Richard Challoner, RIP

Richard Challoner, Vicar Apostolic for the London District in England, died on January 12, 1781. The Vicar Apostolic structure provided support for Catholic priests and laity in Engand in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries until the Restoration of the Hierarchy in 1850.

Born on September 29, 1691, he was raised a Presbyterian until after his father died when his mother became a servant in a Catholic household. Then he was raised Catholic and was baptized when he was thirteen. He entered the English College in Douai in 1705 and remained there until he returned to England in 1730. Challoner was ordained a priest in 1716 and served as an adminstrator at Douai for many years until becoming a missionary priest in London among the poor; although the recusancy laws were not as strictly enforced at that time, Father Challoner was still disguised as a layman and was careful not to attract official attention the the Masses and other Sacraments he celebrated in all kinds of locations.

In 1728 he had published his first work, Think Well on It. William Hyland discusses his many other published works in this Touchstone article.

Among his works, including a revision of the Douai-Rheims Bible and several devotional books, I think his most interesting were the historical and hagiographical efforts--books on the Anglo-Saxon and Medieval saints and especially on the Catholics martyrs who suffered in England from the reign of Henry VIII to that of Charles II. Those works provided the tiny minority of Catholics in England a vision of their past and indeed of its glories. In their own age they were nearly forgotten and quite ignored--not even worth persecuting!

Strangely enough, that latter condition changed after Parliament passed the Catholic Relief Act of 1778. Lord Gordon, President of the Protestant Assocation enraged the mobs so in 1780 that various No Popery riots took place (as recounted in Charles Dickens' Barnaby Rudge), as well as a march on Parliament, leading to many arrests and executions. The mobs also attacked the Embassy buildings of Bavaria and Sardinia, as well as the homes of wealthy noble Catholics. Bishop Challoner, aged 89, had to hide--just like a 16th century priest of old--until the mobs left his London home. The shock and terror of that near escape was too much for him. Bishop Challoner suffered paralysis two days before his death.

He was succeeded as Vicar Apostolic by his Coadjutor James Talbot; the last to hold that title was Nicholas Wiseman, who became the first Archbishop of Westminster in 1850.

Good news from the Ordinariate in England!

The Ordinariate now has a parish in London: Our Lady of the Assumption and Saint Gregory, Warwick Street, according to this news release:

The Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, has today announced that the church of Our Lady of the Assumption and Saint Gregory, Warwick Street, is being dedicated to the life of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

The historic church, which is situated in Soho, previously served as the chapel of the Portuguese, and later Bavarian, embassies. In the nineteenth century the sanctuary was rebuilt by the architect, J. F. Bentley, who designed Westminster Cathedral. In his ‘Apologia’ Blessed John Henry Newman mentions a visit to the church as a young boy with his father. He converted from Anglicanism to the Catholic faith in 1845and is the patron of the Personal Ordinariate.

Speaking of the news, Monsignor Keith Newton, the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate, said, “We are very grateful to Archbishop Vincent Nichols for this gesture of goodwill and support for the Ordinariate. The church is a beautiful example of ecclesiastical architecture in a very central part of London. We will be challenged to provide a strong Christian witness to those who frequent the surrounding area of Soho. It will also provide a fitting place for the liturgical and spiritual traditions of the Anglican tradition to flourish, in complete union with the Catholic Church. These demonstrate our fervent hope for the realisation of the ultimate goal of all ecumenical work, the restoration of full ecclesial communion”.

"The missionary work of the slum clergy of our Anglican forebears to the marginalised of our society must be at the heart of our mission. We relish the opportunity to engage in this important pastoral ministry, faithfully presenting the teaching of the Catholic Church as the means by which light of Jesus Christ can shine on the dark places of our world. Together with the recent formation of a religious community of former Anglican religious within the Ordinariate this is really good news as we begin 2013".

Read the rest here.

This site includes more detail about the church and its history, including the damage it suffered during the Gordon Riots :

Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St. Gregory, Warwick Street

This church, which was built in 1789–90, is the sole survivor of the few Roman Catholic chapels which existed in London during the eighteenth century. Its erection was one of the earliest manifestations of the Roman Catholic resurgence which accompanied the gradual relaxation of the penal laws. A smaller chapel, belonging successively to the Portuguese and Bavarian envoys who lived in Golden Square, had stood on part of the site of the present church, probably since 1724, and this long tradition of faith gives the Warwick Street church its unique cachet.

