Four English Catholic Martyrs on "Church and Culture"

On Wednesday, I recorded an hour of the Ave Maria Radio Program hosted by Deal Hudson, "Church and Culture": Telling the stories of four English Catholic Martyrs from the Tudor era. 

It will air tomorrow, Saturday August 31 at 3 p.m. Central/4 p.m. Eastern, during the second hour of "Church and Culture". You may listen live here. Deal Hudson will post about the episode on his Facebook page here.

I selected two each from the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I:

Saint John Fisher and Blessed Margaret Pole from Henry VIII's reign. Their ties to the Tudor family are close but certainly did not save them when they opposed, or in the case of Margaret Pole, even seemed to oppose Henry VIII's plans, marital and ecclesial!

Saint Edmund Campion, SJ and Saint Anne Line from Elizabeth I's reign. He represents the many priest-martyrs, beatified and canonized, and she represents many women, canonized or not, who sheltered priests during the recusant era in England.

You know how often I've written about these martyrs on this blog and elsewhere.

If you can't listen to it live, it will be archived here. And Deal will send me a link too so I'll update my Facebook page!

The picture above is the article from our diocesan Catholic Advance, when Deal came to Wichita to serve as the first Visiting Chair of the Gerber Institute for Catholic Studies--so when he refers to our long acquaintance at the beginning of the program, that's why!

And, we'll schedule a conversation about the English Catholic Martyrs of the Stuart era in the future.

Martyrs in Stained Glass: The Work of Margaret Agnes Rope

Since I grew up Catholic, stained glass has been part of my life since childhood: nearly all the parish churches I've attended or visited in this Wichita diocese have stained glass windows: Bible stories, saint's lives, the mysteries of the Rosary, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and other religious images. Then traveling to Europe gave my husband and me the opportunity to see the glorious stained glass of Chartres Cathedral, in Notre Dame de Paris, and many other churches and basilicas. While looking for an illustration of an English Reformation Catholic martyr, I discovered this website about two women artists. They were cousins, sharing the same first and last names: Margaret Agnes Rope and Margaret Edith Rope.

Both were great stained glass artists, but I am more interested in Margaret Agnes because she created windows honoring the England Catholic Reformation martyrs, including this one in Holy Name of Jesus, Birkenhead in the Diocese of Shrewsbury. She, four of her brothers and sisters, and her mother converted to Catholicism and Margaret Agnes became a Carmelite nun in 1923 under the name Sister Margaret of the Mother of God. Her sister Monica also became a nun and her brother Harry a priest. One sibling, Denys, remained an Anglican.

In 2016, there was a major exhibition in her honor, displaying many of her works in Shrewsbury:

‘Marga’, as she was called, was an instinctive rebel – known for smoking cheroot cigars, riding a motorbike and wearing her hair short – in an era when women were largely suppressed. Without backing from a patron, rich family or husband, she made her own way in her career, one of a new generation of artists as much at home in a workshop as in a drawing-studio.

Her work – influenced by the ‘Later Arts & Crafts’ style – soon became well-known for its jewelled dazzling colours, its personal stamp, its startling modernism, and its sense of spiritual vibrancy.

Yet, within barely a decade of her first success, she chose to become a Catholic nun, moving into an ‘enclosed’ convent. However, even then, shut away from the world, she continued to work, in a small studio provided by the other nuns.

An intensely private person, she left barely any records behind her, and even asked that some of her remaining works be destroyed after her death. Art historians, perhaps frustrated by this lack of information, have since marginalised her achievements.

Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery has sought to right this wrong by mounting this major exhibition bringing together works and artefacts from all over the country. Many of these works have never been seen in public before.

The Tyburn Nuns feature her works (20 roundels depicting individual martyrs) in their shrine to the English martyrs near Marble Arch, and the Mother General of the Tyburn Nuns paid tribute to Margaret Rope's great West Window in Shrewsbury Cathedral:

As with all creative artists, Margaret left her indelible mark upon her work. Increasingly, a special “image of God” – the reflection of God’s creative gift to her – shines through her artistic creations.

So let us pursue and ponder the inspired imprint of Margaret’s creativity in stained glass in two of her finest gifts to the Shrewsbury Catholic community.

The height and depth, the length and breadth of Margaret’s spiritual vision is revealed in the West Window of the cathedral. It is a window on to the universal dimensions of our holy religion, portrayed on several distinct but inter-related levels. At the apex is the symbol of Christ as the Lamb, slain yet standing above the heavenly Jerusalem, in the heavenly firmament. Below the entire universe is found – the vast oceans, celestial lights – sun, moon and stars; dry land, plants, seed-bearing trees with fruit; song birds and flying birds. Then too the angelic choirs and heavenly song: this is the full chorus of creation praising God.

The ever-present witness of the Church follows on the next level below with the depictions of the 11 English martyrs. They are the witnesses and fruits of the holiness gathered from the earthly – and English – Church as seen in glory with their halo-crowned heads. They are men and women from every walk of life, radiant with holiness, gazing upward to the unveiled divine glory.

Sister Margaret of the Mother of God died, age 71, on December 6, 1953. See more of her works here.

