The Catholic Writers Guild Blog

Have I mentioned lately how great the Catholic Writers Guild is? Look at this great post developed by Larissa Hoffman, helping me promote:

~~Two radio interviews (on the Son Rise Morning Show and Kresta in the Afternoon);
~~My article in The Catholic Answer Magazine ("Henry VIII's 'Achievement': What was the Dissolution of the Monasteries?");
~~My book; and
~~This blog.

I'll say it again--if you are a Catholic writer, you should belong to and participate in this great organization! The next big event is the annual On-line conference: more info here.

Christchurch Priory

As the Dissolution of the Monasteries is still on my mind (because of the article I wrote for the November/December issue of OSV's The Catholic Answer Magazine, an interview on the Son Rise Morning Show on November 10, the interview I have scheduled on November 15 with Al Kresta, and a Serra Club presentation that evening), today's Sunday Shrine post is about Christchurch Priory in Dorset. The priory church was part of the Augustinian monastery dissolved in 1539. The priory church was set for destruction, but the former prior, John Draper (who had surrendered the monastery and received a generous pension) supported the townspeoples' request that the church become the parish church. Henry VIII granted that request in 1540.

The official website lists this timeline.

There is a miracle associated with the building of the priory church: the Miraculous Beam--

In the first half of the 12th century lies the origin of the legend of the Miraculous Beam.

It is said that in the early building operations, a mysterious carpenter assisted the work. One evening a wooden beam was found to be too short, but the next morning the workmen found to their amazement that it had grown to the proper length overnight and had already been placed in the correct position. The mysterious carpenter did not appear after this and it was assumed by all that he must have been Jesus Christ who helped to build his own church, which thus became known as Christ's Church of Twynham, as the town was then called. Later the town became Twynham-Christchurch, later Christchurch.

That story reminds me of the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with its mysterious carpenter and extraordinary staircase. Sadly, the Loretto Chapel has been deconsecrated and is a privately owned museum and event location (for weddings). Franciscans were still there and it was an active chapel when I visited with my parents many years ago (today was my father's birthday--he would be 90 years old--may he rest eternally young in the peace and glory of Christ!) and I still have a postcard depicting one of the friars. Christchurch Priory is an active Anglican parish church; the wikipedia entry says it is Broadchurch in churchmanship.

William II of Orange Dies

On November 6, 1650, William II, the Prince of Orange, stadtholder of the Netherlands died, leaving his widow, Mary, the former Princess Royal of England (daughter of Charles I and Henrietta Maria) as the regent for their son William III, Prince of Orange, who was born posthumously. The Prince of Orange was only 24 years old and died of smallpox. His widow would survive him until December 24, 1660, when she was only 29 years old, also of smallpox.

Their son would marry another royal princess, also named Mary (James, the Duke of York's daughter) and William and Mary would reign together as King and Queen of England after the Glorious Revolution, until Mary's death in 1694--of smallpox.

William III died of not smallpox but pneumonia in 1702.

Bonfire Night and Occupy Wall Street

The Fifth of November, Guy Fawkes Day, Bonfire Night: November 5th marks the anniversary of the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605.

I think this is one of the saddest episodes of Catholic reaction to the recusancy and penal laws imposed upon them by the English government. It was so desperate and impossible, not to mention absolutely murderous and immoral. Robert Catesby, Guy Fawkes, and the other conspirators thought that they could blow up Parliament and the Royal Family, except for Elizabeth, the oldest daughter whom they would kidnap and force to rule under their control--and the people of England would rise up against their rulers and put them in charge!

Instead they either died on the scaffold as traitors or in fights with local constabularies. They implicated priests accused of hearing their confessions and not betraying the sanctity of the Sacrament by reporting them to the government and those priests were also sentenced to death. And, of course, the government passed even stricter penal laws against Catholics, restricting their travel, increasing the fines for recusancy, making Catholics liable to search at any time, and requiring all marriages, baptisms, and funerals be registered first in the Church of England, or the family would be fined.

