban Roe, OSB
Henry Morse, SJ

During the reign of Charles II:

John Southworth

The Popish Plot Martyrs during the reign of Charles II:

Philip Evans, SJ*
David Lewis, SJ*
John Wall, Franciscan
John Kemble
John Lloyd*
John Plessington

*The six Welsh martyrs are:

Richard Gwyn, layman
John Jones (Griffith), Franciscan
John Roberts, OSB
Philip Evans, SJ
Davis Lewis, SJ
John Lloyd

Holy Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us!

Book Review: "Mary's Bodily Assumption"

At the Eighth Day Institute Florovsky-Newman Week in June, the topic of the two Marian Doctrines proclaimed infallibly by Popes Pius IX and XII came up in the context of the discussion of authority in the Catholic Church. Pope Pius IX proclaimed the infallible doctrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary's Immaculate Conception in 1854 before the definition of Papal Infallibility in 1870. Pope Pius XII exercised papal infallibility in making a doctrinal definition "ex cathedra" for the first and only time since the First Vatican Council in 1950. In both instances, the pious popes conferred with Catholic bishops around the world--not at an Ecumenical Council--to determine if these doctrines about the Mother of God should be defined and proclaimed. Therefore Popes Pius IX and XII spoke as Blessed John Henry Newman summarized it when explaining the definition of Papal Infallibility to William Ewart Gladstone in 1875:

He speaks ex cathedrâ, or infallibly, when he speaks, first, as the Universal Teacher; secondly, in the name and with the authority of the Apostles; thirdly, on a point of faith or morals; fourthly, with the purpose of binding every member of the Church to accept and believe his decision.

I decided to read more about the doctrine of the Assumption--because of a comment one of the other attendees made, that this definition was easier to accept than that of the Immaculate Conception-- and found (at Eighth Day Books) Matthew Levering's book from the University of Notre Dame Press:

In Mary’s Bodily Assumption, Matthew Levering presents a contemporary explanation and defense of the Catholic doctrine of Mary’s bodily Assumption. He asks: How does the Church justify a doctrine that does not have explicit biblical or first-century historical evidence to support it? With the goal of exploring this question more deeply, he divides his discussion into two sections, one historical and the other systematic.

Levering’s historical section aims to retrieve the rich Mariological doctrine of the mid-twentieth century. He introduces the development of Mariology in Catholic Magisterial documents, focusing on Pope Pius XII’s encyclical Munificentissimus Deus of 1950, in which the bodily Assumption of Mary was dogmatically defined, and two later Magisterial documents, Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium and Pope John Paul II’s Redemptoris Mater. Levering addresses the work of the neo-scholastic theologians Joseph Duhr, Aloïs Janssens, and Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange before turning to the great theologians of the nouvelle théologie—Karl Rahner, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Louis Bouyer, Joseph Ratzinger—and their emphasis on biblical typology. Using John Henry Newman as a guide, Levering organizes his systematic section by the three pillars of the doctrine on which Mary’s Assumption rests: biblical typology, the Church as authoritative interpreter of divine revelation under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and the fittingness of Mary’s Assumption in relation to the other mysteries of faith.

Levering’s ecumenical contribution is a significant engagement with Protestant biblical scholars and theologians; it is also a reclamation of Mariology as a central topic in Catholic theology.

The actual text of the book is 152 pages, the notes comprise 71 pages, and the bibliography 35, plus an index. I have not read all of the notes, which are substantial.

I appreciated Levering's method of exposition as outlined in the summary above. He limits his discussion to the 20th century, describing the teaching of the Catholic Church on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the different theological schools and how they explored the meaning this teaching--their speculative theology--and how in the case of Karl Rahner it led to correction by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Not having read any of Joseph Ratzinger's speculative theology before, Levering's description of his work on the Assumption surprised me.

His exploration of typological interpretation of the Holy Bible as practiced by three Protestant theologians, Richard B. Hays, Peter Ens, and Peter Leithart, seemed to balance exposition of their thoughts and his reaction to their limitations of biblical interpretation by the historical-critical method fairly.

What I appreciated even more was Levering's references to two of Blessed John Henry Newman's Discourses to Mixed Congregations, "The Glories of Mary for the Sake of Her Son" and "The Fitness of the Glories of Mary", although I was surprised that he did not also include Newman's thoughts on Mary as the New Eve from the Letter to Pusey. Nevertheless, the last two chapters present an excellent argument for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary based first on "The Authority of the Church as Interpreter of Revelation" (Chapter 5) and then on "The Fittingness of Mary's Assumption in God's Economy of Salvation" (Chapter 6).

In Chapter 5, Levering begins with the views of the Lutheran Jaroslav Pelikan (who later--eight years before his death in 2006--became an Orthodox Christian/member of the Orthodox Church in America) that Pope Pius XII had committed "A Papal Usurpation of Authority". Then Levering, led by Newman, explores themes of the Church's interpretative authority: Scripture, Community, Doctrine with biblical examples: "Elijah and the Priests of Baal: "I, even I only, am left" and "Jesus Christ and the People of God". Then he looks at the Church as "the pillar and ground of the Truth" in Church, Liturgy, Dogma.