"A Protestant Understanding of England's Martyrs"

In the June/July 2018 issue of First Things (non-subscribers have access to three free articles a month), Peter Hitchens laments that Latimer and Ridley are Forgotten and provides A Protestant Understanding of England's Martyrs:

I offer these facts and thoughts to explain that this is the world in which I was brought up. I may even be the last living straggler of that era, a cultural coelacanth hauled up gasping from the silent, lightless depths of the day before yesterday. In my later, more multicultural life, I have learned that there are other versions of these events. I am more than ready to absorb these into my worldview, within reason. I know perfectly well that Elizabeth Tudor was not the simple figure of goodness and patriotism I was brought up to believe in. In general, I know that childhood history is merely a crude introduction to national myth, and that adults are required to treat it with severe and often brutal skepticism.

So please do not press William Cobbett’s view of the Reformation on me, or tell me to read the works of Eamon Duffy on the stripping of the altars, for I have done so. I know that there were terrible losses—of good men and women, of glorious art and sculpture, of valuable traditions, of learning and charitable works. I wish it had not been so. I only say that, without the Anglican compromise of Elizabeth, England would have had a far more savage Reformation than it did, and would have lost much more, as I think events in Scotland clearly show to this day.

Only one issue really concerns me here, on which I will stand my ground. And that is the argument, often advanced by Roman Catholics to me, that Elizabeth persecuted their faith just as Mary persecuted mine. It is not true to say that Elizabeth and Mary were mirror images of each other, and it matters that it is not true.

I am still reading the article, but my first reaction is that Peter Hitchens is either angry at Catholics for honoring the English Catholic martyrs from 1534 to 1681 or angry at Anglican Protestants for forgetting the English Protestant martyrs from 1553 to 1558. 

He is particularly upset at the honor Catholics pay to Saints John Fisher and Thomas More as depicted in one painting of the Brompton Oratory:

. . . More and Fisher, like Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer, were undeniably great and courageous Englishmen, and eloquent ones, too. One especially potent use of their memory can be found in St Wilfrid’s Chapel in the Brompton Oratory in London, perhaps the supreme headquarters of Catholic militancy in England. Above the altar of the English martyrs, in a side chapel of this majestic church, is a powerfully sinister and suggestively grim mural. It looks very old, but it was painted in 1938 by Rex Whistler (who is possibly the model for Charles Ryder in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited). It depicts executions at Tyburn, London’s principal place for such things, and is flanked by idealized portraits of More and Fisher.

The execution scene is a masterpiece. The callous, lumpish crowd, backs turned on us, watches as several bodies dangle from a triangular gibbet. Many people are busy with horrible tasks. A condemned man is being guided up a ladder to join these broken, throttled corpses, and every inch of him betokens horror and resignation. Another man is being unstrapped from a hurdle before he too makes the ascent. A fire burns in the middle distance, oily black smoke curling into the summer sky (the trees are in leaf). That fire, it is clear, means no good to somebody. It seems to be dusk, but the darkness of the scene might only be the mood, or the smoke. Halberds and pikes, immensely tall, rise from among the mob, almost as high as the gallows, marking the presence of soldiers, presumably gathered around some notable victim. A castle tower commands the background. Far off, a windmill stands in a sort of Claude Lorrain landscape of sylvan peace. Yet the light in the painting is the light of a nightmare. A strong impression of evil and cruelty comes out of the frame, as I am sure it is meant to do. I would not want an impressionable child to see it. It is one of the most powerful pieces of propaganda I have ever experienced. When I recently revisited it, I was astonished to find how small it actually is. I had remembered it as huge. . . .

He contends that this painting is misleading since More and Fisher were beheaded, missing the point that the Catholic protomartyrs, the Carthusians St John Houghton, St Robert Lawrence, St Augustine Webster, the Briggitine St Richard Reynolds, and the parish priest Blessed John Haile were hanged, drawn, and quartered! He thinks that because More and Fisher are on the left and right hand panels, the center panel is supposed to represent their martyrdoms. 

Hitchens confuses doctrine and discipline (the laity receiving the Body and Blood of Holy Communion separately; married priesthood through the Anglican Ordinariate, and singing hymns), and doesn't think it fair that we don't honor Cranmer (or Latimer, or Ridley I suppose) on the Roman Calendar of Saints, while the Church of England honors More, Fisher, and the Catholic martyrs of the Recusant era on its Calendar of Saints. 

The Catholic laity have always received the Body and the Blood at Holy Communion; the Host is not exsanguinated flesh! He conveniently passes over the point of what Catholics are receiving--the Real Presence, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, of Jesus Christ under the form of Bread and Wine--and what Anglicans are receiving according to the 39 Articles of the Church of England. He doesn't understand what the Mass and Holy Communion are to a believing, devout Catholic. That's also why he thinks the Anglican Book of Common Prayer services should do quite well for Catholics today and should have done quite well for Elizabethan Catholics when Parliament passed laws forbidding the celebration of the Holy Mass as Catholics knew it at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign.

There have always been married Catholic priests, in the Eastern Rite--his view of the Catholic Church is too small and insular.