In 1724 the Portuguese envoy moved into the adjoining Nos. 23 and 24 Golden Square and it may reasonably be assumed that a Catholic chapel, to which his diplomatic privileges entitled him, was established there at about that time. Despite the penal laws against the celebration of Mass, his English co-religionists were evidently allowed to worship there unmolested.

The chapel must have been a small building. It was probably adapted from the existing outbuildings between the two houses in Golden Square and the legation stables fronting on to the east side of Warwick Street. A deed of 1700 which refers to the buildings behind No. 23 Golden Square mentions 'the room next the Garden' and an adjoining room containing 'a stove set with dutch tiles and wainscot over it'. It may therefore have been these, or similar buildings behind No. 24, that were subsequently converted into the envoy's chapel. He and his family and staff probably had a private entrance from the houses in Golden Square but the public entry was through a narrow passage from Warwick Street.

The Portuguese legation remained in Golden Square until 1747. Its most famous occupant was Don Sebastian Joseph de Carvalho, later Marquis of Pombal and dictator of Portugal who, soon after his arrival in London in 1739, issued a series of minute regulations governing the conduct of the services in his chapel.

In 1747 the Portuguese legation moved to South Street, Mayfair. The two houses in Golden Square, with the chapel and other outbuildings in Warwick Street, were then taken by Count Haslang, the Bavarian minister, who remained there until his death in 1783;  the danger of the chapel being closed by the withdrawal of diplomatic patronage and immunity was thus averted. The priests who served the chapel were technically the minister's chaplains, but in practice they were evidently charged mainly with ministering to the English Catholics in the neighbourhood, of whom in 1780 there were nearly a thousand living in St. James's parish, as well as many more in St. Anne's, Soho. Of the forty-four priests who are known to have served the chapel during its years under Bavarian protection, only three had foreign names.

The statutory relaxation of the penal laws began in 1778 with the passing of Sir George Savile's Catholic Relief Act. This occasioned the formation of the Protestant Association to procure its repeal and eventually culminated in the acts of mob violence which took place between 2 and 13 June 1780 and which have since been known as the Gordon Riots.

Count Haslang's chapel was amongst the first to suffer. On the night of 2–3 June, while another mob was destroying the Sardinian envoy's chapel in Lincoln's Inn Fields, a large party of rioters arrived in Warwick Street from Palace Yard, where the Protestant Association had gathered under Lord George Gordon. The rioters forced an entry and set about the despoilment of the chapel, most of the furniture and fittings being taken out into the street and burnt.

In the Diocese of Southwark, another parish has been established for the Ordinariate at the Church of the Most Precious Blood (from the same Ordinariate website):

Ordinariate priest appointed to South London parish
24 December 2012
An announcement was made yesterday (Sunday) that the Parish of the Most Precious Blood, Borough, is to be cared for by the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. By the kind invitation of the Archbishop of Southwark, the Most Reverend Peter Smith, the diocesan parish of the Precious Blood near London Bridge station will be cared for by Fr Christopher Pearson - a priest of the Personal Ordinariate - with the permission of the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate, Mgr Keith Newton. Replacing the Religious Community of the Society of the Divine Saviour (Salvatorians), who currently care for the parish, Fr Pearson will undertake the pastoral care of the diocesan faithful alongside the London (South) Ordinariate Group, who have worshipped in the parish in recent months. Fr Pearson's appointment begins in January 2013. Mgr Keith Newton said, "We are very grateful to Archbishop Peter Smith and the diocesan authorities for making this possible. It represents a positive moment in the life of the Ordinariate, as we grow towards the establishment of our own parishes and communities". The parish of the Precious Blood was founded in 1891.

The English Reformation Today: Episode Ten!

Today's topic is The Long Eighteenth Century for English Catholics after the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 until the first Catholic Relief Acts of 1778 and 1791. During this period, Catholics were really at their lowest point since Henry VIII's Break from Rome in 1534. They were but a small minority, they had no national center at Court (as they had throughout the 17th century with the original Stuarts), and in Enlightenment England, with the Broad Church mentality of the Church of England, they weren't really even worth persecuting!