In Chapter 6, Levering looks at the Church's interpretation of major Christian truths and how they support the fitting reality that the Mother of God would be given the privilege of a Bodily Assumption: "Creation and Fall", "The Election of Israel", and "The Incarnation of the Word". Through the story of the Visitation and Mary's great Magnificat, Levering shows that as the Father elected Israel as His special people and nation, He chose Mary to be the Mother of His Son and thus gave her this special privilege. She did not do it herself; He did it for her!

In his Conclusion, Levering admits that his arguments may not convince Protestants that Mary was assumed into Heaven or convince Orthodox that the Catholic Church should have proclaimed her Bodily Assumption as a doctrine, but he does hope that he has presented 20th and 21st century Catholic on this doctrine cogently. The late, great Monsignor William Carr always told us at the Newman Center that Mary's Assumption was the great sign for us of the victory over Death that Jesus Christ has won for us. As she represents the Church in Heaven, she represents our hope for eternal life with the Holy Trinity. Levering echoes this: "Each August 15, then, the Church liturgically celebrates the wondrous truth that, through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, Mary has become the first to receive the promise that we are to be "heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ . . . (Romans 8:17)"

Highly recommended!! For more on Newman and the Blessed Virgin Mary, see this from The International Centre of Newman Friends.

St. Augustine of Canterbury and Ecumenical Gifts

St. Augustine of Canterbury's Grave in the 

Ruins of the Abbey Church of his Monastery

Image Credit

Since today is the feast of St. Augustine of Canterbury, it seems appropriate to post some comments on the gifts given to the Anglican Archbishops of Canterbury by Pope Paul VI and Pope Francis, noted in this article in The Catholic Herald. When Michael Ramsey visited Pope Paul VI at the Vatican in 1966, Pope Paul gave him a gift of a ring from his own finger:

Many Anglo-Catholics inferred that the ring was the Pope’s way of tacitly repudiating Pope Leo XIII’s papal bull Apostolicae Curae, which declared Anglican orders “absolutely null and utterly void”. Whatever Paul VI meant by it, it was a dramatic gesture of the kind of recognition of Christian brotherhood that was described by Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, from 1964. The two men issued a common declaration, and an official Anglican-Catholic dialogue was born. At a celebration in Rome in 2016 to mark the 50th anniversary of the event, Pope Francis gave Archbishop Justin Welby a replica of the crozier of St Gregory the Great, who commissioned Augustine, later the first Archbishop of Canterbury, to re-Christianise Britain in 595.

Gift-giving has become expected. But ecumenism between Catholics and Anglicans has not succeeded in the way Ramsey and his generation originally imagined.

According to this article, Ramsey was quite moved by the gesture and wore the ring for the rest of his life. Subsequent Archbishops of Canterbury have worn the ring when meeting with the Pope. The article includes a picture of the ring.

The author of The Catholic Herald article is a former Episcopalian priest, Andrew Petiprin. He cites a comment that Ramsey made about Newman that surprised me:

For those still committed to the success of dialogue in bringing about corporate reconciliation, however, individual defections from the Anglican Communion to the Catholic Church are deemed unfortunate. By the end of his life, Ramsey went so far as to tell American seminarians about the “final tragedy” of John Henry Newman’s conversion in 1845. He regarded Newman as having made a selfish, pre-ecumenical mistake in leaving behind the English Church of his baptism and ordination. Strangely, Ramsey imagined the way for Newman to solve the dilemma of not feeling Catholic enough was to double down on being more Anglican. “He had not quite got historic Anglicanism into his bones,” he said, “and he came to it rather as one who is fulfilling deep personal needs of his own.”

As I've been preparing for my Newman presentation at the Eighth Day Institute's Florovsky-Newman week the first week of June, I'd reread Henry Cardinal Manning's opinion of Newman, which flatly contradicts Ramsey:

"I see much danger of an English Catholicism of which Newman is the highest type. It is the old Anglican, patristic, literary, Oxford tone transplanted into the Church." (Ian Ker, John Henry Newman: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 609).

Newman became a Catholic, not for some selfish reason, but because he believed the Catholic Church was the one, true fold of Christ, the Church Jesus had established. Like St. Augustine of Canterbury, he was a Catholic because, as Andrew Petiprin's book title says, Truth Matters.

St. Augustine of Canterbury, pray for us!

The Maccabbean and Lubeck Martyrs

This past Sunday, the first reading at Mass was from the seventh chapter of the Second Book of Maccabees, telling the story of four of the seven brothers and their mother who were tortured and martyred in the presence of the Seleucid King Antiochus IV Epiphanes:

It happened that seven brothers with their mother were arrested and tortured with whips and scourges by the king, to force them to eat pork in violation of God's law. One of the brothers, speaking for the others, said: “What do you expect to achieve by questioning us? We are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors.”

At the point of death he said: “You accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up to live again forever. It is for his laws that we are dying.”

After him the third suffered their cruel sport. He put out his tongue at once when told to do so, and bravely held out his hands, as he spoke these noble words: “It was from Heaven that I received these; for the sake of his laws I disdain them; from him I hope to receive them again.” Even the king and his attendants marveled at the young man's courage, because he regarded his sufferings as nothing.