Singing hymns? That's a great sign of change in the Catholic Church? That started in the nineteenth century in England with the Oratorians when Catholics were at last allowed to practice their faith and worship God in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass!

The Church of England and the Catholic Church have completely different understandings of what it means to be named to their respective Calendar of Saints. Hitchens ought to know that.

He is piling on and mixing things up, and he displays as much misunderstanding as he does anguish--and thus he weakens what he wanted to argue in his thesis, that "It is not true to say that Elizabeth and Mary were mirror images of each other, and it matters that it is not true."

Please read the rest there. I'll be thinking more about that contention, apart from the misunderstandings that Hitchens has added to his article, muddling his central thesis.

Relics of English Martyrs: Torture and Hope

Thanks to Ian Stubbs on The Catholic English Martyrs Facebook page, I found this story about the Stonyhurst Christian Heritage Centre (I received their Christmas card last week) being featured in a BBC documentary about relics:

The Collections of Stonyhurst College featured prominently in a documentary broadcast on BBC Four at the weekend. In the programme, Treasures of Heaven, [Note that if you are not in the U.K. you can't watch the video] Andrew Graham-Dixon explored the ancient Christian practice of preserving Christian relics and the largely forgotten art form that went with it - the reliquary. His research took him from the Crown of Thorns venerated at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris to the martyrdom of St Thomas Becket – and even to more recent events in El Salvador with the cause of Blessed Oscar Romero. But it was in Stonyhurst that he was confronted with some of the most gruesome relics.

“The Reformation ushered in a bleak and bitter period for those adhering to the old Catholic traditions of worship,” he said, approaching the college. “If you want to understand that (largely concealed) history, there’s no better place to come than this.”

The most revealing treasure in the Stonyhurst Collection, according to Graham-Dixon, is also the most unassuming: found in the 19th century, behind a wall in a nearby Catholic home, it had lain undiscovered for more than 200 years. But it is the only one of its kind in the world. The chest, disguised as a travelling salesman’s trunk, contained everything needed for a Jesuit to say Mass. Beneath a ladies bonnet was concealed the altar stone, a chalice, corporal and an early 17th century chasuble. Jan Graffius, Curator at Stonyhurst, went on to explain how ministry had to be carried out clandestinely at this time, since anyone caught celebrating Mass would be tried for treason, for which the sentence would be death.

There are indeed more gruesome relics of torture and suffering associated with the missionary priests who returned to England to serve Catholics:

Moving on to the rope that tied St Edmund Campion SJ onto the hurdle prior to his execution at Tyburn, Jan described in the programme the process of being hung, drawn and quartered - in gory detail, before revealing another of the relics held at Stonyhurst: the right eye of Blessed Edward Oldcorne SJ. Graham-Dixon describes it as “one of the most disconcerting body parts to have been passed down to the museum”. Kept in a small silver reliquary, the eye . . . was collected by a local Catholic after Oldcorne’s execution in Worcester in 1606. “I have never seen anyone look at this,” said Jan, “without being moved, shocked: there is always a human reaction” to this relic of torture.

But according to Jan Graffius, the relics are more than just grisly mementos of past events. “I think that the real comfort that Catholics derived from holding, looking at, being near these objects, is a sense of affinity with the sacrifice of the priests who were trying to bring their faith to them, and hope for the future: keep these safe until such a time when this cruelty and persecution is no longer in England. So it’s a pledge for the future, as much as a contact with the past.”

I think I have found the programme on youtube here. How great to see Canterbury, and Paris, and Stonyhurst! There are some great images of Pugin's architecture at St. Edmund's College Chapel near Ware. (The documentary must have broadcast originally several years ago.)

An Interesting Assignment for England's Primate

Vincent Cardinal Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, is scheduled to offer the homily at a Compline service at the formerly Catholic church now Anglican Cathedral during the programme of Richard III's reinternment. He will also offer a Requiem Mass at the Holy Cross Priory in Leicester, according to The Catholic Herald:

Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster is to take part in services marking the reinterment of Richard III at Leicester’s Anglican cathedral in March next year.

The cardinal will preach at a service of compline on the day the king’s remains are received into the cathedral and will celebrate a Requiem Mass the next day at a nearby Catholic parish.

Dominican friars will also sing vespers at the cathedral in the run-up to the reinterment and Fr David Rocks OP, parish priest, will preach at a lunchtime Eucharist.

The Dominicans are filling in for the Greyfriars, in whose priory Richard III was originally buried after the Battle of Bosworth Field. That priory, of course, was destroyed after the Dissolution of the Monasteries so that Richard's remains were lost.

If Richard III had won the Battle of Bosworth Field, none of these events scheduled for next March would be taking place. None of the martyrs remembered at Holy Cross Priory would have spoken their last words at Tyburn or on Tower Hill. None of the religious changes of the Tudor dynasty would have occurred. There would be no established Church of England. I doubt very much that Cardinal Nichols will bring all that up.