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

For a couple of centuries, the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot was marked by prayers of thanks for deliverance from Catholic plotting. Bonfire Night and the burning of Guy Fawkes and sometimes the current Pope in effigy also continued for two centuries--and there are still bonfires throughout England and former colonial areas today, but some of the historical and religious implications have faded. James Sharpe, in his book on the commemoration of the Gunpowder Plot, traces the fascination with Guy Fawkes, the fading of anti-Catholicism, and the more recent concerns about frightened pets and rowdy drunks. The Guardian posted this review essay in 2005, the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot.

Note that during the Revolutionary War, George Washington forbade his soldiers' celebrating of the Fifth of November. It just didn't make sense at the time.

November 5 also recalls the invasion of Prince William of Orange, landing at Brixham, Torbay in 1688. And this, also, to me is one of the saddest responses of the Anglican elite to the possibility of religious tolerance in England--invite an invasion and depose a legitimately ruling king! William the new conqueror brought a force of around 21,000--mostly foreign mercenaries--including cavalry and artillery. The fact that 1688 was the 100th anniversary of the defeat of the Spanish Armada also seemed providential to the Whigs and Tories who rejected James II and his young son and heir. Unlike the Spanish attempt 100 years ago, this invasion would succeed!

A current event note: the Occupy Wall Street movement has adopted the visage of Guy Fawkes from the V for Vendetta comic book (oops, graphic novel) and movie. Forbes offer its interpretation here. As I noted one time when some political group was using the Gunpowder Plot date as an impetus for fundraising, it could be a mistake to adopt as a symbol a failed conspiracy and violent attempt to overthrow the government. It's like a prediction that your effort will fail too.

More on "Anonymous"

Last Saturday's Wall Street Journal featured an article by the screenwriter of Oxfordian movie Anonymous titled "Why I Played With Shakespeare's Story: Juggling truth and emotional needs in a film that posits the plays were written by someone else" proving the truth of Jacobitess' comment on my original post. It's just too bad this particular team produced a movie about the Oxford claims to Shakespeare's works.

The screenwriter of Anonymous, John Orloff, explains why he changed a widely known historical fact about the Earl of Essex's rebellion against Elizabeth I: that the Earl of Essex's supporters paid the Chamberlain's Men theatrical group to perform a certain play on the eve of his rebellion. That play was Richard II. But in Anonymous, Orloff exchanged that play with Richard III:

Anyone who knows Elizabethan history knows that Shakespeare's "Richard II" was performed on the eve of this event, which became known as the Essex Rebellion.

But "Richard II" is a very subtle and complicated play. Why its politics were relevant to London commoners in 1601—and why it would incite them to start an actual rebellion—would be extremely difficult to convey to a modern audience. I could have done it, but it would have required an additional 20 minutes of film time.

And, as I said, the film is not really about the Essex Rebellion. It is about showing that ideas are stronger than brute force. So how to make that point without wasting 20 minutes of the audience's time?

Well, Sir Robert Cecil—our villain—was in real life a hunchback. And so is King Richard III in Shakespeare's play of the same name. By switching the play that precedes the Essex Rebellion from "Richard II" to "Richard III," I was able to let the movie's audience immediately see the political implications of the performance. I didn't have to explain any complicated political metaphors: They only needed to see Richard III's hunched back to understand instantly a point that would have been obvious to London bricklayers and cobblers of the era.

In the end, the Essex Rebellion failed. In "Anonymous," it fails because Robert Cecil uses cannons—brute force—to destroy it.

But, ultimately, Cecil couldn't silence the plays—or the ideas that they contain. The next king, James Stuart, was an immense fan of the theater, and he, too, understood what "Richard II" and "Richard III" were trying to say.