After he had died, they tortured and maltreated the fourth brother in the same way.  When he was near death, he said, “It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the hope God gives of being raised up by him; but for you, there will be no resurrection to life.” 

Father Curtis Hecker, the Parochial Vicar at Blessed Sacrament commented in his homily that the martyrs are challenging. The martyrs of the past and the present shame us in a way: he imagined one of us comfortable American Catholics standing before Judgment when the next person in line died a martyr for Jesus. As Father Pinckaers noted in The Spirituality of Martyrdom, even if we don't face the opportunity or occasion of martyrdom, we as Christians have to live the spirituality of martyrdom. We have to live the faith as much as be willing to die for it, each bearing our cross and following Jesus.

Today is the feast of the Blessed Lubeck Martyrs, three Catholic priests martyred during World War II, along with a Lutheran pastor, because they opposed the Nazi regime. According to the website dedicated to them:

On the 10th of November 1943 four clergymen, the Lutheran Pastor Karl Friedrich Stellbrink and the Catholic priests Hermann Lange, Eduard Müller and Johannes Prassek were executed in the Hamburg Prison Holstenglacis. They took a firm stand in public and among the parishioners entrusted to their care against the crimes of the Nazi regime. In witnessing with their lives and by dying they conquered the seperating (sic) devide (sic) of denominations and became shining examples of real ecumenism.

As this website notes, they "were guillotined in a Hamburg prison in November 1943. The Nazi regime found them guilty of 'defeatism, malice, favouring the enemy and listening to enemy broadcasts.'"

Pope Benedict XVI spoke about them when their beatification had been approved:

Many Christians in Germany are turning their full attention to the imminent celebration of the beatifications of various priests martyred under the Nazi regime. The Beatifications of Georg Häfner in Würzburg, as well as of Johannes Prassek, Hermann Lange and of Eduard Müller in Lübeck, will take place in the coming year. The Evangelical Pastor Karl Friedrich Stellbrink will also be commemorated, together with the Chaplains of Lübeck. The attested friendship of four clerics is an impressive testimony of the ecumenism of prayer and suffering which flourished in various places during the dark period of Nazi terror. We can look to these witnesses as luminous indicators for our common ecumenical journey.

In contemplating these martyrs it appears ever more clearly and as an example that on the basis of their Christian conviction some people are prepared to give their life for their faith, for the right to practise what they believe freely, for freedom of speech, for peace and for human dignity. Today, fortunately, we live in a free and democratic society. Yet, at the same time, we note that many of our contemporaries are not strongly attached to religion, as was the case with these witnesses of faith. One might ask whether there are still Christians today who guarantee their faith without compromises. On the contrary, generally many people show an inclination for more permissive religious concepts, also for themselves.

The painting of the mother with her seven dead sons is by Antonio Ciseri, Martyrdom of the Seven Maccabees (1863) (public domain)

The Martyrs of Otranto and Today

You may have seen this symbol used as a facebook profile picture--it is the Arabic letter Nun standing for Nazarene, used as a negative epithet against Christians in Iraq. It was drawn, in red, on the walls of Christian homes, marking the homes for destruction and the Christians for their choice: convert, die, or leave. At least they were allowed to leave. The Martyrs of Otranto were not given that last option on August 14, 1480, as Dr. Matthew Bunson explains:

On August 14, 1480, a massacre was perpetrated on a hill just outside the city of Otranto, in southern Italy. Eight hundred of the city's male inhabitants were taken to a place called the Hill of Minerva, and, one by one, beheaded in full view of their fellow prisoners. The spot forever after became known as the Hill of the Martyrs.

In medieval warfare, the bloody execution of a city's population was commonplace, but what happened at Otranto was unique. The victims on the Hill of Minerva were put to death not because they were political enemies of a conquering army, nor even because they refused to surrender their city. They died because they refused to convert to Islam. The 800 men of Otranto were martyrs, the first victims of what was fully expected to be the relentless conquest of Italy and then all of Christendom by the armies of the Ottoman Empire. Because of their sacrifice, however, the Ottoman invasion was slowed and Rome was spared the same fate that had befallen Constantinople only 27 years before.

The town of Otranto held out against the Turkish invaders and when they were finally defeated, they faced their choice:

The Pasha Ahmet ordered the men of Otranto, 800 exhausted, beaten, and starved survivors of the battle, to be brought before him. The Pasha informed them that they had one chance to convert to Islam or die. To convince them, he instructed an Italian apostate priest named Giovanni to preach. The former priest called on the men of Otranto to abandon the Christian faith, spurn the Church, and become Muslims. In return, they would be honored by the Pasha and receive many benefits.

One of the men of Otranto, a tailor named Antonio Primaldi (he is also named Antonio Pezzulla in some sources), came forward to speak to the survivors. He called out that he was ready to die for Christ a thousand times. He then added, according to the chronicler Giovanni Laggetto in the Historia della guerra di Otranto del 1480:

My brothers, until today we have fought in defense of our country, to save our lives, and for our lords; now it is time that we fight to save our souls for our Lord, so that having died on the cross for us, it is good that we should die for him, standing firm and constant in the faith, and with this earthly death we shall win eternal life and the glory of martyrs. [author translation]

At this, the men of Otranto cried out with one voice that they too were willing to die a thousand times for Christ. The angry Pasha Ahmed pronounced his sentence: death.