As Cardinal Nichols notes, 

“The death of King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 was a decisive moment in English history. Following his death, Richard III was buried in the Franciscan Friary in Leicester, and his body lay in its grave until it was discovered in 2012. It is now fitting that his remains should be reinterred with dignity and accompanied by the prayers of the Church in Leicester Cathedral, the mediaeval parish church of Leicester. We commend all who have died to the love and mercy of Almighty God, and continue to pray for them, as we shall for Richard III and all who have lost their lives in battle.”

The Anglican Cathedral has a separate website for King Richard in Leicester.

Restoration of the Society of Jesus and England

Today is the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus--The Jesuits, and 2014 also marks the 200th anniversary of the restoration of the Jesuit order after its suppression in 1773:

Pressured by the royal courts of Portugal, France and Spain, Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Society, causing Jesuits throughout the world to renounce their vows and go into exile. The suppression lasted for 41 years, until the Society’s restoration on August 7, 1814.

In England the suppression did not have quite the impact that it had on the Continent, because it depended on the government to enforce:

In 1762 because of the  suppression of the Society of Jesus in France, the English college in St Omer was transferred to Bruges. Despite the storm clouds the English Province was strong: in 1768 there were approximately 300 Jesuits, 26 of whom worked in Maryland and 136 in England. 

The position of the Jesuits in England after Pope Clement XIV's brief of 1773, "Dominus ac Redemptor" - suppressing the Society of Jesus - was anomalous. The Society did not exist officially in England so it could not be suppressed by the secular government. Ironically relations between secular clergy and Jesuits were extremely friendly at the time. Ex-Jesuits were able to remain united under a type of superior associated with the college then in Bruges (eventually moving to Liège and finally in 1794 to Stonyhurst) and to retain ownership of the province's not inconsiderable assets.

Even before the universal restoration, Jesuits in England benefited from the "anomalous" situation and the support of the order in Russia:

In March 1801 Pope Pius VII approved the status of the Society of Jesus that continued to exist in Russia because of the protection of the Russian Tsars. 

In 1803, thirty-five ex-Jesuits renewed their vows at Stonyhurst under Marmaduke Stone as first Provincial of the restored English Province. 

Despite some opposition from the English Vicars Apostolic and the insertion of a clause in the Act of Catholic Emancipation (1829) that forbade Jesuits and other religious orders from accepting novices in hope of their eventual extinction, the province thrived in the nineteenth century.

Long before the suppression or the restoration, Jesuits had played an important, although sometimes controversial, role in the English mission:

Between Ignatius's begging mission to England in 1531, and the foundation of a mission in 1580, Jesuit contact with England was sporadic.  The second half of the 16th century was one of religious upheaval in England, since Henry VIII’s break with Rome in 1534. Elizabeth 1 (1558-1603) was determined to build a Protestant state, and, fearing influence or invasion by stronger Catholic European monarchies, effectively banned Catholic worship, and outlawed Catholic priests. To become a Catholic priest young Englishmen would now have to train and probably work abroad.  Yet many Englishmen joined the Jesuits and worked throughout the Jesuit world: Edmund Campion was sent to Prague; Thomas Stephens to India; John Yates to Brazil.  The English College for the training of priests from England was founded in Rome in 1579 and Pope Gregory XIII entrusted the college's administration to the Jesuits.

Seizing the opportunity, William Allen, leader of English Catholic exiles and later a Cardinal, persuaded Father General Everard Mercurian to approve a Jesuit mission to England. The first missioners, Campion, Robert Persons, and Ralph Emerson, departed Rome in April 1580. By the end of 1581, Campion had been executed and Persons was back on the continent, never to return to England.

The history of the Elizabethan Jesuits is the stuff of legends and hagiography: clandestine meetings, priest-holes, raids, escapes from the Tower of London, imprisonment, torture and martyrdom.

So intense was persecution that periodically Father General Claudio Acquaviva questioned the mission's continuation. Persons, along with Jesuits in England such as Robert Southwell and John Gerard, strengthened the resolve of lay Catholics through the Spiritual Exercises.

On the continent Robert Persons and others sought to alleviate the suffering of Catholics in England by encouraging invasion of England and deposition of Elizabeth. See Jesuit conspiracy theories for more details.

Indeed, the stories of the Jesuit martyrs are often thrilling--St. Edmund Campion, St. Robert Southwell, St. Henry Walpole, St. Henry Morse, St. Philip Evans, St. Nicholas Owen (the lay brother and master builder), St. Henry Garnett, Blessed Edward Oldcorne, St. David Lewis, etc. The two books I would recommend for those wanting to know more about this history are Into the Lion's Den: The Jesuit Mission in Elizabethan England and Wales, 1580-1603 by Robert E. Scully, SJ, published by The Institute of Jesuit Sources, which I reviewed here, and for the stories of the individual martyred saints and blesseds, Jesuit Saints and Martyrs by Joseph N. Tylenda, SJ.

