Adam de Brome, Founder of Oriel College, RIP

Adam de Brome, the founder of Oriel College of the University of Oxford, died on June 16, 1322 and was buried in St. Mary's the Virgin (then a Catholic Church). His DNB entry is brief:

founder of Oriel College, Oxford, of whose early life nothing is known, was rector of Hanworth in Middlesex in 1315, chancellor of Durham in 1316, archdeacon of Stow in 1319, and in the same year was made vicar of St. Mary in Oxford. He was also a clerk in chancery and almoner of Edward II. In 1324 he received the royal license to purchase a messuage [a dwelling house with outbuildings and land assigned to its use] and found a college in Oxford to the honour of the Virgin Mary. He obtained several benefactions from Edward II for his new foundation, which was to consist of a provost and ten fellows or scholars, who were to devote themselves to the study of divinity, logic, or law. He was appointed the first provost by the king in 1325, and drafted his statutes in the following year. The statutes bear a close resemblance to those which Walter de Merton had framed for Merton College. Brome died in June 1332, and was buried in St. Mary's Church, Oxford.

More about the founder of the college at Oriel's website.

Saint John Henry Newman would succeed Father Brome centuries later as the Vicar of the University Church of St. Mary's the Virgin in 1828, as an Anglican. As this introduction to an article on Newman and Oriel demonstrates, Newman's tenure as Tutor and Fellow at Oriel College was crucial to his development and leadership:

From 12 April 1822 when John Henry Newman was elected a Fellow until 3 October 1845 when he tendered his resignation to Provost Hawkins, Oriel College was to be the centre of Newman's life. As Newman later recorded:

he ever felt this twelfth of April, 1822 to be the turning point of his life, and of all days most memorable. It raised him from obscurity and need to competency and reputation. He never wished anything better or higher than, in the words of the epitaph, 'to live and die a fellow of Oriel'. Henceforth his way was clear before him; and he was constant all through his life, as his intimate friends knew, in his thankful remembrance year after year of this great mercy of Divine Providence, and of his electors, by whom it was brought about.

Newman went on to assert that but for Oriel, he would have been nobody, entirely lacking in influence. It was through Oriel (and the pulpit of the Oriel living of St. Mary the Virgin) that he was able to exert such a dominant religious and pastoral influence on his academic generation and those that followed. It was through Oriel that he would be in a position to emerge by 1833 as the well-known leader of that great movement of religious revival in the Church of England known as the ‘Oxford Movement’ or ‘Tractarianism’ (the name being coined in consequence of the series of Tracts for the Times published by Newman and his cohorts).

And this biographical sketch from the Pitts Theology Library at Emory University also demonstrates how crucial those Oriel years were to Newman:

. . . In 1822, he was elected as a fellow at Oriel, where he developed a friendship with Edward Bouverie Pusey (Mss. 064). On June 13, 1824, he was ordained as a deacon in the Anglican Church and, at Pusey's suggestion, became curate of St. Clement's, Oxford. In 1825, Newman served as vice-principal to Richard Whatley (Mss. 102) at St. Albans Hall. On May 29, 1825, he was ordained into the Anglican priesthood.

From 1826 to 1832 Newman served as a tutor at Oriel College, developing a close relationship with Pusey, John Keble . . . and Hurrell Froude. From 1827 to 1828 he served as public examiner in classics in the university's B.A. degree program. In 1828, he was appointed as vicar of the university church, St. Mary's. By the late 1820's Newman's evangelical, low-church, views were changing, assuming a more eccleastical, high-church, tone. On March 8, 1830, he was dismissed from the Church Missionary Society because of his opinions on Nonconformists and church control of society. Three months later Newman broke his last ties with the low church when he dissolved his relationship with the Bible Society.

From 1831 to 1832 Newman served as university select preacher. . . .

Newman was also the Chaplain of Oriel College's Chapel twice (1826-31,1833-35). 

So the founding of Oriel College by Adam de Brome was consequential for Newman, the Oxford Movement, and the Catholic Church. Oriel College certainly celebrates their former fellow and chaplain.

Image Credit: An image of Adam de Brome in a stained glass window in the hall of Oriel College, Oxford.

The First Three of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales

As promised, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show with Matt Swaim at about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central to start our survey of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, beginning with the three Carthusian priors, St. John Houghton, St. Augustine Webster, and St. Robert Lawrence.

