Preview: Gunpowder and Popish Plot Martyrs on "Church and Culture" with Deal Hudson

Yesterday, I recorded an interview with Deal Hudson for his Church and Culture program on Ave Maria Radio. Last August we talked about four Tudor era English Catholic Martyrs: two from the reign of Henry VIII and two from Elizabeth I's. 

This time we told the stories of four martyrs from the Stuart Dynasty: two from the reign of James I in the aftermath of the real Gunpowder Plot and two from Charles II's reign during the fake Popish Plot.

Background for the Gunpowder Plot ("Remember, remember, the Fifth of November"):

Catholic conspirators, frustrated by King James I not keeping his promise to be lenient with Catholics once he succeeded Elizabeth I, did plot to murder the king, his family, his Court, and members of Parliament by blowing up Parliament when they were all gathered there. They conspired to commit murder and terrorism to place James's Protestant daughter on the throne and through an uprising, take over the government and change England's state religion. It was outlandish, stupid, and sinful. 

The plot was discovered because one conspirator thought of a relative who would be in attendance and warned him not to go. Authorities searched the undercroft of the House of Lords and captured Guy Fawkes when he checked on the gunpowder, depicted above in an 1823 painting by Henry Perronet Briggs. 

He was tortured; other conspirators killed in a raid; others captured, tried, and executed as traitors (hanged, drawn, and quartered). Father Henry Garnet, SJ was also questioned and tried and executed: controversy about how much he knew about the Gunpowder Plot, how strenuously he advised against it, etc., has meant that he has not been beatified or canonized as a martyr. As I wrote in my review of Jessie Child's God's Traitors (the story of Vaux family's efforts to remain Catholic in Elizabethan and Stuart England) several years ago:

Anne Vaux feared that young men she knew well like Robert Catesby were plotting something horrible and she wanted Father Henry Garnet to tell them not to go forward with their plans. Did Father Garnet do enough? did he ask the right questions? respond forcefully enough to tell Catesby and Digby et al not to pursue whatever plot they had in mind? Those were questions he asked himself while in prison and even during his questioning. Although he did not instigate the plot or encourage the plot--he knew [something] about the Gunpowder Plot and he did not report it to the authorities, citing the seal of the confessional.

The aftermath of the Plot meant that Catholics were more restricted than before under the Popish Recusants Act of 1605 (finally repealed in 1829) with higher fines and a new oath, etc. And the government continued to search for any Jesuit priests in the country who might--because of their connection to Father Henry Garnet--have been involved in the conspiracy. Antonia Fraser wrote a book about Gunpowder Plot.

The two martyrs who suffered because of the fallout from the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 that I selected were Saint Thomas Garnet, SJ, and Saint Nicholas Owen, a Jesuit lay brother and the great designer and builder of Priest Holes in Catholic homes. They were arrested after hiding in Priest Holes in Hindlip Hall which Owen had built! 

Background for the Popish Plot:

Titus Oates, one of the perjurers behind the Popish Plot was not trustworthy: the Church of England didn't trust him. But once he started talking about a plot he'd discovered among Catholics to assassinate Charles II, who'd returned to the throne in 1660 after the English Civil War and Interregnum, and replace him with his brother James, the Duke of York, a Catholic convert, he found a willing audience.

He and William Bedloe developed the story for the plot, convinced authorities of its reality, and testified against several Jesuits and other Catholics. The way the Courts tried defendants--namely, the assumption that the accused was guilty and had to prove he wasn't-- and the established prejudice against Catholics (especially Jesuits; remember the Gunpowder Plot) meant it took a long time for the judges to catch on to the web of lies Oates and Bedloe got tangled up in. 

After numerous trials and executions Oates' perjury was finally recognized and he was convicted of sedition, imprisoned, and fined. During the reign of James II, he was convicted of perjury, imprisoned for life, and pilloried. William and Mary pardoned him and he died in obscurity in 1705. The most recent book about the Popish Plot is from Yale University Press, Hoax: The Popish Plot that Never Was by Victor Slater.

The two martyrs I selected for the Popish Plot or the Titus Oates Conspiracy of 1678/1679, are Blessed Richard Langhorne, a lay lawyer accused of aiding the conspirators and Saint John Kemble, an 80-year old priest who'd served in the west of England and Wales for 54 years. 

The hour-long segment will air during Church and Culture on Saturday, February 1 (3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Eastern/2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Central) and Sunday, February 2 (7:00 to 9:00 a.m. Eastern/6:00 to 8:00 a.m. Central). Listen live here. When the program has been added to the archive for Church and Culture I'll update my Facebook page.

Preview: Commentary on the Coronation on Treasures of the Faith

Tomorrow morning (Tuesday, May 23), I'll be on a radio program called Treasures of Faith on Divine Mercy Radio (WDMC, 920 AM) in Melbourne, Florida, 10:00 a.m. Central Time, 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time. Listen live here; the host, Mike Gisondi, will send me a link to the podcast of the show about a week later.

AND: he did send me the link for the St. Thomas More interview we conducted in March!

Tomorrow, however, we'll be talking about the recent Coronation of King Charles III and how Catholic Liturgy and Tradition was certainly reflected in the service--down to the vestments Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Church of England prelates wore. He had to borrow them from the Catholic Cathedral of Westminster, according to this story (confirmed by Lambeth Palace, the London headquarters of the Archbishop, and a spokesman from the Cathedral) because he could not access appropriate vestments for himself and the other bishops and prelates.