Seven Year Anniversary of Summorum Pontificum

Father Alexander Lucie-Smith writes about the seventh anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, in The Catholic Herald:

My father was a huge admirer of the Latin Mass of his youth: he used to say that its great advantage was that wherever you went in the world, the Mass was the same, in Latin, in the universal language, and thus accessible to all. That is a point of view I have not heard expressed for many a year. But there is something in it. The EF, I discovered as I learned it, is very formal: every gesture and every word has its place, and there is no room for variation, which is a good thing. Every Mass, in theory, is exactly like every other Mass. Why is this good? It is good because it reminds us that the Church is Catholic, universal. Of course we all have our particularities, but we need to remember that the universal aspect ought to take precedence. Why? Because the revelation of Jesus Christ is something that makes sense across space and time. It is valid for all times and places. Therefore it seems to me that the Mass ought to be celebrated in a way that emphasises the unicity of revelation and the unity of the human family. We should not be celebrating diversity, but identity; not celebrating difference, but the common heritage we all share.

I think this is one thing that has changed in the last seven years, and this is one of the looked for fruits of Summorum Pontificum: the EF has ‘reminded’ the OF of the ‘catholicity’ of the Church.

If the horizontal aspect is important, so is the vertical. The EF is clearly old, indeed very old. Codified at Trent, it is much older than Trent, going back to the time of Gregory the Great; in his time it was already old. Moreover, the OF is not ‘new’, in the sense that it is clearly in continuity with the ‘old’ Mass; the ‘new’ Mass is not ex nihilo. So, whether you celebrate one Mass or the other, or both from time to time, you are standing in a millennial tradition, going right back to the time before Pope Gregory. The ancient nature of the Church’s tradition is not something you heard much about when I was growing up, when all the talk was of the importance of ‘relevance’. So it is good that we should feel the worth and weight of tradition, and antiquity. These are useful counter-cultural correctives in this culture of ours, a culture which will one day be in the dustbin of history while the Mass, ever old, ever new, will continue.

So this is the main thing that we owe to Benedict’s motu proprio: it has put us more in touch with our history and with our universality.

As you may know from reading this blog, my husband and I have grown devoted to the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Liturgy of the Roman Rite, attending Sunday Mass at St. Anthony of Padua (my husband took the picture above on Palm Sunday this year) here in Wichita and seeking it out when we travel--especially at St. Eugene-Ste. Cecile in Paris. I echo Father Lucie-Smith's statement about being in touch with "our history", our Catholic past. To me, the historical connection has been to the English Catholic martyrs, since the missionary priests who had studied on the Continent came back to England, celebrating the Mass according to the Missal of Pope St. Pius V. They knew the glories of the rite in Rome, Paris, and throughout Europe--in their native land they celebrated Low Mass secretly, furtively, and faithfully. It's the form of Latin Liturgy of the Roman Rite that Blessed John Henry Newman learned to celebrate when he studied for the Catholic priesthood in Rome and then celebrated at the Oratory.

We are very thankful to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, to our local Ordinary, Bishop Carl Kemme, and the priests of our diocese who offer the Mass in the Extraordinary Form at St. Anthony and throughout the diocese--and to the master of ceremonies and the servers he's trained and the choir director and the choir members he directs to sing the parts of the Mass and the beautiful hymns.

Last Year at the Venerable English College in Rome

On December 1, 2012, the Venerable English College celebrated Martyr's Day with a special ceremony since it was the 650th anniversary year of the College's founding as a guest house for Englishmen visiting Rome on pilgrimage. The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester represented Queen Elizabeth II with this message:

In 1362, English residents in Rome established a‘Hospice of the English’ to care for English pilgrims. The Royal Arms of King Henry IV still adorn your walls to mark the 50^th anniversary of that foundation and the close relationship with the Crown. The English Hospice was the origin of what has now become the Venerable English College, following its re-foundation by Pope Gregory XIII in 1579.

The presence of the Duke of Gloucester at your Martyrs’ Day Feast in this 650^th anniversary year is a sign of the strength of the relationship between the United Kingdon and the Holy See. It is also recognition of the high esteem in which the Venerable English College is held as a training ground for pastors, priests and future leaders of the Catholic Church of England and Wales. You have always served as a generous and hospitable home away from home for generations of visitors to Rome, even in the most difficult times.

My good wishes go to you all, alumni, staff and students of the Venerabile, past, present and future, for your continuing prosperity.

ELIZABETH R.

Two days later, members of the College met then Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican:

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Archbishop Emeritus of Westminster (and himself Rector of the Venerabile from 1971-77) and his successor as Archbishop of Westminster, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, led the group of bishops and staff and students of the Venerabile to meet Pope Benedict on 3^rd December in the Sala Clementina of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace. Present also with them were the Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, Archbishop Arthur Roche, Emeritus Bishop of Leeds; and Archbishops Peter Smith of Southwark and Bernard Longley of Birmingham. All four Archbishops are themselves former students of the Venerabile. Bishops Michael Campbell of Lancaster and Terence Drainey of Middlesbrough were also in attendance.

On entering the Sala Clementina, Pope Benedict paused to venerate the precious relic brought from the College for the occasion. This was the relic of their Protomartyr (first martyr) Saint Ralph Sherwin. Sherwin was martyred on 1^st December 1581 at Tyburn in London – just yards from the site of today’s Marble Arch.