Please listen live here; the podcast will be archived here.

On Friday, I highlighted St. John Houghton's leadership in guiding the Carthusian community in their response to Henry VIII's changes in religious policy. The other priors, Webster and Lawrence, were in London to consult with him on the situation and that's why the three of them went to Cromwell with their plea for the respect of conscience after praying, fasting, and celebrating Mass. Robert Lawrence had succeeded Houghton as the Prior of Beauvale in Nottinghamshire. All three men had attended the University of Cambridge.

Even among Tudor fans of Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell, the treatment of the Carthusian monks rouses great repulsion and disgust, because Cromwell and Henry flaunted all the customs of England and displayed so much cruelty.

The Carthusians were hanged, drawn, and quartered in their habits--as traitors they should have been in secular clothing as laity--and Houghton was still wearing a hair shirt. Dragged from the Tower to Tyburn, their religious status was clearly displayed.

Michael Davies transcribes the scene at Tyburn, based upon the reports of Maurice Chauncy or Chauncey, a Carthusian who had sworn the oath his Priors refused:

To [Saint] John Houghton God was pleased to grant the signal honour of being the first man since pagan times to suffer death in England for being a Catholic. After lovingly embracing the executioner, who craved his pardon, the holy Martyr entered the cart which stood beneath the gallows; and there, in the sight of the multitude, he was asked once again whether he would submit to the king's laws before it was too late. Nothing daunted, he replied: "I call Almighty God to witness, and I beseech all here present to attest for me on the dreadful danger of judgement, that, being about to die in public, I declare that I have refused to comply with the will of His Majesty the King, not from obstinacy, malice, or a rebellious spirit, but solely for fear of offending the supreme Majesty of God. Our holy Mother the Church has decreed and enjoined otherwise than the king and Parliament have decreed. I am therefore bound in conscience, and am ready and willing to suffer every kind of torture, rather than deny a doctrine of the Church. Pray for me, and have mercy on my brethren, of whom I have been the unworthy Prior." He asked for time to say his last prayer, which he took from the 30th Psalm: "In thee, O Lord, have I hoped; let me never be confounded: deliver me in Thy justice . . . Into Thy hands I commend my spirit; for Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth." [Saint] John Houghton was now ready to meet death.

A thick rope had been chosen, for fear he might be strangled and expire too quickly. It was placed about his neck. The sheriff gave the signal. The cart was drawn aside; and the gentle monk, who had done good to many, and harm to none, was hanging like a malefactor from the gallows. Then came the worst part of the business, for no mercy was shown, and the hideous sentence was carried out in all its details. The rope was cut, and the body fell heavily on the ground; but John Houghton was not dead. They tore off his holy habit, and laid him on a plank or platform. The executioner inflicted a long and ghastly wound with a sharp knife, dragged out his entrails, and threw them in a fire prepared for the purpose. The poor sufferer was conscious the whole time; and while he was being embowelled  (sic) he was heard to exclaim: "Oh most holy Jesus, have mercy upon me in this hour!" When at last the executioner placed his hand upon the heart to wrench it from its place, the blessed Martyr spoke again. A German, Anthony Rescius, who afterwards became auxiliary Bishop of Wurzburg, was close by. He overheard his last words: "Good Jesu! what will ye do with my heart?" The struggle was over at last John Houghton had been faithful unto death, and gained the crown of life. 76

Webster and Lawrence suffered the same torture--although Houghton's hair shirt had made it harder for the executioner to disembowel him--and then their bodies were prepared for Henry VIII's warning to others:

The bodies were cut into quarters which were thrown into a cauldron of boiling pitch to prevent decay, and then set up in different parts of London as proof positive that the king was indeed the head of the Church in England. These executions constituted a clear and savage warning to every priest and monk in the country of what awaited them if they failed to swear upon oath that they accepted the Royal Supremacy. In order to terrify the remaining Carthusians into submission, John Houghton's severed arm, all bloody from Tyburn, was nailed above the gateway of the Charterhouse.

Many members of Henry VIII's Court and Council attended the executions and there are unfounded and later retracted reports that the king was there too. You may read a fuller account of their executions here, starting on page 41 of the document.

Saint John Houghton, pray for us!

Saint Augustine Webster, pray for us!

Saint Robert Lawrence, pray for us!