I don't really understand that last line about James I!?! Elizabeth was a certainly a fan of the theatre--she knew what Richard II was 'trying to say' (bad advisors can lead to a king or queen's downfall) and she knew the implications of its performance before Essex's attempted coup d'etat. It woundn't have taken 20 minutes of screen time; just Elizabeth's statement ("Know you not, I am Richard II"). The substitution of Richard III for Richard II means that Orloff has changed the focus of the Essex Rebellion--from Elizabeth I to Robert Cecil. I think that's a mistake.

Also, the Essex Rebellion failed not only because of the (threatened) use of cannons (by the Earl of Nottingham), but because Devereux did not have the support he thought he had, beyond the group of young men he'd been knighting on his military adventures, something for which Elizabeth had scolded him. I wonder if Orloff takes the time to depict the fiduciary aspect of Devereux's discontent (Elizabeth had taken away his patent for sweet wines, his major source of income).

Sounds like sloppy thinking and bad history to me.

Tomorrow we will mark the Fifth of November and another plot, led by some of Essex's co-conspirators: Catesby, Tresham, and Wright. The presence of these Catholics in the Essex Rebellion led to accusations of Popery against the Earl of Essex at his trial.

More on the New British Succession

I reported the news Saturday: the Commonwealth accepted new rules of succesion for the British monarchy. I also mentioned that allowing the monarch or heir to marry a Catholic was opposed earlier this year by the Church of England (and some believed Queen Elizabeth II herself)--I did not mention that many Catholics had actually been opposed to this change, and still are.

On the one hand, the Archbishop of Westminster commented that "while the Church of England is the established Church," it is "not unreasonable to expect the head of the Church of England should be an Anglican."

. . . The question being asked by some today is what religion the children of an Anglican-Catholic royal wedding would be raised in? The Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law (Canon 1125) only permits a mixed marriage where the Catholic party makes "a sincere promise to do all in his or her power in order that all the children be baptized and brought up in the Catholic Church."

Archbishop Nichols said such a scenario "would be a very difficult situation indeed," but stressed that he did not "think we should try to pre-judge" it because "it’s not even a practical possibility at the moment; it’s a theoretical possibility."

He told BBC News that the Catholic Church’s practice of "sitting down with Catholics who are marrying outside of the Catholic community and trying to see how the marriage will develop" was "actually quite subtle" and "quite advanced."

He explained that if and when the hypothetical case ever arose, the Church would talk to the Catholic party "about the duty and expectation of the Catholic to give their best endeavors within the unity and harmony of the marriage to bring up their children Catholic."

But Archbishop Nichols added that having that discussion "does not guarantee that the children in every mixed marriage are brought up Catholic."

He explained that no guarantees can be given because the non-Catholic party "is not required to give any explicit undertaking about what they will do," while the Catholic party is only expected to do "their best." Read the rest here.

On the other hand, Father Alexander Lucie-Smith in The Catholic Herald is utterly opposed, noting that this change will lead to the secularization of the monarchy:

Again, on the religious question: at present the monarchy is a professedly Anglican institution, as it has been since the time of William and Mary and Queen Anne. That settlement was arrived at with great difficulty, to put it mildly. The sadly unsuccessful risings of 1715 and 1745 would have changed that settlement, but they failed. But what they failed to achieve David Cameron now intends to do by means of parliamentary legislation. But I do not think the consequences of this action have been considered. Had the patriots of 1715 or 1745 been successful, we would have had a Catholic monarchy, perhaps. Cameron’s reforms will give us a monarchy that is Anglican purely by default, but which might in future generations be Catholic, Hindu or Baptist; but which will most likely be none of the above. In other words, by removing the religious qualification, Cameron is effectively opening the monarchy up to secularisation. And why? Because he wants to abolish the last legal disqualification under which Catholic suffer? There is no evidence of that. Rather it seems to be a largely meaningless piece of political posturing, a desire to look ‘modern’. But this is one piece of political vanity for which future generations may pay a high price.

The British constitution is the great work of time: an organic whole that has grown slowly over the centuries, and as such susceptible to be damaged by ill-thought out changes that are not in continuity with the past. Mr Cameron, please leave it alone!