Pope Benedict recalled the spirit of the martyrs, especially St. Ralph Sherwin of the College:

Potius hodie quam cras, as Saint Ralph Sherwin said when asked to take the missionary oath, "rather today than tomorrow". These words aptly convey his burning desire to keep the flame of faith alive in England, at whatever personal cost. Those who have truly encountered Christ are unable to keep silent about him. As Saint Peter himself said to the elders and scribes of Jerusalem, "we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard" ;">Acts 4:20). Saint Boniface, Saint Augustine of Canterbury, Saint Francis Xavier, whose feast we keep today, and so many other missionary saints show us how a deep love for the Lord calls forth a deep desire to bring others to know him. You too, as you follow in the footsteps of the College Martyrs, are the men God has chosen to spread the message of the Gospel today, in England and Wales, in Canada, in Scandinavia. Your forebears faced a real possibility of martyrdom, and it is right and just that you venerate the glorious memory of those forty-four alumni of your College who shed their blood for Christ. You are called to imitate their love for the Lord and their zeal to make him known, potius hodie quam cras. The consequences, the fruits, you may confidently entrust into God’s hands.

And he also cited St. Philip Neri's greeting to seminarians of the College during the sixteenth century:

Please be assured of an affectionate remembrance in my prayers for yourselves and for all the alumni of the Venerable English College. I make my own the greeting so often heard on the lips of a great friend and neighbour of the College, Saint Philip Neri, Salvete, flores martyrum! Commending you, and all to whom the Lord sends you, to the loving intercession of Our Lady of Walsingham, I gladly impart my Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of peace and joy in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you.

Read the rest of the report from last year here.

"Faith of Our Fathers": a New DVD about the English Catholic Martyrs

 

From The New Liturgical Movement site: information about this new DVD from SaintAnt.com: Faith of Our Fathers: In Search of the English Martyrs, which is

 

a new film presented by Fr Marcus Holden and Fr Nicholas Schofield, priests of the Dioceses of Southwark and Westminster respectively. In the course of the two-part film they travel throughout England visiting a number of historic sites of great significance in the story of the English Martyrs. This is a beautiful and highly-recommended film which contains fascinating insights into this turbulent period of Catholic history. One feels very drawn into the sense of exploration as the two priests set off on their journey, a pilgrimage in which they speak with evident devotion to the Martyrs. Starting off at the Westminster Diocesan Archives, where Fr Schofield is the Archivist, they go to the seminary at Allen Hall where Fr Stephen Wang speaks about St Thomas More who lived in a house on the site.

At Westminster Cathedral, the Master of Music, Martin Baker talks about the music of the reformation, pointing out that Byrd’s Mass for five voices, which was heard so publicly at the Cathedral on the occasion of Pope Benedict’s visit, would originally have been sung in secret by necessity. Archbishop Vincent Nichols talks of the inspiration of the English martyrs and his personal favourite, St John Fisher. He talks of the different type of courage required today to proclaim the Gospel in the face of public scorn.

Fr Schofield’s own parish in Uxbridge is the next stop, before the pair go to Stonor Park to see the priest holes and the hiding place of the secret printing press which St Edmund Campion used to produce Catholic literature such as the ‘Ten Reasons’ (a set of arguments against the validity of the Anglican Church which caused a huge controversy). Also shown is the 13th century chapel in which Mass has been celebrated continuously since the thirteenth century. The Stonors have lived at the house since this time and the current head of the family, Lord Camoys, speaks about the exclusion from society of young Catholics who were denied positions in government, law and industry: ‘The programme to annihilate Catholicism could hardly have been more thorough, but it didn’t work.’ . . .

The New Liturgical Movement features a trailer -- and here is another trailer. This looks like a very well produced project! Perhaps EWTN will broadcast it!

Nicholas Windsor, Lord Alton, and Stonyhurst

From Crisis magazine comes this great story about the Catholic convert who lost his place in the royal succession of England (Lord Nicholas Windsor) and a plan for a "Museum of Christian Heritage to be located at the Jesuit estate Stonyhurst, the home of Stonyhurst College in Lancashire, England."

The Jesuits at Stonyhurst have collected some marvelous artefacts, according to author Austin Ruse:

The story of this project begins in 1593 when English Catholics established a boy’s school at a place called St. Omers not far from Calais then subject to the Spanish crown. Catholic education was not legal at the time in England and so English boys were sent there for education and protection. Besides protecting English boys, the school became a protector of precious Catholic items like vestments, manuscripts, and relics that were endangered on English soil. Thus began what is now called the “oldest surviving museum collection in the English-speaking world.”

The first acquisition in the collection came in 1609 when they took possession of Henry VII’s cope and chasuble. The Jesuits have religiously added to this collection as they have traveled the world from that time. Some of the other remarkable items include a thorn from the Crown of Thorns, the rope that bound St. Edmund Campion at the time of his execution, and personal items belonging to St. Thomas More, Elizabeth of York, Mary Tudor, Mary Queen of Scots, James II and the Stuart Family including items belong to Bonnie Prince Charlie.