Mike and I will discuss various other aspects of the event, based on some of the comments I made on the Son Rise Morning Show before the Coronation and an update I posted here.

I included the cover of my magnum--and only--opus here because this has been the theme I've been studying, reading about, talking about, and writing about for the past 15 years  or so (13 years since Supremacy and Survival was published and a few years before that as I wrote and rewrote it and searched for a publisher!). 

The theme: the long-lasting consequences for not just Catholicism but for religion in England after Henry VIII's still-crucial break from Rome. And some of those signs of healing of the break except for one crucial divide: the monarch cannot be a "Roman" Catholic!

The book is readily available from Eighth Day Books here in Wichita, Kansas! And if you want me to sign it before they send, let Warren or any of the staff know and I can easily drop by and autograph it, dedicate it, etc.

Radio Interview: St. Thomas More on "Treasures of Faith"

Tomorrow morning, I'll be on a radio program called Treasures of Faith on Divine Mercy Radio (WDMC, 920 AM) in Melbourne, Florida, 10:00 a.m. Central Time, 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time. Listen live here; the host, Mike Gisondi, will send me a link to the podcast of the show about a week later. The reason for the interview is that it just so happened that Mr. Gisondi and I watched the recent broadcast of A Man for All Seasons on Turner Classic Movies during their "31 Days of Oscar" on March 7th. He emailed me and we set up this interview to talk about the movie and its subject, Saint Thomas More--we also want to talk about Saint John Fisher, of course.

After Saint John Henry Newman with 336 tracked posts, Saint Thomas More is the second most featured person on my blog, with 194. Many of those posts were responses to the late Hilary Mantel's traducement of More in Wolf Hall, though I have also considered Fred Zinnemann's version of Robert Bolt's depiction of More in this movie, based upon his stage play.

I look forward to another opportunity to discuss this great saint on the Friday of Passion Week, as Saint Thomas More prepared himself for his own passion and death in the Tower of London, meditating on the Agony in the Garden (De Tristitia) and the Passion (Treatise on the Passion).

Saint Thomas More, pray for us! Saint John Fisher, pray for us!

Kresta in the Afternoon Podcast and Download

Just so you have it handy for your listening pleasure--and to download if you wish--here's the podcast of my interview with Al Kresta on January 15, the 485th anniversary of Henry VIII proclaiming himself "Henricus Octavus, Dei gratia Angliæ et Franciæ Rex, Fidei Defensor et Dominus Hiberniæ, et in Terra Supremum Caput Anglicanæ Ecclesiæ": Henry the VIIIth, by the Grace of God King of England and France, Defender of the Faith, Lord of Ireland, and on earth Supreme Head of the Church of England"!

One chronological point about this date in the context of the timeline of the English Reformation to clarify: Oaths of Succession had already been submitted for secular and religious men to take: Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher had been in the Tower of London since the middle of April, 1534 because they refused to swear that oath. It did not proclaim Henry the Supreme Head of the Church of England but it did deny the spiritual or ecclesiastical authority of the Pope in England, especially when it interfered with the Succession and Henry's marital affairs.

When Henry VIII made this declaration of his new title, the Parliamentary Act of Supremacy and the Treasons Act were already in place--since November of 1534. At their trials, the crucial act for the government to prove was that both More and Fisher had denied that Henry VIII was the Supreme Head of the Church of England; thus they had committed Treason and were condemned traitors to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. At both of their trials, Sir Richard Rich was the star witness to their acts of treason: Sir Thomas More vehemently protested that he would never have confided to such a person his thoughts on a matter he had told no one else, not even his family!

I first met Al Kresta in 2011 at the Catholic Writers Guild/Catholic Marketing Network Trade Show. He has been kind enough to recommend my book to "anyone interested in this topic" ever since! He says so at the very end of this interview!

On "Kresta in the Afternoon" TODAY

Before I go to my Holy Hour of Adoration today, I am going to record a segment for Kresta in The Afternoon, which will be aired later today. I'm not sure when it will be aired during his two hour show, but we are going to discuss Henry VIII being named Supreme Head and Governor of the Church in England and what it meant for Catholics in England.

Kresta in the Afternoon is on EWTN Radio and Ave Maria Radio from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Central Time/4:00 to 6:00 p.m. Eastern, etc.

What did it mean for Catholics in England at the time? Did they expect any real changes in doctrine, worship, and discipline? Except for a few, like the Carthusians, and the Observant Franciscans, and Sir Thomas More, and Bishop John Fisher, most probably thought that Henry VIII becoming the Supreme Head and Governor of the Church of England meant that everything as far as doctrine--except for the Pope--and worship--except for the Pope (as he was cited in the prayers at Mass and in the Divine Office)--and morals would remain the same.

By December 24, 1545, Henry VIII may have not been sure what he wanted to achieve as the Supreme Head and Governor of the Church of England. He was certainly disappointed that there was so much division in the Church, but there had been at least two parties, the reforming Lutherans and the conservative Catholics, from the beginning, contending for influence over the king. From 1536 to 1545, religious practice in England changed from being more Lutheran to being more Catholic: the Ten Articles and the Bishops Book; then the Six Articles and the King's Book; the suppression of the monasteries and the friaries; the fall of Cromwell; the Chantries Act; and at the end of Henry VIII's reign, the Lutheran/Calvinist party prepared to seize power when he died.

According to G.W. Bernard, in The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church:

The king sought a middle way between Rome and Zurich, between Catholicism and its associated superstitions on one hand and the subversive radicalism of the reformers on the other. With a ruthlessness that verged on tyranny, Henry VIII determined the pace of change in the most important twenty years of England’s religious development.