The next morning, August 14, the 800 prisoners were bound together with ropes and led out of the still-smoking battleground of Otranto and up the Hill of Minerva. The victims repeated their pledge to be faithful to Christ, and the Ottomans chose the courageous Antonio Primaldo as the first to be executed.

The old tailor gave one final exhortation to his fellow prisoners and knelt before the executioner. The blade fell and decapitated him, but then, as the chronicler Saverio de Marco claimed in the Compendiosa istoria degli ottocento martini otrantini ("The Brief History of the 800 Martyrs of Otranto"), the headless corpse stood back upright. The body supposedly proved unmovable, so it remained standing for the entire duration of the gruesome executions. Stunned by this apparent miracle, one of the executioners converted on the spot and was immediately killed. The executioners then returned to their horrendous business. The bodies were placed into a mass grave, and the Turks prepared to begin their march up the peninsula toward Rome. Otranto was in ruins, its population gone, its men dead and thrown into a pit, seemingly to be forgotten.

Last year, when Pope Francis canonized the 800 martyrs of Otranto, the mainstream media was in full Pope Benedict vs. Pope Francis mode, and reporters suggested that Pope Francis was risking the possibility of dialogue with the Muslim world and I wrote about it here.

This year, as we celebrate their feast, it's important to note that the Vatican (specifically, The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue) is calling on Muslim leaders to address recent atrocities for the sake of dialogue with the Christian world:

The Vatican called on Muslim leaders to condemn the "barbarity" and "unspeakable criminal acts" of Islamic State militants in Iraq, saying a failure to do so would jeopardize the future of interreligious dialogue.

"The plight of Christians, Yezidis and other religious and ethnic communities that are numeric minorities in Iraq demands a clear and courageous stance on the part of religious leaders, especially Muslims, those engaged in interfaith dialogue and everyone of goodwill," said a statement from the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue released by the Vatican Aug. 12.

"All must be unanimous in condemning unequivocally these crimes and must denounce the invocation of religion to justify them," the statement said. "Otherwise, what credibility will religions, their followers and their leaders have? What credibility would remain to the interreligious dialogue patiently pursued in recent years?"

The document noted that the "majority of Muslim religious and political institutions" have opposed the Islamic State's avowed mission of restoring a caliphate, a sovereign Muslim state under Islamic law, to succeed the Ottoman Caliphate abolished after the founding of modern Turkey in 1923.

The Vatican listed some of the "shameful practices" recently committed by the "jihadists" of the Islamic State, which the U.S. government has classified as a terrorist group. Among the practices cited:

-- "The execrable practice of beheading, crucifixion and hanging of corpses in public places."
-- "The choice imposed on Christians and Yezidis between conversion to Islam, payment of tribute or exodus."
-- "The abduction of girls and women belonging to the Yezidi and Christian communities as war booty."
-- "The imposition of the barbaric practice of infibulation," or female genital mutilation.

"No cause can justify such barbarity and certainly not a religion," the document said.

"Religious leaders also are called on to exercise their influence with the rulers for the cessation of these crimes, the punishment of those who commit them and the restoration of the rule of law throughout the country, ensuring the return home of the deported," the Vatican said. "These same leaders should not fail to emphasize that the support, financing and arming of terrorism is morally reprehensible."

You can read the full statement here.

Henry VIII's Church and Female Bishops/Priests

When Henry VIII separated the Catholic Church in England from the universal Catholic Church, he set himself as the new authority for Catholics in England--the Supreme Head and Governor of the Church. (I read once that even Archbishop Thomas Cranmer recognized that claiming to be the "Head" of the Church was a little much--Jesus Christ is the Head of His Church). Henry created and all his successors save one maintained control over the worship, prayer, doctrine, and discipline of the Church of England. When the monarch represented the State, this ecclesial power was centered on the king or queen.

Through the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution, the concentration of power in the monarch was distributed to Parliament, representing the people, and control of the Church of England transferred to Parliament--and thus to the political party forming the government as the majority in Parliament and the Prime Minister. The Church of England (the CofE), being part of the State, does not lead the State, but the State--representing the people--leads the Church of England. This change in authority is crucial because it means that the CofE is not leading the people into what Jesus teaches through his Church, but that the people influence the CofE to accept what they want--and British society today wants women priests and bishops because it values equal access to power and influence above everything else.

Henry VIII would never have imagined women ordained to the priesthood or the episcopate, but he set in motion the Church's decision this week to ordain women bishops, because he placed the State above the unity of the Jesus Christ's Church on earth. For the sake of his dynasty's succession he contributed to the division of the Church, already riven on the Continent by Martin Luther and other reformers. This, when he had sought the title of Defender of the Faith by protesting against Luther's teaching against the Catholic doctrine of the Sacraments--including Holy Orders and the Eucharist, two Sacraments completely intertwined. According to the Church's doctrine, which Henry defended in Assertio Septem Sacramentorum and seemed to continue to uphold throughout his reign condemning those who denied the Real Presence to death by being burned alive, only a sacramentally ordained priest, with the valid and licit Form and Matter, can celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Henry not only continued to defend the Real Presence of Jesus in Holy Communion; he demanded an unmarried priesthood and episcopate (Cromwell had to hide his wife from Henry--and Elizabeth I made the same demands); he did nothing to end the ordination of secular, non-order priests (he eliminated the orders when he dissolved the monasteries AND the friaries.)