The Jesuits left France and set up shop at Stonyhurst where the first museum was begun in 1796. The Arundell Library was opened there in 1855 and housed such amazing artifacts as the Book of Hours that is said to have been handed by Mary, Queen of Scotts, to her chaplain on the scaffold just before her execution.

The foundation of this Christian Heritage Centre was inspired by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's visit to Scotland and England in 2010. Lord David Alton's website has more about the proposed display of these artefacts (from September 2011):

One year ago, at Westminster, Pope Benedict told English Catholics not to lose their identity; not to forget their Christian roots; to remember who they are; to pass on their beliefs to their children and to share their love of their Faith with their countrymen.Some flavour of that identity has memorably been revealed in the remarkable “Treasures From Heaven” (sic)* exhibition recently staged at the British Museum and sponsored by two significant Catholics, John Studzinski CBE and Michael Hintze. Both men have been honoured with Papal Knighthoods by the Holy See for their services to arts and culture.

*Treasures of Heaven is the correct title.

The queues which have formed at the British Museum underline the public appetite for sacred culture. I saw the same phenomenon during 2008, when Liverpool was European Capital of Culture and, at St.Francis Xavier’s church, and an exhibition was staged entitled “Held in Trust”. Around 30,000 people poured in to the magnificent setting of SFX to see some of the wonderful artefacts loaned by Stonyhurst College and by the Society of Jesus. Arising out of the “Held In Trust” exhibition, Stonyhurst College published a beautiful book, by the same name, detailing some of the Collections which they hold and which they want to house in a permanent Christian Heritage Centre.

As a lasting legacy of Pope Benedict’s historic State Visit, the College Governors and the Society of Jesus have made available a Grade Two listed site, close to the College, the Corn Mill Buildings, which would be developed into an exhibition and interpretive centre. John Cowdall, the Chairman of Governors, Andrew Johnson, Stonyhurst headmaster, and the outgoing Provincial, Fr.Michael Holman SJ are all to be warmly applauded for this initiative.

Open to visitors The Christian Heritage Centre will have a mission to tell the Catholic story to future generations. Much more than a museum, it will be an interactive and inspirational educational centre; a study and retreat centre; a major visitors’ attraction; and a place where the rising generation will be inspired by the sacrifices of the past. The Christian Heritage Centre will be administered by a free standing charitable Trust. Knowledge of those who went before – and the price which they paid for the religious liberties and freedoms which we enjoy today – will help and guide our young people as they face today’s challenges and aggressive militant secularism.

Lord Alton and Lord Nicholas Windsor visited the Catholic Information Center in Washington, DC last night for a reception--unfortunately, I cannot find a website established for the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst.

Martyrdom and Father Kapaun's Cause

A Vatican lawyer involved with the cause of Servant of God Emil Kapaun, who suffered and died in a Korean prison camp, visited Wichita, Kansas last week and commented on the progress of the cause. According to the Wichita Eagle, which ran a multi-part story about Father Kapaun and his heroism, Andrea Ambrosi offered warnings of delay and uncertainty:

Speaking with translation by Ohio-born aide Madeleine Kuns, he said a key decision the Vatican must make is whether Kapaun was martyred for standing up for his faith.

There is no doubt Kapaun was a hero, he said. But was he a martyr?

Ambrosi said he has analyzed more than 8,000 documents and testimonies, including from Korean War combat soldiers who saw Kapaun’s heroism. Ambrosi said that for the first time after years of study of Kapaun’s life, he now plans to propose Kapaun as a martyr in his report to the Vatican, a report he thinks will be completed in the next six months.

And that bit about martyrdom is important to the Vatican’s decision. But because the Vatican’s bar for martyrdom is so high, even his recommendation may not be enough to persuade church officials, Ambrosi said. If the church decides Kapaun was martyred – killed because he was a religious person defending his faith – it could significantly speed up the process to canonize Kapaun to full sainthood. But if the cardinals in the Congregation for the Causes of Saints decide Kapaun wasn’t a martyr, it could mean many years before Kapaun’s sainthood cause would advance.

Martyrdom was not always easy to prove in the case of the English Martyrs, either, as this site explains:

The cases of the English martyrs killed during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Elizabeth (1534-1603) provide certain challenges from a documentary standpoint, making it very difficult to establish with certainty the fact of martyrdom.

First, the legal proscription of Catholicism in England from 1534 to emancipation in 1829 means that it was not always possible to carry out investigations into the causes of these martyrs. In the times when harboring a priest was a capital crime and even attending Mass punishable by a fine of 1600 shillings, carrying out these investigations under proper canonical form was simply not possible. Free and open inquiry into the cases of the English martyrs and access to the documentation regarding their deaths was not available until the restoration of the English hierarchy in 1850, by which time over three centuries had elapsed since the time of most of the martyrs.

Second, because the persecution of the Catholic Church in England was carried out under a fundamentally political program, those convicted and punished under the penal laws are often listed as cases of 'treason' or 'conspiracy' in the official records, which are often the only records. Though we know that the threat of Catholic conspiracies was extremely overblown and many "plots" were even fabricated (the Titus Oates Plot, for example), there were nevertheless certain Catholics who were involved in clandestine political activities. The result is that it is very difficult to tell the exact details when both organizing a political conspiracy and simply saying Mass are both classified as "treason" in the official record. Finally, in many cases, there was no official record kept whatsoever, making reconstructing events extremely difficult. . . .