I think it's hard to know what Henry VIII intended to achieve at the beginning of his control over the Church of England beyond consolidating his dynasty's succession.

2019: The Year of Reading Newman

I just can't let my reading year in review go without commenting on how much I read in and about St. John Henry Newman last year.

With Matt Swaim and Anna Mitchell on the Son Rise Morning Show I completed a long series of discussions of Newman's life and works starting in January and ending in October the day after his canonization. We covered many aspects of his life and works so I re-read many of his great books, dipping into them, and consulting works about Newman.

I presented a paper on Newman and Papal Infallibility at the Eighth Day Institute Florovsky-Newman Week in June last year.

The Theology Institute at the Spiritual Life Center has included works by and about Newman in recent monthly discussions, using Bishop Robert Barron's Exploring Catholic Theology: Essays on God, Liturgy, and Evangelization. Two chapters highlight Newman: "A Tale of Two Cardinals: Avery Dulles's Creative Engagement with the Thought of John Henry Newman" and "John Henry Newman among the Postmoderns". Three of the priest guest speakers have talked about Newman in their presentations during our once-a-month meetings: on Newman and the Fathers, on Newman's Personalism, and on Newman as a Doctor of the Church. We'll continue our exploration of Newman with lectures on his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine today.

Two of the books on my best of the year list highlighted Newman: Vatican I and Mary's Bodily Assumption.

And, finally, I made two presentations at the Spiritual Life Center's Newman Retreat in November on "Newman in Wichita" and "Newman and the Laity".

So 2019 was a Newman Reading Year indeed, even though I did not read one book totally dedicated to Newman!

Among the works consulted:

Parochial and Plain Sermons
University Sermons
Apologia Pro Vita Sua
The Dream of Gerontius
Meditations and Devotions
Loss and Gain
A Letter to the Duke of Norfolk
Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine
The Grammar of Consent
An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine
The Idea of A University

Father Ian Ker's Biography of Newman
Newman on Vatican II by Father Ian Ker
Newman and History by Edward Short
John Henry Newman: Spiritual Director by Peter Wilcox

Preview: Newman and the Liturgy

As we come near the holiest week of the liturgical year and the holiest three days of the holiest week of the liturgical year, it seems appropriate that we discuss Newman and the Liturgy this coming Monday on the Son Rise Morning Show. It is Matt Swaim's turn on Monday, April 8, to continue our series a little after 7:50 a.m. Eastern DST/6:50 a.m. Central DST. I'm citing a lecture I offered at Newman University in February 2016 for their Cardinal Newman/Founders celebrations. First, some notes on Newman and the Liturgy as an Anglican:

Because of his deserved reputation as a controversialist, intellectual, and author, we sometimes forget—and Pope Benedict XVI reminded us when he presided at Newman’s beatification during his September 2010 visit to England—that Newman was, for most of his life, a pastor. As both an Anglican minister and then as a Catholic priest, Newman celebrated a liturgy, prayed in accord with the liturgical year, and preached sermons and homilies urging his congregations to do so too.

We should also note, since we are celebrating his birthday on February 21, in 1801, that he was born in a devout Church of England family and experienced the liturgy throughout his childhood. He bought a copy of the Book of Common Prayer for himself so that he could receive it as a gift from his mother!

For 20 years as a minister of the Church of England, Newman celebrated the Anglican liturgy according to the Book of Common Prayer with careful attention to the rubrics of the rite. During his Oxford Movement period, he began to use the Roman (Catholic) Breviary (the Liturgy of the Hours) for his personal devotions. After his conversion in 1845, he studied for the priesthood, and thus celebrated Mass and the Sacraments according to the Roman Missal, etc—while continuing to pray the Breviary.

In 1959, Father Frank O’Malley wrote that, “the spirit of Newman moved within the spirit of the liturgy; the liturgy thought of in its most significant sense as the very rhythm of Christian existence, stirred and centered by the life of Christ. Newman absorbed the liturgical character of existence. He lived by the liturgy.”

He celebrated the services of the Church of England with care, solemnity, and devotion and he emphasized how essential religious worship was to the life of a Christian. This view and this liturgical emphasis was not without controversy in Newman’s time—and the celebration of the liturgy in the Church of England would become more controversial after he became a Catholic—because there were different parties in the Church of England, with different views of liturgy.

We can identify, as Aidan Nichols summarizes them in his book The Panther and Hind, three basic parties in the Church of England and their liturgical views:

• The High Church or Anglo Catholic party: liturgical beauty, including candles, incense, vestments; emphasis on doctrine; importance of Tradition; using Catholic devotions (I visited St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Providence, RI—it’s known as a Tractarian church—the vestibule was filled with pamphlets on praying the Rosary, praying the Stations of the Cross, litanies, novenas, etc.) Adherents of this party followed the example of the Anglican Divines of the Stuart era: Lancelot Andrewes, William Laud, etc

• The Low Church or Evangelical party: emphasizing the Holy Bible and simplicity of worship and church architecture. Rejection of some religious imagery and church decoration; Puritan and Wesleyan background

• The Broad Church or Latitudinarian party: emphasizing moral behavior and reason in religious matters and sermons about the same—downplaying doctrinal or liturgical differences; 18th century background

Newman answered both Low Church and Broad Church objections to liturgical worship as “the essence of the life of the Church”, “supplying all our spiritual need”.