So Henry set up the succession, with his heirs leading the Church that would destroy nearly all the Seven Sacraments he had defended, leaving only Baptism--but there is a great range of opinion on what Baptism really is within the CofE, with even the denial of the Holy Trinity which is at the core of its sacramental grace countenanced as something "indifferent" to Christian doctrine and worship. Although Henry's authority in the CofE kept it from making greater "progress" into Lutheranism or Protestantism, to some extent, Edward VI and Elizabeth I, with the help of Thomas Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer and Thirty-nine Articles, brought it firmly into the Protestant doctrine of salvation and sanctification. And Parliamentary conflict between Puritans and Elizabeth and then the Stuart monarchs James I and Charles I culminating not just in the Civil War and Interregnum but even more decisively in the Glorious Revolution, consolidated the Protestantism of the CofE.

Father Dwight Longenecker notes on his blog that we've been living in a dream when we hoped that the CofE was a via media between Catholicism and Protestantism, and that there was a real hope for full, true and corporate reunion. Blessed John Henry Newman woke up from that dream in September and October of 1845 and joined the Catholic Church that October 9th--but he and his Oxford Movement companions had indeed dreamed the dream:

On July 14 1833 John Keble preached his famous sermon on National Apostacy–which is regarded by historians as the beginning of the Oxford Movement. (You can read the sermon here) In one of those nice historical co-indidences (sic) (if you believe in such things) the Church of England General Synod’s vote in favor of women bishops took place on the 181st anniversary of Keble’s sermon.

The essential point of the Oxford Movement–coming just a decade or so after Catholic Emancipation [actually, just three (3) years after!]–was that the Church of England was not, at it’s (sic) core, a Protestant Church, but the ancient Catholic Church reformed. The men of the Oxford Movement were called “tractarians” after the series of leaflets or tracts written and published by John Henry Newman and his friends. In tracts and sermons the Tractarians tried to re-weave into the three hundred year old Protestant Church of England a new Catholic strand. (Read more about Newman here) The success of the Anglo-Catholic movement was a witness to their work. Not only in theology, but in literature and liturgy, in art and architecture, in music and academic studies there was a flourishing revival of a Catholic sentiment and spirituality.

It was, however, simply an additional Anglican costume. Already within the Church of England there were two strands: the old Protestant liberal strand of religion which was firmly attached to the principles of the Enlightenment, bonded with the political establishment and which was upper class, educated and elitist. The Methodist movement of the eighteenth century grafted onto the historic Protestant, rationalist liberalism a new kind of Evangelical, Calvinist fervor. Now, a century after the Wesleys (and also springing from Oxford) the Tractarians added a Catholic strand which came to be called Anglo-Catholicism.

For the next 180 years (1833 – 2014) members of the Church of England were able to perpetuate the Tractarian myth–the nineteenth century invention that the Church of England was, in fact, the ancient Catholic Church in England–but properly reformed. . . .

Read the rest of his article there. 

Individual Anglo-Catholics have been "poping" since the CofE condemnation of Newman's Tract 90. One by one, or family by family, they came into the Catholic Church. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI showed the true path to a more corporate reunion between Anglicans and Catholics: the Personal Ordinariate. The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is reaching out to those who because of this Anglican decision and the previous decision to ordain women as priests, are beginning to see that the via media is a church of paper and that the Catholic Church is "the one true fold of Christ". If they want the truth, they need to follow Blessed John Henry Newman, the late Father Ray Ryland, Father Dwight Longenecker, and those who are making up the Ordinariates in Great Britain, North America and Australia now. 

May God bless them and protect them along the way--we need to pray for them. Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for them; Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for them; Blessed Dominic Barberi, pray for them. Amen.

When the Pope Met the Archbishop of Canterbury

William Oddie of The Catholic Herald had some questions about the value of the visit and said so in a column which received quite a few comments. His crucial question was, would the Pope and the Archbishop  "talk about the fact that since the ordination of women to the Anglican version of the priesthood, the possibility of reunion between the two churches has been made an impossibility for all time?".

Now he restates the issue:

I’m sorry to go over the same ground again, but it’s important that we should get this one right, and I confused the issue last time. The danger is not that the visit is happening at all: it is that because of the way in which it is taking place, and because of the very dodgy way the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity is handling it, the impression is being given that in some way the Pope and the archbishop are equivalent figures, and that Welby’s beliefs about his Church and his office are understood AND RECOGNISED by the Holy See.

