Vestiges of Religion and the Decline of England, Part Two

The second article on the decline of British society suggests that the Catholic Church can step into the gap to provide meaning and significance, helping Britains find hope. (You'll find the post on the first article, from Crisis Magazine here, if you want to read them again.)

As National Catholic Register's Senior Contributor and EWTN News Vatican Analyst Edward Pentin suggests in "England’s Decline: As ‘Our Lady’s Dowry’ Wanes, Is the Catholic Faith Set for a Revival?", they're using something else now--according to Boris Johnson--and it's not good for them:

Britain’s former Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently caused a mini-uproar by saying the Church of England’s failure to fill “an aching spiritual void” had led to large numbers of British citizens “gorging themselves” and becoming obese instead.

While he was being deliberately provocative about a widespread disorder to which Johnson, by his own admission, is not immune, the connection between spiritual need and societal ills is one that others have also noticed as the country suffers from a well-publicized and growing socio-political malaise that extends well beyond obesity.

“If you spend time in pubs talking and listening to people,” said Sebastian Morello, an English Catholic philosopher and writer, “you’ll find everybody is desperately unhappy in England.”

Pentin then offers examples of crime, depression, promotion of assisted suicide, suppression of silent prayer outside abortuaries (thought crimes!), and loss of faith in government institutions. Then he looks at the religious statistics, which aren't going in the right direction for Christianity: In 2001 the percentage of people in England and Wales who identified themselves as Christian was 72%; in 2021, 46.2%. Only about 1.2% of the population attend Church of England services. That's why Anglican Cathedrals are presenting exhibitions and even hosting "Rave" events: to make money to maintain the great English Gothic beauty of formerly Catholic holy places.

But Pentin also posts bad news for the Catholic Church:

Meanwhile, mathematical models based on current trends predict Catholic Mass attendance in England and Wales potentially halving by 2040 and between a quarter and half a million Mass-goers by 2050, down from 1.75 million today.

He provides some excellent analysis by several writers, priests, and academics about the opportunity and challenge the Catholic hierarchy and laity faces if they want to revive Christianity in England and Wales. They have to recognize what Alan Fimister, who teaches dogmatic theology at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Connecticut, says at the end of the article:

Quoting St. John Henry Newman, who once said the Church has “nothing more to do than to go on in her own proper duties, in confidence and peace; to stand still and to see the salvation of God,” Fimister pointed out that when the Church was doing this and “teaching, sanctifying and governing without fear or favor,” the powers of this age had “no choice but to simulate her virtues in the hope of leading people away from Christ.”

But when the Church “forsook the reproach of Christ in the hope of befriending the world,” the powers of the age “had no more need to fear. Contraception, abortion, pornography, sodomy, euthanasia, et cetera have all been driven forward without opposition by the enemy and his minions.

“All we need do,” Fimister said, “is take up again the Sword of the Spirit and the enemy will flee before us.”

(The candle where the shrine of Saint Thomas of Canterbury once stood.)

There some varying opinions in that last section of the article, especially focused on the after effects of the English Reformation and the establishment of a royal (later parliamentary) state church, and among those quoted is John Rist, whom Pentin interviewed in a separate article, "Prominent English Scholar Says His Country’s Decline Began With the Reformation." Rist's biography: "An English convert to the faith, he is an expert on St. Augustine of Hippo, Plato and Aristotle and a prolific author who has held the Dominican Father Kurt Pritzl Chair in Philosophy at The Catholic University of America and is a life member of Clare Hall at the University of Cambridge, England."

Rist does believe that the English Reformation is at the root of Britain's decline:

I certainly agree that the collapse of traditional (i.e., Catholic) Christianity is an important factor in its decline, not least because all other forms are far less defensible. The Church of England, being Erastian [a church ruled by the state] from the start, was bound to collapse into its components with, say, “Laudian” Anglo-Catholicism on the one hand [Archbishop William Laud of Canterbury, 1573-1645], and local varieties of Calvinism on the other.

As to English history in particular, it seems the Reformation was helped along in its English version by identifying hatred of Spain with hatred of the papacy. Then come the atheists: [Christopher] Marlowe must be one of the very first, along with other members of the circle of Sir Walter Raleigh; then the wars of religion, then (libertine) weariness, with all the gruesome killings, which all had engaged in for so long, leading to the sense that religion is merely savagery (c.f., Voltaire) and should be replaced by science and shopping — and that was helped along very well by the profits of a growing empire.