To Broad Church objections he replied in Parochial and Plain Sermon “Worship, A Preparation for Christ’s Coming” (an Advent sermon), starting with their questions:

Men sometimes ask, Why need they profess religion? Why need they go to church? Why need they observe certain rites and ceremonies? Why need they watch, pray, fast, and meditate? Why is it not enough to be just, honest, sober, benevolent, and otherwise virtuous? Is not this the true and real worship of God? Is not activity in mind and conduct the most acceptable way of approaching Him? How can they please Him by submitting to certain religious forms, and taking part in certain religious acts?

Even if religious worship is necessary, they object:

why may they not choose their own? Why must they come to church for them? Why must they be partakers in what the Church calls Sacraments?

Newman’s first answer is, because God tells them to do so! He tells them that liturgical worship prepares them for the sight of God:

They are not to be here for ever. Direct intercourse with God on their part now, prayer and the like, may be necessary to their meeting Him suitably hereafter: and direct intercourse on His part with them, or what we call sacramental communion, may be necessary in some incomprehensible way, even for preparing their very nature to bear the sight of Him.

Let us then take this view of religious service; it is "going out to meet the Bridegroom," who, if not seen "in His beauty," will appear in consuming fire. Besides its other momentous reasons, it is a preparation for an awful event, which shall one day be.

Not that Newman ignores good works and moral conduct, for he concludes this sermon urging his congregation to both moral conduct and liturgical worship:

Let us go out to meet Him with contrite and expectant hearts; and though He delays His coming, let us watch for Him in the cold and dreariness which must one day have an end. Let us wait for Him solemnly, fearfully, hopefully, patiently, obediently; let us be resigned to His will, while active in good works.

Newman answers Evangelical objections to liturgical worship in “Ceremonies of the Church” in which he uses Jesus’s reply to John the Baptist when John thought he should not baptize Our Savior: “Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15)

He uses the same question and answer method:

We sometimes meet with men, who ask why we observe these or those ceremonies or practices; why, for example, we use Forms of prayer so cautiously and strictly? or why we persist in kneeling at the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper? why in bowing at the name of Jesus? or why in celebrating the public worship of God only in consecrated places? why we lay such stress upon these things? These, and many such questions may be asked, and all with this argument: "They are indifferent matters; we do not read of them in the Bible."

Newman’s response is first that the Bible

does not set about telling us what to do, but chiefly what to believe

For example:

there is no prohibition of suicide, dueling, gaming, in Scripture; yet we know them to be great sins; and it would be no excuse in a man to say that he does not find them forbidden in Scripture, because he may discover God's will in this matter independently of Scripture. . . .

This, I say, is the proper answer to the question, "Why do you observe rites and forms which are not enjoined in Scripture?" though, to speak the truth, our chief ordinances are to be found there, as the Sacraments, Public Worship, the Observance of the Lord's day, Ordination, Marriage, and the like. But I shall make another answer, which is suggested by the event commemorated this day, our Lord's conforming to the Jewish Law in the rite of circumcision; and my answer is this.

Scripture tells us what to believe, and what to aim at and maintain, but it does not tell us how to do it; and as we cannot do it at all unless we do it in this manner, or that, in fact we must add something to what Scripture tells us. For example, Scripture tells us to meet together for prayer, and has connected the grant of the Christian blessings on God's part, with the observance of union on ours; but since it does not tell us the times and places of prayer, the Church must complete that which Scripture has but enjoined generally.

He warns that

There is no such thing as abstract religion. When persons attempt to worship in this (what they call) more spiritual manner, they end, in fact, in not worshipping at all. This frequently happens. Every one may know it from his own experience of himself. Youths, for instance (and perhaps those who should know better than they), sometimes argue with themselves, "What is the need of praying statedly morning and evening? why use a form of words? why kneel? why cannot I pray in bed, or walking, or dressing?" they end in not praying at all.

But Newman goes beyond insisting that Christians should pray according to the Church’s forms of worship to emphasizing how important the liturgical year—and the sanctoral year—are in the life of a Christian.

In one of the Tracts for the Times, number 34, “Rites and Customs of the Church” Newman tried to convince his readers that the liturgy and the liturgical year were apostolic traditions, handed down from the Apostles to the Fathers of the Church and expressed in the Book of Common Prayer to impress the “great revealed verities of the Christian faith in the imagination of the faithful”. This, of course, was the aim of the Oxford Movement—to claim apostolic succession for the Anglican Church—to demonstrate that it was not just a Church formed by the State, but a true Church, a branch of the (lower case c) catholic Church. He was claiming an authority for the Church of England to, as he said above, give its members the order and form to fulfill what the Bible enjoined on them—through the liturgy and the liturgical year. And when he discusses the cult of the saints and the calendar of saints—Newman was speaking of something Englishmen associated with the Catholic Church—he was running the risk of being too “Papist” or “Popish”—Catholics and Catholic devotions were considered foreign and un-English (and to some extent, still are today in Great Britain).

Newman’s attempt, along with the other leaders of the Oxford Movement, to encourage both the clergy—especially the bishops—and the laity to live and pray as though the Church of England was part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, as we know, failed. The Church of England—especially the bishops—rejected the argument because it meant they had to acknowledge the teachings of the Catholic Church. Newman wrote Tract 90 in 1841, the last Tract for the Times, arguing that only the teachings of the Catholic Church give an authoritative and effective meaning and interpretation of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England. It was soundly rejected by the University of Oxford and the Church of England. He was almost soundly rejected by the University of Oxford and the Church of England. He resigned his livings at the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin and the little church in Littlemore outside Oxford that he had founded (St. Mary’s-St. Nicholas) and was on his death-bed as an Anglican.