Image Source: used by permission.

June 14: Corpus Christi, Flag Day, my Father, and Chesterton

Today, Sunday, June 14 is certainly a day filled with significance: The Catholic Church, in the Novus Ordo of the Latin Liturgy of the Roman Rite, celebrates the Solemnity of Corpus Christi in many places; it is a Sunday, and therefore a Solemnity under any circumstance in that Rite; it is also Flag Day in the U.S.A.; it's the 10th anniversary of my father's funeral, and the 84th anniversary of G.K.Chesterton's death. June 14 was the Sunday after the Thursday celebration of Corpus Christi in 1936. As Joseph Pearce asserts in an article for The Catholic World Report, Chesterton appreciated both the Truth and the Beauty of St. Thomas Aquinas' hymns for the feast of Corpus Christi.

In chapter five of Chesterton's The Dumb Ox, he discusses those hymns and Aquinas' poetry:

But the composer of the Corpus Christi service was not merely what even the wild and woolly would call a poet; he was what the most fastidious would call an artist. His double function rather recalls the double activity of some great Renaissance craftsman, like Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci, who would work on the outer wall, planning and building the fortifications of the city; and then retire into the inner chamber to carve or model some cup or casket for a reliquary. The Corpus Christi Office is like some old musical instrument, quaintly and carefully inlaid with many coloured stones and metals; the author has gathered remote texts about pasture and fruition like rare herbs; there is a notable lack of the loud and obvious in the harmony; and the whole is strung with two strong Latin lyrics. Father John O'Connor has translated them with an almost miraculous aptitude; but a good translator will be the first to agree that no translation is good; or, at any rate, good enough. How are we to find eight short English words which actually stand for "Sumit unus, sumunt mille; quantum isti, tantum ille"? How is anybody really to render the sound of the "Pange Lingua", when the very first syllable has a clang like the clash of cymbals?

I've been listening the past few weeks to the Cardinall's Musicke's recording of the Propers for Ascension, Pentecost, and Corpus Christi composed by William Byrd. It includes a section on Devotions to the Blessed Sacrament with Byrd's settings of O salutarius hostia (one verse), Pange lingua gloriosi, and of course, O Sacrum Convivium, the antiphon for the Magnificat of Second Vespers, but not the sequence of the Mass, Lauda, Sion. Speaking of translations, this resource includes translations by Edward Caswall, John Mason Neale, and Gerard Manley Hopkins! The Father John O'Connor that Chesterton mentions was the priest who inspired the Father Brown character and received Chesterton into the Catholic Church in 1922.

My brother and sister and I will gather to celebrate our father's life later this afternoon, after I attend the External Celebration of Corpus Christi in the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite in the late morning.

James Monroe Joseph Boyer died on June 10, 2010 and his Funeral Mass was on Monday, June 14, Flag Day.

Preview: The Protomartyrs of the English Reformation

On Monday, June 15, we'll start our survey of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales on the Son Rise Morning Show. Matt Swaim and I will talk about the three Carthusian priors who suffered being hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn Tree on May 4, 1535. Saints John Houghton, Augustine Webster, and Robert Lawrence are among the five protomartyrs of the English Reformation. St. John Houghton, portrayed by the Spanish artist Francisco de Zurbarán holding his heart, asked before he was eviscerated by the hangman "Jesus, Jesus, what will you do with my heart?"

The Tudor administration particularly wanted the Carthusians to accept the change in Church leadership in England because of their great reputation for holiness and integrity. Houghton had argued in 1534, when presented with the Oath of Succession, that Carthusian hermit monks had no interest in worldly events and their opinion should not matter to the world (the King). For that argument, Father Houghton and Father Humphrey Middleton were imprisoned in the Tower of London for a month. They later agreed to take the Oath of Succession, persuaded that the King's authority over the Church would be limited "as far as the law of Christ allows". This was the same oath that Bishop John Fisher and Sir Thomas More refused to take in April of 1534 and were thus imprisoned in the Tower of London at the King's pleasure, attainted traitors and stripped of all worldly possessions and rights. Fisher was even removed from his see and was no longer considered a bishop (a Lord and Member of the House of Lords).