This was particularly true in the case of those who opposed the dissolution of their monasteries:

A classic case of this last problem are the three Benedictine abbots of Glastonbury, Reading and Colchester, all put to death quietly for treason in 1539 and all of which lack any official documentation.

This, then, is a brief summary of some of the difficulties the restored Catholic hierarchy of England faced when it first began to push for the causes of the English martyrs. Despite the English Church's admirable desire to raise many of its heroic sons to the altars, the Sacred Congregation for Rites was characteristically slow-moving and skeptical of proceeding to beatification when so much documentary evidence was lacking. In fact, when the English hierarchy sent off the available documentation on 353 martyrs Rome in 1880, 76 applications were rejected for lack of sufficient historical evidence. These rejected martyrs are known as dilati, those whose cases are referred back to the Ordinary for insufficient evidence.

And some of those causes of the dilati are still waiting for more evidence.

Shakespeare and Catholicism, Redux

A forthcoming book, published by Penn State University Press:

For years scholars and others have been trying to out Shakespeare as an ardent Calvinist, a crypto-Catholic, a Puritan-baiter, a secularist, or a devotee of some hybrid faith. In Religion Around Shakespeare, Peter Kaufman sets aside such speculation in favor of considering the historic and religious context surrounding his work. Employing extensive archival research, he aims to assist literary historians who probe the religious discourses, characters, and events that seem to have found places in Shakespeare’s plays and to aid general readers or playgoers developing an interest in the plays’ and playwright’s religious contexts: Catholic, conformist, and reformist. Kaufman argues that sermons preached around Shakespeare and conflicts that left their marks on literature, law, municipal chronicles, and vestry minutes enlivened the world in which (and with which) he worked and can enrich our understanding of the playwright and his plays.

You may read a sample chapter, the Introduction, at the Penn State University Press webpage for Religion Around Shakespeare:

I am not a literary historian, and what follows is not another interpretation of several of Shakespeare’s plays. For decades I have been studying the religious cultures of late Tudor and early Jacobean England, particularly what Alison Shell now calls the “fierce internal debate” that “beset” the established church, which was having problems as well “see[ing] off challenges from outside.” What I do in this book is give everyone interested in reading, watching, interpreting, or performing the plays a good look at the religion around Shakespeare. Circumstance is my subject.

Historians have long been at work on the religion of Shakespeare, and a few have gotten around to the religion around him. Several relatively recent and much publicized efforts suggest that late Elizabethan and early Stuart theatergoers justifiably saw Shakespeare’s plays as coded endorsements of expatriate Catholic missionaries’ efforts to restore the realm’s old faith, which Shell characterizes as “challenges from [the] outside.” Those presentations of the playwright’s Catholicism claim to have cracked the code that concealed his religiously unreformed opinions from religiously reformed government censors while it cued Catholics in his first audiences to his abiding allegiance to what they remembered as traditional Christianity. What twenty-first-century playgoers may see and hear simply as Hamlet’s brooding over the skull of poor Yorick is, after some code cracking, an “encrypted tribute” to the Englishman Edmund Campion, who left the realm rather than subscribe to his queen’s religion, returned to reinforce the faith of the resident Catholics, and died a martyr. . . .

Where did Shakespeare fit? Literary historians looking to out him as a Calvinist or a Catholic or a devotee of some “hybrid faith” should find something of interest here, although what follows will fall short of a definitive answer to their questions. I am not mining for that metal. Unquestionably, the playwright borrowed from the religion around him, and what he deposited in his drama “infused” performances, as Leah Marcus says, “with a vitality born of circumstance.” The plays profit from Shakespeare’s “sublimation into high drama of what is casually there at hand.” Nonetheless, to proceed from what was “at hand” and what is now staged so often to a singular scribe’s secrets—to his religious convictions—requires a razzle-dazzle that I am inadequately equipped to attempt.

Circumstance—the religion around the playwright, not his faith or the plays’ proper interpretations—is my subject. I leave Shakespeare’s outlook to others. My challenge is to see how well we can see what he saw when he looked out.

Reading this brief introduction, it's clear that Professor Kaufman will not say that Shakespeare was a Catholic, even if a Church Papist. Since he refers to the encoded Catholicism of Shakespeare's plays in the Introduction, I wonder if he will directly engage the arguments of Clare Asquith's Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare. For those who follow this theme of Shakespeare's religious identity, Religion Around Shakespeare seems to be an intriguing addition to the bibliography. And if you like to read about the religious background and milieu of other authors, this is the first book in a series "Religion Around":

Books in this series examine the religious forces surrounding cultural icons from all facets of world history and contemporary culture. By bringing religious background into the foreground, these studies will help give readers a more complex understanding and greater appreciation for individual subjects, their work, and their lasting influence. Forthcoming volumes will explore the religion around Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, and Langston Hughes, among others.