It’s essential to remember what those claims actually are. Catholics believe that Henry VIII invented a new church called the Church of England. But that’s not what Anglicanism claims at all. Anglicanism claims that it is continuous with what came before, that it is THE SAME CHURCH as the Ecclesia Anglicana of the Middle Ages and that Archbishop Welby is the direct successor of St Augustine of Canterbury: the Wikipedia article on him begins with the words “Justin Portal Welby … is the 105th and current Archbishop of Canterbury”. The liturgical book of the church which Catholics believe was newly invented but which Anglicans believe is England’s historic Catholic Church, reformed not invented by the Tudors, described itself as The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of THE CHURCH according to the use of the Church of England (My emphasis).

The consequence of all that is the Anglican claim, explicit or implicit, is that the Catholic Church in England is not what it says it is, because it’s the Church of England which IS in England what the Catholic Church claims to be. In less ecumenical times, the English Catholic Church was sometimes derided as “the Italian mission”.

Those claims are soft-pedalled now, but they are still there. Their modern equivalent is that Anglican bishops, and archbishops, are in some way equivalent and equal to the Catholic bishops: that in these ecumenical times they are somehow in business together.

He then goes on to identify the difficulties he sees with the ongoing Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) discussions:

Those on the Catholic side are there to represent a coherent doctrinal tradition the objective content of which is accepted by all of them. They would all, for instance, without even thinking about it, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church as being an authoritative expression of that tradition. On the Anglican side, opinions differ widely: some would also accept most of the CCC: others would reject much of it, and particularly what it has to say about the sacraments and the nature of the Church. The Catholic Commissioners represent the Catholic Church: the Anglicans represent only their own personal opinion. There is no consensus between them; how could any consensus emerge between them and the Catholic Church? That is why the ARCIC documents are couched in such vague and ambiguous language: and it is why the CDF has accepted none of them as adequately representing the Catholic view of whatever they were claiming to be about: some they have rejected as clearly heretical.

But what actual harm does ARCIC do, you may ask? Doesn’t it serve the admirable objective of fostering charity between divided Christians? Well, the harm it does is the harm indifferentism and reductionist ecumenism always does. We can see what has happened since the Sixties: the faithful in the pews are uncertain what to believe any more. Everyone always used to say, whatever you think of the Catholics, at least they know what they believe. Not any more they don’t. The pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI began to reverse the disaster of indifferentism: but they never disbanded ARCIC, though JPII did suspend it after the ordination to the Anglican episcopate of an openly and militantly homosexual man. As I wrote last time, “It was a moment in which reality asserted itself. What is unclear is WHY that assertion of reality was itself suspended. Why did ARCIC then recommence operations as though nothing had happened, despite the fact that throughout the Anglican communion, openly gay bishops are now seen as quite normal and there are thousands of women priests, several of whom are even commissioners in the new ARCIC?”

That last sentence does give me pause: how awkward for the ARCIC teams if they would ever discuss the Eucharist, the Real Presence, the priesthood--with such completely different views of the sacraments! And if they will never discuss those issues, how could the ARCIC ever say they really explored the crucial issues that divide Catholics and Anglicans.

The Catholic Herald also provides the text of Pope Francis' remarks at the end of the visit, and the second paragraph in the excerpt below is rather troubling as it seems like an apology, when certainly no apology is needed:

The history of relations between the Church of England and the Catholic Church is long and complex, and not without pain. Recent decades, however, have been marked by a journey of rapprochement and fraternity, and for this we give heartfelt thanks to God. This journey has been brought about both via theological dialogue, through the work of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, and via the growth of cordial relations at every level through shared daily lives in a spirit of profound mutual respect and sincere cooperation. In this regard, I am very pleased to welcome alongside you Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster. These firm bonds of friendship have enabled us to remain on course even when difficulties have arisen in our theological dialogue that were greater than we could have foreseen at the start of our journey.

I am grateful, too, for the sincere efforts the Church of England has made to understand the reasons that led my Predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, to provide a canonical structure able to respond to the wishes of those groups of Anglicans who have asked to be received collectively into the Catholic Church: I am sure this will enable the spiritual, liturgical and pastoral traditions that form the Anglican patrimony to be better known and appreciated in the Catholic world.

Today’s meeting is an opportunity to remind ourselves that the search for unity among Christians is prompted not by practical considerations, but by the will of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who made us his brothers and sisters, children of the One Father. Hence the prayer that we make today is of fundamental importance.

At the risk of sounding more Catholic than the Pope, I must say I'm disappointed in the rather diffident tone of that paragraph. What about the blessing to the Catholic Church of those who have come home to Rome, in what Blessed John Henry Newman called "the one true fold of the Redeemer" as a real example of true ecumenism? As the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham sums up its brief history:

This new structure within the Catholic Church is a generous and pioneering attempt to heal the wounds of sin and division between Anglicans and Catholics. The Holy Father [Pope Benedict XVI], speaking at St Mary’s College, Oscott, at the end of his 2010 State Visit to the United Kingdom, said the Ordinariate “should be seen as a prophetic gesture that can contribute positively to the developing relations between Anglicans and Catholics. It helps us to set our sights on the ultimate goal of all ecumenical activity: the restoration of full ecclesial communion in the context of which the mutual exchange of gifts from our respective spiritual patrimonies serves as an enrichment to us all”.

The Next English Coronation: Ecumenical and Diverse?