Having sworn the Oath of Succession, the Carthusians went back to their way of life and hoped for peace and to be let alone. Then on February 1, 1535 the revised Oath of Supremacy proclaiming Henry VIII the Supreme Head and Governor of the Church of England without that limiting phrase was presented to the Carthusians. They weren't going to be let alone.

Prior John Houghton led the Carthusians to do what hermit monks do: fast and pray for three days and then offer the Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit to decide whether or not they could take the Oath of Supremacy. Dom David Knowles praises Houghton in his Saints and Scholars: Twenty-Five Medieval Portraits, for his leadership and docility: When Father Houghton elevated the Host during the Canon of the Mass, he felt the Holy Spirit's call to remain united with the universal Church, and refuse the Supremacy Oath. So he, Webster and Lawrence asked Henry VIII for an exemption from taking this oath, again on the stated grounds that they were hermit monks who had no interest in or influence on worldly events, and that their opinions on worldly matters should not matter to the world (Henry VIII). For that argument, they were arrested and called before a special commission in April 1535, and sentenced to death, after the jurors on the commission were told to change their first, not guilty, verdict.

Fathers Webster and Lawrence were priors of the other Carthusian houses in England, of Epworth and Beauvale, respectively. Two others were sentenced to death with the three Carthusian priors: Father Richard Reynolds of the Briggitine House of Syon and Father John Haile, the Vicar of Isleworth.

Then comes that great scene on May 4, 1535. Margaret More Roper was visiting her father, Thomas More in the Tower of London, and they were standing by a window so that they just happened to see the five martyrs to be dragged away from the Tower to Tyburn. More said to his daughter, who was there to persuade her father to take the Oath of Supremacy:

Lo, dost thou not see (Meg) that these blessed fathers be how as cheerful going to their deaths, as bridegrooms to their marriages? Wherefore thereby mayest thou see (mine own good daughter) what a difference there is between such as have in effect spent all their days in a strait, hard, penitential, and painful life religiously, and such as have in the world, like worldly wretches, as thy poor father hath done, consumed all the time in pleasure and ease licentiously. For God, considering their long-continued life in most sore and grievous penance, will not longer suffer them to remain here in this vale of misery, and iniquity, but speedily hence take them to the fruition of his everlasting deity: whereas thy silly father (Meg) that, like a most wicked caitiff, hath passed forth the whole course of his miserable life most pitifully, God, thinking him not worthy so soon to come to that eternal felicity, leaveth him here yet, still in the world further to be plunged and turmoiled with misery.

Margaret More Roper had her answer: her father would not take the Oath. Prior John Houghton would soon have his answer: what would Jesus do with his heart?

More about the scene at Tyburn on Monday at about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here; the podcast will be archived here.

Duccio's "Maesta" in Siena

One hot Kansas summer some 40 years ago, I took a summer school class on Medieval and Renaissance Art at Wichita State University. We met in a darkened amphitheater in McKnight Art Center with slides projected on the screen above and in front of us. Yes, slides! Kodachrome slides, I presume. Mira Merriman, the late great scholar, told me I had an unfair advantage over other students because I was Catholic! When I heard Elizabeth Lev talk about her book on Counter-Reformation Art and the Church last summer at Newman University, I thought of Professor Merriman.

We discussed at least one other Duccio Madonna with its early Renaissance attempts at perspective and dimension--and also the understanding that the image/painting itself was not the object of worship, but an image to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary, thank her for prayers answered, and inspire veneration of her as the Mother of God (that's where my "unfair advantage" came in!).

But on this date, 708 years ago, Duccio's great altarpiece Maesta was brought in procession to the Duomo of Siena. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes the event and the impact this painting would have, on Duccio's career and religious art:

But it was in 1311 that Duccio achieved his principal work, the glory of which is destined to remain traditional, the great reredos for the high altar of the Siena cathedral. This panel, removed in the fifteenth century, may now be seen in the museum of the Opera del Duomo. The day of its installation was observed as a public feast; shops were closed and bells were rung and the people of the city, carrying lighted candles, solemnly escorted the picture from the artist's residence at the Porta Stalloreggi to the cathedral. This painting was indeed a national masterpiece and in this regard is comparable only to the reredos by Van Eyck in Flemish painting. The two sides represent the two Testaments of the school. The back comprises twenty-six scenes from the life of Jesus between the entry into Jerusalem and the Ascension. The steps, now taken apart, were decorated with twenty other scenes representing Christ's childhood, and His miracles, and the life of the Virgin. In fact, the theme was the same as that treated by Giotto in 1305 in the Arena of Padua. But Duccio consulted Byzantine formularies only, and his compositions resemble the famous miniatures of the "Evangelistarium" of Rossano, or those of the great Benedictine school of Mont' Amiata. However, apart from his perfect taste in colour and in style, Duccio excelled in the essentially Greek elegance of his portrayal of ordinary life. He abounds in genre pictures as pure as some of the selections in the Anthology. The scene of "Peter before the High-Priest", the dialogue of the holy women with the angel at the Sepulchre, and the "Pilgrims of Emmaus" are models of poetic conception expressed in a familiar, true-to-life, lyric fashion. On the front of the great panel is the "Madonna Maestà" (Majesty), which is in reality the "Madonna de' Ruccellai" more amply, richly, and harmoniously developed. Never did Byzantine painting attain greater plasticity of expression. But here the form is animated by a new sentiment, a tenderness that manifests itself in the distich engraved on the step of the Virgin's throne: --

MATER SANCTA DEI, SIS CAUSSA SENIS REQUIEI
SIS DUCCIO VITA, TE QUIA PINXIT ITA. (Holy Mother of God, give peace unto Siena; obtain for me that, as I have painted Thee so fair, I may live eternally.)

[The reredos of Van Eyck in Flemish painting referred to above is The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb--I always wanted to see it in person in Ghent but Mark and I did not get to travel to Belgium a third time!]

At Phaidon.com, there's a post with a curiously inaccurate title "The altarpiece that helped art break away from the church". Since the Catholic Church continued to be the major patron of art and as patron exerted influence on what was created and how it was created in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance--through to the Council of Trent and the Counter-Reformation--that assertion is a stretch. It's a stretch that's not supported by this sentence:

This event was as (sic) more a religious event than an artistic one, though perhaps this distinction would have been less clear in the minds of that crowd, as artistic creation was so closely allied to the church at this point.

It's more accurate to say that Duccio's Maesta altarpiece demonstrates a shift away from Byzantine iconography. That's really what the article conveys as it concludes:

Maestà may look stilted in comparison to later works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael yet by shifting away from the stiffer Byzantine styles, Duccio showed the way for these later artists.

Nevertheless, it's a wondrous religious and artistic event we remember seven centuries later. The sad note is that the altarpiece is not in situ at the Duomo, but parts of it are scattered around the world in different museums!

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

May Mira Merriman rest in peace.

Image Credit (public domain): detail of the Maesta

This Morning: New Series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales

As promised, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show with Anna Mitchell at about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central to begin our new series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, leading up to the 50th anniversary of their canonization on October 25, 1970.

Please listen live here; the podcast will be archived here.

It's interesting to note that on the Vatican website, the homily Pope Paul VI preached at the Mass and Canonization is mostly in Italian, with an introduction in English welcoming Cardinal John Carmel Heenan, Archbishop of Westminster, other Catholic bishops and priest, and laity from England. He also welcomed the official representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Reverend Doctor Harry Smythe and other Anglicans. But when he discusses the reasons for the canonization and presents some of the martyrs individually, that portion of the homily is only in Italian. There is a translation into Portuguese, if that's helpful to you.

He concluded with another portion in English:

May the blood of these Martyrs be able to heal the great wound inflicted upon God’s Church by reason of the separation of the Anglican Church from the Catholic Church. Is it not one--these Martyrs say to us--the Church founded by Christ? Is not this their witness? Their devotion to their nation gives us the assurance that on the day when--God willing--the unity of the faith and of Christian life is restored, no offence will be inflicted on the honour and sovereignty of a great country such as England. There will be no seeking to lessen the legitimate prestige and the worthy patrimony of piety and usage proper to the Anglican Church when the Roman Catholic Church--this humble “Servant of the Servants of God”--is able to embrace her ever beloved Sister in the one authentic communion of the family of Christ: a communion of origin and of faith, a communion of priesthood and of rule, a communion of the Saints in the freedom and love of the Spirit of Jesus.

Perhaps We shall have to go on, waiting and watching in prayer, in order to deserve that blessed day. But already We are strengthened in this hope by the heavenly friendship of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales who are canonized today. Amen.