I'll start with the story of James II's reign, his attempts to bring about religious freedom through an Act of Indulgence, and the invasion of England by the Dutch, invited by Members of Parliament and the Church to keep Protestantism safe in England from James and his Catholic son and heir. Then the story has two narratives--the new Stuarts, William and Mary, then Anne, and the Parliamentary acts that prevented Catholics from even being near the throne: no Catholic monarch, no Catholic spouses allowed; while the old Stuarts, James II and his heirs in French exile, led invasions in Ireland and Scotland, attempting to regain the throne, especially when the Hanoverian dynasty came to England.

I'll describe how the Latitudinarians took over leadership of the Church of England when the High Church Anglicans lost power, especially after the Non-Juror movements meant the loss of some of the better bishops, including an Archbishop of Canterbury and two great spiritual writers, Thomas Ken and William Law. All of this history, of course, is laid out in the narrative of Chapter 9 of Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation.

As for Catholics, as I mentioned, they were at the lowest point in their history, but there are a few high points:

Richard Challoner is one of the heroes of this era: as Vicar Apostolic, he worked to remind Catholics of their heritage in England. He completed the great work of gathering details about the martyrs of the 16th and 17th centuries which would be the basis on their causes for canonization in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Alban Butler wrote his great Lives of the Saints, still a basic work of hagiography.

Fathers George Leo Haydock and John Lingard were born near the end of the 18th century and in the next century, they would produce great intellectual works. Father Haydock would write and edit a great Biblical Commentary, while Father Lingard would produce a great history of England that would redress some historical errors of the Whig version of history, paving the way for full emancipation of Catholics in 1829.

The Catholic Relief Acts of 1778 and 1791 will wrap up this episode, including the horror of the Gordon Riots, provoked by the first easing of restrictions on Catholic worship. I welcome all listeners of Radio Maria US to my blog, whether you're listening on one of their radio stations or on line or through one of their apps. I invite you to call in with questions and comments toll-free at 866-333-MARY(6279). Just a reminder, too, that podcasts of previous episodes of The English Reformation Today are available on the Radio Maria US website. Next week: Emancipation at Last! and four important dates: 1829, 1845, 1850, and 1870.

A Future Vicar Apostolic for Great Britain

Richard Challoner was born on September 29, 1691 in Lewes, Sussex (former site of Lewes Abbey) of Protestant (Presbyterian) parents. When his father died, his mother became a servant in a Catholic household and both she and Richard became Catholics--he was baptized when he was thirteen years old. He lived with another Catholic family in Northamptonshire, where the lady of the house was one of Blessed William Howard's daughters, Lady Anastasia Holman. The chaplain of the household, Father John Gother, also influenced young Challoner. He went to the English College at Douai in 1705, where he stayed for 25 years as student and professor and was ordained in 1716.

In 1730 he returned to England as a missionary priest: there he lived and worked in London, disguised as a layman. Challoner wrote several books: Think Well On It, a devotional; Memoirs of Missionary Priests and other Catholicks of both Sexes who suffered Death or Imprisonment in England on account of their Religion, from the year 1577 till the end of the reign of Charles II (2 vols. 1741), the main source for information about the Catholic martyrs of the recusant era; The Garden of the Soul, another devitional; and the revision of the Douai/Rheims translation of the Holy Bible into English!

In 1758 he was named the Vicar Apostolic of the London District. The Vicars Apostolic were ordained Bishops who supervised priests throughout England, in lieu of the usual diocesan structure. Challoner had been the Coadjutor Bishop for Benjamin Petre and succeeded him.

In 1778, Parliament passed The Catholic Relief Act and two years later, Lord George Gordon, head of the Protestant Association, instigated the Gordon Riots, resulting in days of anti-Catholic violence. Bishop Challoner never recovered from the shock and fear of hiding from the mobs searching for him. He was almost 90 years old and died on January 12, 1781. Bishop Richard Challoner, Vicar Apostolic, was a faithful and true leader of Catholics in the eighteenth century. I will be on the Son Rise Morning Show today at 7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central, etc, to discuss the life and legacy of this great Catholic bishop.