As The Telegraph proclaims: it will be "A coronation for OUR Times":

There are some things you just don’t talk about, and the crowning of the next king is one of them. It would be “impolite” to start planning a coronation while the existing monarch is still alive, I was told last week by one of those who may be involved when the time comes. Quite right, too. As the Queen prepares to celebrate the 60th anniversary of her Coronation on June 2 1953, it is to be hoped that she will go on and on. But that’s not to say that those concerned have neglected to think about what might come next. . . .

[Talking about the next coronation, to Henry VIII especially, could be thought of as the same thing as talking about the death of the monarch--sometimes in bad taste, sometimes liable to get your head separated from the rest of your body.]

The Sunday Telegraph has learned of a major shift in attitude within the leadership of the Church, towards allowing the representatives of other faiths to participate in a coronation service for the first time. This would be a dramatic break with tradition, as the coronation has been an exclusively Christian event for 1,000 years. In the past, any such move was strongly opposed by the Church of England. There is now, however, a recognition that the next coronation will have to reflect the spiritual diversity of modern Britain in some way.

The ethnic and cultural make-up of the country has changed greatly since 1953, when the ceremony reflected the long-established notion of Britain as a nation under one God. Sixty years later, Her Majesty reigns over a nation with many gods. There are still 33 million people who call themselves Christian (including Roman Catholics, who were not represented in the service in 1953). There are also 2.7 million Muslims, 817,000 Hindus and 263,000 Jews, and many others. . . .

Dr Robert Morris of the Constitution Unit at University College, London said that:

“Essentially, the last Coronation was a straight rerun of what had gone before, over the centuries. It was an Anglican Christian service. No Popery allowed, etc. The only alteration was that the Moderator of the Church of Scotland was allowed to come on and present a Bible to the Queen. That was a big thing in 1953. The Archbishop of Canterbury refused to give space to any of the other churches, let alone faiths. So they have a long way to go.”

Some of the language of the ceremony is laid down in law, such as the Coronation Oath Act of 1689, which says the monarch must swear to uphold the Protestant faith. However, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s website says “the form and order of the service are ancient in origin but not immutable”.

The new Archbishop, the Most Rev Justin Welby, showed his willingness to tweak tradition in March when he changed his enthronement at Canterbury Cathedral into an inauguration without many people noticing. He will write the service when the time comes, but not without help.

The recent changes in the Succession, allowing those in line to marry a Catholic, and the first born female to succeed ahead of any brothers born later, were earth-shattering enough to the Anglican establishment. These proposals are producing Lisbon-like earthquakes:

There will be, says Dr Morris, a case for simplifying the Christian ceremony and supplementing it with other events. “There is a question of how the monarch should be seen to relate ceremonially, not only to his Anglican subjects, but also the rest of the population. There is a case for considering a series of essentially secular ceremonies, in which the monarch shows himself for acclamation to the rest of the population.”

It would also put great strain on the ties between Church, State and Crown, some of which have snapped or are snapping already. To the Church, however, there is another precious dimension to the coronation. One senior figure described it to me this week as an ordination, an act of setting someone apart for a sacred purpose.

Unusually, perhaps, in terms of her predecessors, Queen Elizabeth came to her Coronation as a woman of deep personal faith. That continues to be the case, although she is certainly not uncomfortable in multi-faith services. It was Her Majesty who reminded the Church of England in a remarkable speech last year that it is not just there to serve Christians.

“Its role is not to defend Anglicanism to the exclusion of other religions,” she said. “Instead, the Church has a duty to protect the free practice of all faiths in this country.”
(Image source: wikipedia commons.)

The Ordinariate and Pope Francis

As the National Catholic Register published a great tribute to the achievements of Pope Emeritus Benedict, the Personal Ordinariate for former Anglicans received its due attention:

In 2011, the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham was founded in England and Wales for the reception of Anglicans into full communion with the Catholic Church, while maintaining their distinctive Anglican patrimony. A year ago, the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter was established in the U.S., while the Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross was established in Australia last June.

Having made the accommodation of former Anglicans with their patrimony his personal project by enacting his 2009 apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, Pope Benedict’s actions in creating these foundations could prove to be a major lasting legacy of his pontificate.

 

This is a fact particularly recognized by the ordinary of the U.S. ordinariate, Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson. In a Feb. 11 statement, he commented that "members of the ordinariate are in a particular way the spiritual children of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI."

 

Msgr. Steenson noted that ever since Pope Benedict’s time as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "the reconciliation of Anglicans to the Catholic Church has been one of his principal tasks."

 

Despite expressing sadness at the Pope’s abdication, Msgr. Steenson said there is also "a deeper joy, knowing that we are the fruit of his vision for Catholic unity."

 

There has been some concern about the future of the Ordinariate because of some comments Pope Francis made when he was Archbishop in Argentina. The Anglican bishop of Argentina, Greg Venables, reported that Archbishop Bergoglio told him the Ordinariate was unneccesary, as The Telegraph story recounts:

 

The Rt Rev Greg Venables, the Anglican Bishop of Argentina, said that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, had told him "very clearly" that he doubts about the Ordinariate and thought there was no need for Anglicans who want closer ties with their Catholic counterparts to leave their church. . . .