But when the empire collapsed, what was left? Nobody knew. All was discredited — Catholicism, Protestantism, communism, fascism — so where else to go? . . .

Please read the rest there. 

(Side altar with relics of Saint Thomas of Canterbury)

The confusions, changes, and back and forth within English Christianity from Henry VIII through to the nineteenth century: saints in, saints out, saints in again; Pope in, Pope out, Pope in again, Pope out, iconoclasm, restoration, etc--certainly weakened the lingering foundations of the Church in England. The connections between worship and doctrine, moral and fundamental, were definitely weakened, and the secularism and anti-dogmatic spirit that Newman descried took their place. That's not even considering the political and international conflicts and alliances through those centuries and how they affected this trend!

Whether or not the Catholic Church in England will or can step into the gap is an important issue. The new evangelization efforts of the Anglican Ordinariate may prove essential to those who see the vestiges of hope in the Church of England.

Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us!

Saint Thomas of Canterbury, pray for us!

Saint John Fisher, pray for us!

Saint Thomas More, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Pictures above (c) Stephanie A. Mann (2025): the Anglican Canterbury Cathedral and the Catholic church of Saint Thomas of Canterbury nearby.

Vestiges of Religion and the Decline of England, Part One

Two recent articles (plus a follow-up interview) of note: one by Edward Pentin in the National Catholic Register and the other by Charles Coulombe in Crisis Magazine for your attention.

Both deal with the decline in religious practice--namely Catholic religious practice--in England and the decline in culture and tradition.

(Picture of a marching band taken during a trip to London years ago with my late husband Mark. 

We'd just visited Buckingham Palace!)

In "What the British Have Forgotten—and Can Teach Us" Charles Coulombe focuses on the vestiges of Catholicism in England's traditions and cultures, and how they are fading:

For the visitor from the Anglosphere abroad, these customs of the mother country are a thrill—even if one is tied only by language and culture, rather than DNA. They are pleasant if quaint reminders of the remote backgrounds of our own civil institutions, and they seem to embody the world that produced our countries. For the natives, of course, they are either proud reassertions of their age-old heritage or embarrassing anachronisms that need to be junked, either slowly or rapidly. But this writer would dissent from either view.

So far from being merely quaint or pleasant and restricted to Britain, they are desiccated reminders of a ceremonial spirit that once animated all of Christendom, from Portugal to Russia—and even the Spanish and Portuguese viceroyalties in Latin America and the East Indies. This is just as the pounds-shillings-pence system—which survived to my childhood—was seen as a purely British eccentricity but was actually designed by Charlemagne and used throughout Europe until the French Revolution.

So many of what we consider peculiarly British customs and practices are really survivals—shorn of Catholic meaning—that were universal among Catholic peoples prior to the Protestant revolt, and which—like the pounds, shillings, and pence—were banished from Catholic lands by revolution. So it is that the British hold on to the form without concern for the missing content, and Catholics are ignorant and often scornful of what that content was. . . .

One tradition easily identifiable as an example of this: The Royal Maundy. This year on Holy Thursday, King Charles III and Queen Camilla will hand out coins at Durham Cathedral:

Royal Maundy services go back to the Middle Ages when the Monarch used to wash the feet of the poor and disadvantaged, just as Jesus washed the feet of the disciples on the night of the Last Supper. Alms were also distributed at the ceremony.

The service always takes place on Maundy Thursday, just three days before Easter. King Charles will present two purses of specially minted coins to 76 men and 76 women who have given outstanding support to their local communities. The number of people who receive the coins always matches the age of the Monarch.

The word "Maundy" refers to Our Lord's Mandatum to His Apostles the night before He died when He washed their feet like a servant, giving them an example to do likewise (John 13:4-17). From the reign of King John to King James II, the monarchs of England participated in a much more elaborate ceremony, washing the feet of twelve poor persons, giving them gifts. We have a record of Queen Mary I conducting these acts of humility and charity from the Holy Maundy of 1556:

At the entrance of the hall there was a great number of the chief dames and noble ladies of the court, and they prepared themselves by putting on a long linen apron which reached the ground, and round their necks they placed a towel, the two ends of which remained pendant at full length on either side, each of them carrying a silver ewer, and they had flowers in their hands, the Queen also being arrayed in like manner. Her Majesty knelt down on both her knees before the first of the poor women, and taking in the left hand the woman’s right foot, she washed it with her own right hand, drying it very thoroughly with the towel which hung at her neck, and having signed it with the cross she kissed the foot so fervently that it seemed as if she were embracing something very previous. She did the like by all and each of the other poor women, one by one, each of the ladies her attendants giving her in turn their basin and ewer and towel, and I vow to you that in all her movements and gestures, and by her manner, she seemed to act thus not merely out of ceremony, but from great feeling, and devotion. Amongst these demonstrations there was this one remarkable, that in washing the feet she went the whole length of that long hall, from one end to the other, ever on her knees. . . .