I admit to great sympathy with Father's view--but I also think the Christian aspects of the British Monarchy right now are only valid because of Elizabeth II herself, which exposes another problem. She has been a decent and hard-working Christian monarch, but she has been able to do nothing to stem the tide of secularization that has taken place in the United Kingdom thus far. She does not have the power and authority her predecessor of that name had to name bishops and enforce discipline. Elizabeth II may have the titles of Defender of the Faith and Supreme Head of the Church of England, but she has no opportunity to exercise any authority.

William Oddie posts his opinion here.

November 2, 1610: Richard Bancroft Dies

Richard Bancroft was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1604 to 1610, when he died. He was also Chancellor of Oxford from 1608 until his death. He succeeded John Whitgift in the Canterbury office and he pleased King James I and VI very much in his opposition to Puritanism. He also supervised the Authorized Translation of the Holy Bible into English.

Bancroft pursued a policy of toleration to some Catholics, believing that if they were loyal to England and did not favor or support Spanish and Papal aggression against England, they should be allowed to practice their faith. Of course, Parliament did not support him in this, just as they did not support his efforts to enforce conformity with the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer, nor his efforts to ensure that the Church of England received the tithes and fees due to its lands and holdings.

Bancroft was succeeded as Archbishop of Canterbury by George Abbott, who was a Calvinist, opposed completely to the moderation Bancroft proposed regarding Catholics. Abbott urged the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth to Frederick, the Elector Palatine and was against the marriage of the Prince of Wales, Charles to the Infanta of Spain. William Laud would succeed Abbott, returning in some ways to Bancroft's policies of Anglican conformity.

Hallowmas in Pre-Reformation England

As today is the Feast of All Saints, here's some insight into how Catholics celebrated this feast day before the English Reformation, as described in Eamon Duffy's Stripping of the Altars.

November 1 and November 2 were important days on the Church calendar for Catholics in that era. They fasted on October 31, the vigil of the feast of all the saints in heaven. Halloween as we know it, is now a night for gathering candy and sweets! "Halloween" means the evening before All Hallows--All Saints. October 31st was thus one of the 70 days of fasting in the Church Calendar. All Hallows/All Saints was a Holyday of obligation then as it is today, meaning that Catholics were to attend Mass. Thus the term "Hallowmas" like Christmas, Michaelmas, etc.

As important as All Saints Day was because of the devotion of the people to their patron saints, All Souls Day was also important because it was the day set aside for praying for the dead who were not yet in Heaven. The Poor Souls in Purgatory were still undergoing their purification because of their attraction to sin during their time on earth. Their final destination was Heaven, but they were suffering in Purgatory--so their family on earth prayed for them, hastening their Heavenly happiness.

"Anonymous"? Conviction vs. Evidence

There is a new Elizabethan era movie out that boasts a very interactive and active website.

Allan Massie writes in The Telegraph:

What do Shakespeare, Keats and Dickens have in common, apart from being great writers, masters of the English language? The answer is pretty obvious. None of them went to university; to some extent all three were self-educated. Ben Jonson said that Shakespeare had “small Latin and less Greek”, and likewise I don’t think Dickens and Keats, despite the latter’s "Ode to a Grecian Urn", had much of either.

What’s the difference between them? Nobody, I think, has ever suggested Keats didn’t write that ode and others, or that Dickens wasn’t the author of Bleak House and Great Expectations. But Shakespeare – ah Shakespeare – there’s a whole industry devoted to trying to prove that somebody else wrote his plays. So here we go again, with a movie from Roland Emmerich, entitled Anonymous, which hands the authorship to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

James Shapiro writes in a New York Times editorial: "In dramatizing this conspiracy, Mr. Emmerich has made a film for our time, in which claims based on conviction are as valid as those based on hard evidence. Indeed, Mr. Emmerich has treated fact-based arguments and the authorities who make them with suspicion." He also goes on to lament the fact that Shakespeare's plays become nothing more than political propaganda, that they are reduced to tools for traitors and clues for conspiracy theorists. Evidently, the whole point of Oxford's ruse of having the actor Shakespeare take credit for his work is that he needs protection for his support of Essex!