 

He added: "He called me to have breakfast with him one morning and told me very clearly that the Ordinariate was quite unnecessary and that the Church needs us as Anglicans."

 

The Ordinary of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter in the USA, Monsignor Jeffrey Stinson, responded:

 

We have received a number of inquiries from those who are concerned about what our new Pope’s attitude may be toward the Ordinariates, occasioned by an anecdotal report from an Anglican bishop in Argentina. It is important to remember that our Ordinariates were created by an apostolic constitution, thereby giving them real permanence and stability. But it is even more important to remember what it means to be Catholic, to have the full assurance that faith brings. Christ the Good Shepherd entrusted the governance of the Church to St. Peter and his successors. To be in communion with Peter brings a confidence we never knew as Anglicans. Pope Francis understands the pilgrim character of our communities and will be a wise and caring pastor to us!

 

I think this is just part of the strange competitive comparison and contrast between emeritus Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis going on in both the secular and to some extent Catholic media. The Ordinariate effort may have been a particular interest of Benedict, but Francis will certainly not interfere with its progress.

Tomorrow at the Charterhouse

Tomorrow, on the grounds of the former Carthusian Charterhouse in Smithfield, London, the annual ecumenical commemoration of the martyrdoms of St. John Houghton, St. Robert Lawrence, St. Alexander Webster, Carthusians, and also Blessed John Haile, Vicar and St. Richard Reynolds of Syon Brigettine Abbey will be held. According to the Charterhouse website:

Friday 4 May 2012

5.30pm in the Chapel of Sutton’s Hospital and Chapel Court
The Annual Ecumenical Commemoration of the Carthusian Martyrs
This year the Brothers of Charterhouse have invited the Sisters (Order of St Benedict) of the Tyburn Convent to take part in the Service.

In 2008, a similar service was held and Christopher Howse of The Telegraph posted a story about the event:

The Brothers are the pensioners – a little like Chelsea Pensioners – who live in Sutton's Hospital, the Jacobean almshouse founded on the remains of the Charterhouse. The ceremony last Sunday marked the ending of that earlier foundation. Outdoors in the westering sunlight, in the grassy Chapel Court, one old man after another walked forward and placed a single red rose in a wooden stand representing the former gallows tree at Tyburn. Each rose stood for a monk or associate of the Charterhouse who lost his life in the 1430s. As the names of the dead men were read aloud a blackbird sang in a tree overhead, only emphasising the background peacefulness of the setting.
The monks who'd lived at the Charterhouse in the Middle Ages were Carthusians, and their house was an offshoot of the Grand Chartreuse. The order was founded in 1084 by St Bruno. It is not for wimps. The monks get up in the middle of the night to pray. They don't eat meat. They are solitary and silent. Their monastery is cold. But as the remarkable film Into Great Silence shows, it is a happy life for those cut out for it.
In the early 16th century in London, the three most impressive groups of dedicated religious men were the Bridgettines at Syon, near Isleworth; the Observant Franciscans at Greenwich and Sheen (Richmond, Surrey); and the Carthusians. All three groups were clobbered when Henry VIII launched the dissolution of the monasteries.
Last Sunday was May 4, and on May 4, 1535, Dom John Houghton, the Prior of the Charterhouse, was hanged, together with Dom Augustine Webster, Prior of the Charterhouse at Axeholme, who had been visiting London, Father Richard Reynolds, a Bridgettine monk of Syon, and Sir John Hale, the rector of nearby Isleworth, an honest clergyman. By 1540 all the monks of the Charterhouse were dead or had fled. Some starved in Newgate.
The impressive point of Sunday's ceremony, preceded by Anglican Evensong beautifully sung by the Thomas Sutton Singers, is that it did not shy away from this old and terrible event. As one of the Brothers told me, "We used to just keep quiet about the Carthusians who has once lived here. It's better to acknowledge how they lived and died."

The Charterhouse in London is now an almshouse (shades of Trollope's The Warden!):

Charterhouse is a former Carthusian monastery in London, to the north of what is now Charterhouse Square. The building is formally known as Sutton’s Hospital in Charterhouse, and is a registered charity (number 207773). Since the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century the house has served as private mansion, a boys’ school and an almshouse, which it remains to this day.

If you want to become a brother at the Charterhouse, you do have to meet some qualifications:

• single men – bachelors, widowers, divorced
• those over 60 and under 80 years of age
• those of sound mind and in reasonable health – a medical assessment may be required
• those of good standing – three independent referees are required
• those with limited capital and income – confirmed by an accountant or solicitor
• those suited to community life
• those prepared to attend Chapel

The photo above is from London Remembers:

The Great Cloister of The London Charterhouse, 1371 - 1538, once occupied this ground. After Charterhouse School, 1611 - 1872, and Merchant Taylors' School, 1875 - 1933, it became the home of The Medical College of St Bartholomew's Hospital, since 1995 St Bartholomew's and The Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Remember those who lived, studied and taught here, especially Saint John Houghton, Prior of the London Charterhouse, who was martyred on 4 May 1535, and the Monks and Lay Brothers who, soon after him, suffered death and persecution.

May the cause of healing inspire all who study and teach here today.

I will follow up on this year's ecumenical service as news becomes available.