The tradition ended with William and Mary, and was transformed later into the honoring of people who performed charitable services with special coins. Queen Elizabeth II went to a different Anglican Cathedral or Abbey nearly every year of her reign to observe the Maundy. It is still a religious service, but the extraordinary demonstration of humility by the sovereign is no longer there. But, as Coulombe comments, "it became a big part of her [Elizabeth II's] personal devotion, as it has remained for her son [Charles III]". He also points out, however: "But just as 1688 eliminated the ability of the king to protect, defend, and govern his people, it also assured that Parliament would be master, rather than servant, of people and monarch alike. The dichotomy between form and substance has been less obvious in some reigns and some Parliaments than others. . . ." 

Thus, the tradition remains in some form, but the basis of the symbolism, its reality, has been vitiated. Please read the rest there. 

More on this theme tomorrow, from the National Catholic Register article by Edward Pentin and a follow-up interview with Professor John Rist.

"A Relic of Papistry?" The Simnel Cake

History Today shares this post about the history of the Simnel Cake, a lighter fruit cake enjoyed either on Laetare Sunday as a break from the Lenten fast or at Easter. Alexander Lee cites the tradition as described by Elizabeth Gaskell, novelist and biographer of Charlotte Bronte, as she grew up in Cheshire after her mother's death:

Writing to her friend, the poet Mary Howitt, on 18 August 1838, she recalled with delight the local festivals she had enjoyed as a girl. There was ‘Lifting Monday’ and ‘Lifting Tuesday’, when the village girls would burst into houses and lift the menfolk into the air until they were given a gift. Then there were the May Day celebrations, when the streets were decorated with coloured sand and branches were hung above everyone’s doors. But by far the tastiest time of year was mid-Lent Sunday – also known as Laetare or Mothering Sunday. For then, Elizabeth explained:

Instead of frumenty [a sort of sweet porridge], we eat Simnel cake: a cake made variously, but always with saffron for its principal ingredient. This I should fancy was a relic of Papistry, but I wonder how it originated. Lambert Simnel, the imposter in Henry the Seventh’s time was a baker’s son, I think. The show windows are filled with them, [and] high and low eat them.

Since Gaskell’s day, simnel cake has changed a great deal. Now eaten at Easter, rather than in the middle of Lent, it tastes – and looks – quite different from how it did in the early 19th century. Although it is still a light, rich fruit cake, packed with raisins, sultanas and lemon zest, saffron is now rarely used. Two layers of marzipan or almond paste – unknown to the Georgian recipe – are also added, one in the middle and one on top; and 11 marzipan balls – said to represent the 11 faithful apostles – are generally used for decoration. The method is different, too. Whereas it was once boiled, then baked, it is today baked and then grilled.

Lee explains the supposed Tudor connection:

For some time, simnel remained an ambiguous word. In the 15th and 16th centuries, it continued to be used primarily to describe a type of flour – or occasionally as a metonym for baking generally. Lambert Simnel, the Tudor pretender who briefly threatened the rule of Henry VII in 1487, was, as Gaskell noted, probably the son of a baker who owed his name to the flour that was his father’s stock in trade. But at the same time, simnel could also be used to refer to any sort of bread or cake made with the flour. When Myles Coverdale produced his English translation of the Bible in 1535, he rendered Ezekiel 16:19 – which in the Vulgate reads Et panem meum quem dedi tibi, similam, et oleum, et mel (‘And my bread, which I gave to you, the flour and oil and honey’) – as: ‘Thou didst eate nothinge but symnels, honney and oyle’; but when Thomas Cogan’s The Hauen of Health (1584) was published five decades later, it included a reference to ‘Cakes of all forms, Simnels, Cracknels, Bunnes … and other things made of wheate flour’.

Please read the rest there. Modern recipes: Mary Berry, Nigela Lawson, and the BBC.

Lambert Simnel was the pretender who survived during Henry VII's reign. He was pardoned, employed by the king in his kitchen and as a falconer, married, and died between 1525 and 1535. He may have been the father of Richard Simnel, an Augustianian canon at St. Osgth's Priory in Essex, suppressed in 1539.