The director of the movie, Roland Emmerich, does believe in the conspiracy Anonymous proposes and responds to a question about Shakespeare scholars' reactions to his film: "They will say it's all crap and I will defend myself as eloquently as I can," he laughs. "I'm no professor, but I cannot believe that somebody who had nearly no education could write like this."

So on the one hand, a playwright with "nearly no education" could not have written the plays, but on the other hand, a director with "nearly no education" in the Elizabeth era can make judgments about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays! If Emmerich can be an autodidact then so could Shakespeare. That's why I really like Shapiro's phrase describing Emmerich's presentation of Looney's theory: "claims based on conviction are as valid as those based on hard evidence". The Shakepeare Birthplace Trust has developed its own website to counter these claims.

I've scanned some reviews on-line and the movie does not seemed to be that well-received, except for the production qualities of scenery and costume. Elizabeth I, her chief counselors the Cecils, Ben Jonson, Oxford and Essex--everyone sounds crooked and unreal. Elizabeth is no virgin and everything is a plot: "All Art is Political."

I am still curious about how the film depicts the religious conflict in Elizabethan England; if and how Oxford and Jonson's flirtations with Catholicism are dramatized. I'll be interested to read Steven D. Greydanus' review of the film, because he will be attuned to that aspect.

Sunday Shrines: St. Paul's Cathedral in London

As this timeline from the Cathedral website shows, St. Paul's has been an important part of English history since the 7th century. Christopher Wren's cathedral is the "fifth cathedral to have stood on the site since 604, and was built between 1675 and 1710, after its predecessor was destroyed in the Great Fire of London. This was the first cathedral to be built after the English Reformation in the sixteenth century, when Henry VIII removed the Church of England from the jurisdiction of the Pope and the Crown took control of the Church's life", according to the website. That's a rather remarkable fact, that the Wren Cathedral was the first built after the English Reformation--almost 150 years after the dividing of England from the universal Catholic Church.

Old St Paul's was a medieval pilgrimage site because of the relics of St. Earconwald, Bishop of London in the 7th century. His relics and shrine were destroyed during the English Reformation, although there is a Chapel to St. Earconwald and St. Ethelberga (his sister), which features the third version of William Holman Hunt's Light of the World painting.

Now the shrines visited are the tombs of the Duke of Wellington, of Admiral Lord Nelson, and the great funeral effigy of John Donne.

St. Paul's is, of course, dedicated to St. Paul the Apostle and the Old Cathedral, which was destroyed during the Fire of London, once featured St. Paul's Cross, site of preaching and other public demonstrations. Reformers and Catholics preached at St. Paul's Cross during the Tudor era. The Puritans destroyed the cross and pulpit in 1643.

As a follow-up to my post earlier this week about the Occupy Wall Street/London encampment forcing the closure of St. Paul's, comes this news from The Guardian:

The canon chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral, the Rev Dr Giles Fraser, has resigned in protest at plans to forcibly remove protesters from its steps, saying he could not support the possibility of "violence in the name of the church".

Speculation grew in the last 24 hours that Fraser, a leading leftwing voice in the Church of England, would resign because he could not sanction the use of police or bailiffs against the hundreds of activists who have set up camp in the grounds of the cathedral in the past fortnight.

Just after 9am on Thursday, Fraser tweeted: "It is with great regret and sadness that I have handed in my notice at St Paul's Cathedral."

In a statement to the Guardian, Fraser, who was appointed canon in May 2009, confirmed his resignation, saying: "I resigned because I believe that the chapter has set on a course of action that could mean there will be violence in the name of the church."

He is expected to take part in a service at St Paul's on Friday afternoon, the first since the cathedral closed its doors a week ago for health and safety reasons.

Check the website if you're in London today--St. Paul's may be open after all!