Studying and praying in Littlemore, Newman finally resigned all his ties to Oxford and joined the Catholic Church on October 9, 1845, confessing his sins and receiving the sacraments from Father Dominic Barberi, a Passionist priest serving the newly emancipated Catholics of England. Newman received his first Holy Communion on October 10, 1845. . . .

More on Monday from the lecture about Newman and the Liturgy as a Catholic priest.

Newman's Second Spring on the Son Rise Morning Show

Father John Henry Newman of the Oratory gave his famous "Second Spring" sermon at the Mass of the Holy Spirit at the close of the first Westminster Synod held after the restoration of the hierarchy in England on July 13, 1852. In anticipation of the 166th anniversary of this event, Anna Mitchell will discuss it this morning on the Son Rise Morning Show around 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. During the EWTN hour on Friday, the interview will repeat.

Please listen live here.

In this eloquent sermon, Newman celebrated the revival and renewal of the Catholic Church in England:

But what is it, my Fathers, my Brothers, what is it that has happened in England just at this time? Something strange is passing over this land, by the very surprise, by the very commotion, which it excites. Were we not near enough the scene of action to be able to say what is going on,—were we the inhabitants of some sister planet possessed of a more perfect mechanism than this earth has discovered for surveying the transactions of another globe,—and did we turn our eyes thence towards England just at this season, we should be arrested by a political phenomenon as wonderful as any which the astronomer notes down from his physical field of view. It would be the occurrence of a national commotion, almost without parallel, more violent than has happened here for centuries,—at least in the judgments and intentions of men, if not in act and deed. We should note it down, that soon after St. Michael's day, 1850, a storm arose in the moral world, so furious as to demand some great explanation, and to rouse in us an intense desire to gain it. We should observe it increasing from day to day, and spreading from place to place, without remission, almost without lull, up to this very hour, when perhaps it threatens worse still, or at least gives no sure prospect of alleviation. Every party in the body politic undergoes its influence,—from the Queen upon her throne, down to the little ones in the infant or day school. The ten thousands of the constituency, the sum-total of Protestant sects, the aggregate of religious societies and associations, the great body of established clergy in town and country, the bar, even the medical profession, nay, even literary and scientific circles, every class, every interest, every fireside, gives tokens of this ubiquitous storm. This would be our report of it, seeing it from the distance, and we should speculate on the cause. What is it all about? against what is it directed? what wonder has happened upon earth? what prodigious, what preternatural event is adequate to the burden of so vast an effect?

We should judge rightly in our curiosity about a phenomenon like this; it must be a portentous event, and it is. It is an innovation, a miracle, I may say, in the course of human events. The physical world revolves year by year, and begins again; but the political order of things does not renew itself, does not return; it continues, but it proceeds; there is no retrogression. This is so well understood by men of the day, that with them progress is idolized as another name for good. The past never returns—it is never good;—if we are to escape existing ills, it must be by going forward. The past is out of date; the past is dead. As well may the dead live to us, well may the dead profit us, as the past return. This, then, is the cause of this national transport, this national cry, which encompasses us. The past has returned, the dead lives. Thrones are overturned, and are never restored; States live and die, and then are matter only for history. Babylon was great, and Tyre, and Egypt, and Nineve, and shall never be great again. The English Church was, and the English Church was not, and the English Church is once again. This is the portent, worthy of a cry. It is the coming in of a Second Spring; it is a restoration in the moral world, such as that which yearly takes place in the physical.

Anna and I will talk about how this sermon came just a month after Newman had been tried and convicted of libel--and had experienced the animosity of anti-Catholicism personally in the courtroom and from the judge.

Tomorrow: Mary, Queen of Scots on the Radio

Yesterday, I recorded a discussion with Deal Hudson for his Church and Culture program on Ave Maria Radio:

Times: Saturday, 3:00-5:00 pm EST; Sunday, 7:00-9:00 am EST (my segment will air at 4:00 pm Saturday and 8:00 a.m. Sunday--EST)!

Church and Culture engages all aspects of our culture with the aim of discussing “cultural apologetics.” Culture is discussed from a Catholic perspective in order to provide opportunities for Catholics to introduce the faith to others through a book, a movie, a TV show, a piece of music, a political issue, or an artist, among other things. The Church speaks through culture, and while there is much in our culture to be avoided, there is much that can witness to the Catholic faith. On each program, Dr. Hudson interviews noted experts in their fields, providing insight and guidance in our evangelical engagement with the culture.

He and I discussed Mary, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I, the Scottish Reformation and the English Reformation--all in an hour!!

We will follow up with a general overview on the English Reformation in a few weeks.

Listen live here.

On "Kresta in the Afternoon"

In the celebration of Holy Week and the Triduum last week, and in the midst of preparing for an Easter week vacation in the Ozarks, I forgot to tell you about my interview on Kresta in the Afternoon! Al and I talked about the issues and characters involved in "The King's Great Matter", Henry VIII's desire to have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, the mother of his children and his anointed and crowned Queen because they had not had a son who survived infancy.

(This was the reason that I had done some research on Eleanor of Aquitaine's annulment last month!)

It is always so fun to talk with Mr. Kresta: he is so knowledgeable himself about Church History and yet wants to hear what his guest has to say!

Happy Easter! Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen! Alleluia!

William Byrd's "Ave Verum Corpus"

I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show with Anna Mitchell this morning--a little after 7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central--to talk about the great eucharistic hymn "Ave Verum Corpus" and about William Byrd.  Please listen live here! Podcasts will be uploaded there too.

She's following up on my blog post at the National Catholic Register last week:

Before the evening Mass this Sunday at my parish in Wichita, Kansas, the schola was practicing William Byrd’s setting of the “Ave verum corpus” (Ave Verum):

Ave verum corpus, natum
de Maria Virgine,
vere passum, immolatum
in cruce pro homine
cuius latus perforatum
fluxit aqua et sanguine:
esto nobis praegustatum
in mortis examine.
O Iesu dulcis, O Iesu pie, (Or: O clemens, O pie)
O Iesu, fili Mariae.
Miserere mei. Amen.

Kneeling in my pew, praying the Glorious Mysteries, I could not help, sotto voce, singing along with the “Miserere mei”. Because I listen to Byrd’s music often, I recognized his composition; because I listen to liturgical music often, I recognized the prayer:

Hail, true Body, born
of the Virgin Mary,
having truly suffered, sacrificed
on the cross for mankind,
from whose pierced side
water and blood flowed:
Be for us a foretaste [of the Heavenly banquet]
in the trial of death!
O sweet Jesus, O holy Jesus,
O Jesus, son of Mary,
have mercy on me. Amen.

The schola went over a couple of tricky passages and at first sang the motet with piano accompaniment. During Mass, they sang it at the Offertory.

As I heard it, I joined in the prayer of adoration of Jesus, present in the Blessed Sacrament, and of His Paschal Sacrifice about to be re-presented on the Altar. This Eucharistic hymn also reminds me of my mortality and hopes for a happy and holy death.

Knowing that William Byrd had composed it during a time when the Mass was illegal in England, his setting of this hymn made me grateful not only for freedom of religion in our country, but for the bounty our diocese has received from God recently. Our bishop ordained ten priests and ten deacons this May; our parish, Blessed Sacrament, received two of the newly ordained priests as Parochial Vicars, and one of the deacons has been serving us this summer. Next May, God willing, Bishop Carl Kemme will ordain ten more priests!

And some background on William Byrd here.

On the Son Rise Morning Show with Matt Swaim

Matt Swaim--back on the Son Rise Morning Show temporarily to help with hosting duties while Anna Mitchell is on maternity leave--and I will talk about Servant of God Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, aka Mother Mary Alphonsa. We'll talk about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central.

I wrote about Nathaniel Hawthorne's youngest child for the blog roll at the National Catholic Register. Part of her story how she and her husband became Catholics but then had to separate:

Rose Hawthorne’s conversion to Catholicism in 1891 shocked the family. Her father had died in 1864 and her mother moved the family to Dresden, Germany, where Rose met George Parsons Lathrop. Because of Franco-Prussian War, Sophia moved again, back to England. There she died in 1871; Rose and George were married later that year in an Anglican Church over the objections of her brother and sister; they thought it was too soon after their mother’s death and that Rose was too young and vulnerable to marry.

They had a troubled marriage; he abused alcohol and their only child Francis died of diphtheria in 1881. George edited The Atlantic Monthly and Rose wrote poetry. They lived in New London, Connecticut and took instruction from a Paulist, Father Alfred Young, and were received into the Church. Like many new converts, they were filled with zeal and worked for the Church together on several projects, including the Catholic Summer School Movement and a history of the Visitation Convent in Georgetown.

In 1895, Rose and George took the extraordinary step of asking the Catholic Church for a permanent separation—not an annulment of their marriage—because of George’s instability and alcoholism which endangered Rose. Neither would be free to marry until the other died so they demonstrated their belief in the indissolubility of marriage and in the Sacrament of Matrimony even as they separated. George died of cirrhosis of the liver three years later.

Years ago I read Sorrow Built a Bridge by Katherine Burton, herself a convert to Catholicism. As I recall, reading this biography was like reading a novel. It was an excellent portrayal.

Blessed John Hambley, Pray for Us!

Just a reminder that I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show during the EWTN hour this morning (5:00 to 6:00 a.m. Central Daylight Savings Time/6:00 to 7:00 a.m. Eastern DST) to talk about the Stations of the Cross, Blessed John Henry Newman's Meditation on the Ninth Station, and Blessed John Hambley! Listen live here. Remember that you can catch up with the podcasts on the Son Rise Morning Show here.

Then check out my latest blog for the National Catholic Register where I discuss those three subjects more completely than is possible in a brief radio interview, especially the story of Blessed John Hambley, who is remembered on the Roman Martyrology today:

All the priests who came to England knew that they could suffer imprisonment, torture, and horrendous execution. They had the example of their protomartyr, Father Cuthbert Mayne in 1577, and then of Fathers Edmund Campion, Ralph Sherwin, and Alexander Briant—and others—in 1581. Nearly every year they learned of another priest being martyred. The Venerable English College in Rome, where many priests studied, started the tradition of a seminarian preaching a sermon on martyrdom before the pope on the feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr. The founder of the Oratorians, St. Philip Neri, greeted the students in the streets with the salutation, “Salvete flores martyrum” (Hail! flowers of the martyrs).

But Father John Hambley, in spite of all these examples, was not ready to suffer. He had given up everything to become a Catholic and a priest, but the threat of physical suffering undid him, according to the 1914 edition of The Lives of the English Martyrs. He was born around 1560 in an Anglican family, but a Catholic friend encouraged him to read a book by Father Robert Persons, SJ and soon he became a Catholic. Because he had stopped attending Church of England services, he left his native Cornwall and then left England for the Continent. Hambley studied for the priesthood in Reims and was ordained on September 22, 1584. On April 6, 1585 he returned to England as a missionary priest under the guidance of Father John Cornelius, SJ (who would be martyred in 1594).

Before Easter in 1586, he was arrested in Taunton, Somerset, tried for being a priest, convicted, and sentenced to death. To save his life, Hambley promised to renounce his Catholic faith; then he escaped from prison. Recaptured on August 14, he faced the same horrible death of being hanged, drawn and quartered—and he fell again. He not only promised to become an Anglican, but he told the authorities everything he knew. Hambley told them about where he said Mass, who attended, who helped him; he told them the names of 15 other priests serving in England and others who are studying abroad. 

Strangely, the judges did not trust his statements, perhaps because he gave them so willingly, so Hambley was held in prison in Salisbury until the next public trials, the Assizes, in March of 1587. The judge asked him again if he was ready to renounce the Catholic faith, and Father Hambley said he was—his third fall. Awaiting release, he was given a letter; after he read it, he changed. The next day, he told the judge that he would not renounce the faith and that he regretted his weakness. This time, the threat of “a most cruel death” did not move him to cowardice, and he suffered execution bravely.

Blessed John Hambley, pray for us! Help us to be resolute in our Lenten devotions and in our journey to eternal life!

Three Falls and Martyrdom

I will be on the Son Rise Morning Show during the first local Cincinnati hour on Sacred Heart Radio this morning a little after 6:45 a.m. Central DST/7:45 a.m. Eastern DST to talk about Blessed John Hambley, one of the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Pope St. John Paul II in 1987. The Son Rise Morning Show will then repeat the interview on Wednesday, March 29 during the earlier EWTN hour. March 29 is the date assigned to him on the Roman Martyrology: the date is uncertain but he was executed around Easter 1587 in Salisbury. He offers us a great example of repentance and resolution.

Listen live here today and here tomorrow--and also read my post at the National Catholic Register blog here tomorrow.

Father John Hambley fell three times on his way to the scaffold, denying his faith and even revealing information about who had assisted him and heard Mass when he celebrated it in the English Catholic underground. In my blog post I discuss how Jesus, in the Traditional Stations of the Cross, fell three times on the way to Calvary and Blessed John Henry Newman's interpretation of those three falls:

We are told in Holy Scripture of three falls of Satan, the Evil Spirit. The first was in the beginning; the second, when the Gospel and the Kingdom of Heaven were preached to the world; the third will be at the end of all things. . . .

These three falls--the past, the present, and the future--the Evil Spirit had in mind when he moved Judas to betray Our Lord. This was just his hour. Our Lord, when He was seized, said to His enemies, "This is your hour and the power of darkness." Satan knew his time was short, and thought he might use it to good effect. . . . he smote Him once, he smote Him twice, he smote Him thrice, each successive time a heavier blow.

The picture (c) 2017, Stephanie A. Mann, is of the Ninth Station in the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, Wichita, Kansas.

Don't Forget: St. Ogilvie on EWTN Radio!

If you listen to EWTN Radio early in the morning, the Son Rise Morning Show has an hour broadcast from 5:00 to 6:00 a.m. Central time/6:00 to 7:00 a.m. Eastern! The Son Rise Morning Show will include my segment with Anna Mitchell to tell the story of St. John Ogilvie this morning during that hour today! Listen live here.

Here's a prayer for the intercession of St. John Ogilvie, SJ:

God our Father, fountain of all blessing, We thank you for the countless graces that come to us in answer to the prayers of your saints. With great confidence we ask you in the name of your Son and through the prayers of St John Ogilvie to help us in all our needs.

Lord Jesus, you chose your servant St John Ogilvie to be your faithful witness to the spiritual authority of the chief shepherd of your flock. Keep your people always one in mind and heart, In communion with Benedict our Pope, and all the bishops of your Church.

Holy Spirit, you gave St John Ogilvie light to know your truth, wisdom to defend it, and courage to die for it. Through his prayers and example bring our country into the unity and peace of Christ’s kingdom. Amen.

More details about this great Scottish saint and martyr here from yesterday's post!

This Morning on the Son Rise Morning Show

A little past 7:45 a.m. Eastern (6:45 a.m. Central), Annie Mitchell and I will discuss this blog post from the National Catholic Register, in which I responded to a great blog post on the same site by Monsignor Charles Pope about preparing for persecution:

It is time to prepare for persecutions that will get bolder by the month and year. The dark movements that marched in under the banners of tolerance never meant it. And having increasingly gained power, they are seeking to criminalize anyone who resists their vision. No tolerance for us. Religious liberty is eroding, and compulsory compliance is already here. The federal courts increasingly shift to militantly secular and activist judges who legislate from the bench.

When will we as a Church finally say to the bureaucrats who demand we comply with evil laws: “We will not comply. If you fine us we will not pay. If you seek to confiscate our buildings, we will turn maximum publicity against you, but we still will not comply. If you arrest us, off to jail we go! But we will simply not comply with evil laws or cooperate with evil.”

At the same time Monsignor Pope wondered if, after decades of what he called “comfort Catholicism” that has compromised with modern culture in many ways, Catholic bishops, priests, and laity will be able to respond so bravely.

Catholics have faced persecution before: in ancient Rome, in early twentieth century Mexico, in our own country during the colonial period, but one period may offer us a model and some hope, indeed, that “we will find our spine” as Monsignor Pope urged his readers, “before it is too late” — or even after it is.

So then I proceed to offer the example of Catholic reaction to the English Reformation, showing how response was so weak at first and how some Catholics finally began to defy their government, attending Mass when it was illegal, helping priests when that was a felony, and even reverting to Catholicism when that treason. Perhaps they resisted too late, but their faithfulness to Jesus and His Church did allow the Catholic faith to survive until the early and mid nineteenth century, when Emancipation and the Restoration of the Hierarchy restored the Church in England.

Listen live here.

On The Son Rise Morning Show: Thomas More, Either/Or?

Anna Mitchell contacted me Thursday afternoon, asking me to discuss my comments on the BBC History Magazine article "Thomas More: Saint or Sinner?" on the Son Rise Morning Show. I'll be on after the 7:45 a.m. Eastern break (6:45 a.m. Central). Please listen live here.

The Second Sunday of Lent

Matt Swaim and I will discuss two great historical events to remember on Sunday, February 21, the Second Sunday of Lent this morning on the Son Rise Morning Show (7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central). Listen live here--Annie Mitchell also told me they'd repeat the interview on Monday morning (February 22) during the national hour broadcast on EWTN.

St. Robert Southwell was hung, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn Tree on February 21, 1595. He is one of the great Jesuit martyrs of the English Reformation. He was also a great poet.

Blessed John Henry Newman was born on February 21, 1801--so Sunday is the 215th anniversary of that great Catholic convert's birth into an Anglican family in the City of London. He was also a great--or at least very good--poet!

I'll post more information about these two great saints, one a martyr, the other a confessor, and their significance on Sunday.

Mary I on the Son Rise Morning Show

On this the 457th anniversary of her death in 1558, Matt Swaim and I will discuss on the Son Rise Morning Show (at about 7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central) the reign of Mary I, the first Queen Regnant of England and the only reigning Catholic Queen of England--there were Catholic consorts after her. Mary's reputation has undergone a change in the past five or so years. The sobriquet "Bloody Mary" is still common, and we certainly can't argue away almost 300 heretics and Protestants burned alive at the stake, but a more realistic view of religion in the 16th century has pointed out that whether the judgement of the government was heresy or treason, religious freedom did not exist in sixteenth century England.

G.J. Meyer's 2010 hardcover survey of the Tudor dynasty was re-issued in the U.K. as a two volume paperback with Henry VII and Henry VIII covered in the first volume and Edward VI through Elizabeth I in the second volume.

Meyer continues the re-evaluation of Mary I's reign in his book, noting that Mary's first Parliament reversed--except for the Dissolution of the Monasteries--all the Reformation legislation of Henry VIII and Edward VI's reign without much dissent at all. Parliament re-established the relationship between the Catholic Church in England and the Papacy and Mary gladly relinquished any claim to headship or governorship over the Church. Unlike her father, half-brother and half-sister, Mary did not want to rule the Church; she would not decide what orthodoxy and heresy were; that was up to the Church, not the State. He also regrets that the same Parliament revived the heresy laws in England--the State would assist the Church in examining, charging, and executing heretics.

In his first chapter on Elizabeth's reign, which begins at the end in March 1603, Meyer notes that the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth followed a similar pattern (the difference was of course duration): their reigns each began with enthusiastic welcome; they share a middle period of success and popularity; they both ended in exhaustion and disillusion. The crucial difference in Meyer's view is that Mary wanted to do more than survive: she wanted to achieve something:

No historian today could dispute that Mary was a capable and conscientious queen, or argue that her government killed or tortured or imprisoned as many people as Elizabeth's. She devoted herself to what she perceived (rightly or wrongly) to be the interests of her subjects, and she might have achieved her objectives if she had reigned even half as long as Elizabeth. The process of winnowing the facts has taken four centuries, but it is clear by now that Mary was the more ambitious of the sisters--that she aspired to much more than her own survival, certainly--and that the reason for her failure many be nothing more mysterious (or shameful) than the fact that at the time of her death she was 28 years younger than Elizabeth would be at hers.

Mary had aimed at the restoration of Catholicism in England and in her brief reign she had done much, with the aid of Reginald Cardinal Pole, the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury and his bishops, to restore the Church and even implement reforms in the Church. When she died on this day in 1558 she thought, because Elizabeth had sworn to her that she was a true Catholic, that her work in England would continue.

Like each of the Tudors before her, she would be betrayed by her successor. Henry VIII betrayed his father by placing glory and pleasure above statecraft and investment; Edward VI betrayed his father by destroying what was left of the structure of prayer for the dead, the communion of saints, and the sacramental order; Elizabeth betrayed Mary by lying to her about the one thing, except for the love of her father and mother, most dear to Mary: Jesus Christ and His Church. Mary had not betrayed Edward: he knew what she believed and what she would do--that's why he wanted Jane Grey Dudley to succeed him.

This Afternoon on the Radio: Defending St. Thomas More

The BBC/PBS television series based on Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies may be over, but the issues behind her biased view of St. Thomas More linger on. After my article on "Defending St. Thomas More" was published in The National Catholic Register, I received a call to schedule an interview with Kathleen McCarthy on the In His Sign radio station in Rosemont, Pennsylvania.

I'll be on the air today (Wednesday, May 13) from 4:00 p.m. to 4;30 p.m. Central time (5:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Eastern time) on "What the World Needs Now". You may listen live here.