The New York Times covered the event and noted the emphasis on ecumenism and inter-faith harmony, but also noting that some Catholics unhappy with the changes in the liturgy protested the event.

On Friday this week, I'll offer you a preview of the first three martyrs we'll discuss, three of the protomartyrs of the English Reformation under Henry VIII:

John Houghton, Carthusian Prior, London Charterhouse
Augustine Webster, Carthusian Prior, Epworth Charterhouse (Isle of Axholme, Lincolnshire)
Robert Lawrence, Carthusian Prior, Beauvale Charterhouse, Nottinghamshire

Ratification of the Lateran Treaty

The Parliament of Italy ratified the Lateran Treaty, which had been signed on February 11 at the Lateran Palace, on June 7, 1929. This Treaty created the Vatican City-State, the sovereignty of the Holy See, recognized buildings belonging to the Vatican outside the small territory pictured on the map at left, including the Lateran Basilica (the Cathedral of the Pope as the Bishop of Rome), other major basilicas, educational institutions, headquarters of several congregations, and the Bambino Gesu hospital. All these properties are in Rome; certain properties outside Rome, like Castel Gandolfo, were also included in the Treaty. The Pope was recognized as the head of the Vatican City-State.

D.D. Emmons explains the background to this treaty in an Our Sunday Visitor article from July last year:

Beginning in 1850, King Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont-Sardinia started his quest to consolidate all of Italy under one government and become the king of a unified Italy. The largest of the many independent Italian states were those controlled by the pope, who at the time was Pius IX (r. 1846-78), a serious stumbling block to Italian unification. The king, either through negotiations or threat of force, began annexing areas of Italy under a new national government. Pope Pius refused to relinquish any of his holdings, but the king occupied one Papal State after another, until by 1860 he had seized all the papal holdings except for the city of Rome. The new central government wanted Rome as the nation’s capital city, but the pope would have none of it. Protected by a French garrison, Pius refused to recognize Victor Emmanuel’s government and decried what he considered to be the robbery of the Papal States: the seizure of Church property belonging to all Catholics. . . .

On September 20, 1870, after the French garrison protecting the pope departed to fight in the Franco-Prussian war, King Victor’s army forcibly occupied Rome. The papal domain, once over 16,000 square miles, was reduced to the Vatican’s one-sixth of a square mile. Victor, by now king of all of Italy, offered considerable concessions to Pope Pius IX if he would acknowledge the new government and the annexation of the Papal States. These concessions, called the Law of Guarantees, recognized the pope as the head of the Catholic Church in Italy, accorded the pope all the rights of a sovereign monarch and provided compensation to the Church for the Papal States. The pope adamantly declined, believing that such agreement would be tantamount to placing the papacy under the rule of and subject to the king of Italy. . . .

From 1870 to 1929, Popes Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Benedict XV, and Pius XI had considered themselves "Prisoners of the Vatican" until Pope Pius XI agreed to negotiations with the Italian Government, led by Benito Mussolini, Victor-Emmanuel's prime minister. Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, represented the Pope. 

Negotiations took a few years, starting in 1926.

D.D. Emmons outlines other matters agreed to in the Treaty:

Among the treaty agreements, the Holy See acknowledged the legitimacy of the Italian government and its right to the Papal States; the Vatican was, in turn, financially compensated; and Vatican City was created and designated a sovereign nation, independent of Italy, with the pope as head of state. Catholicism became the religion of Italy; marriage laws were placed under the rule of the Church, and Catholic religious training was included in every school. The Italian government provided Vatican City with a train station, a telephone and telegraph office, a post office and a radio station. The pope was once again ruler of a sovereign nation and in no way subject to an earthly potentate. . . .

Please read the rest there. 

When my late husband and I went to Rome in November 2002 with our former chaplain at the WSU Newman Center, Father Carr, we noted each time we left Italy and entered Vatican City, and vice versa, crossing the border with ease!

Image credit (public domain): Boundary map of Vatican City, taken from the annex of the Lateran Treaty

New Series on the SRMS: 50 years of the 40 Martyrs

Before Matt Swaim, Anna Mitchell and I began the series on Lenten and Easter reflections based on St. John Henry Newman's sermons, we had been doing a series on the great anniversaries this year: events, births, deaths, etc, from the Battle of Thermopylae to the birth of Karol Wojtyla (Pope St. John Paul II).

One of the anniversaries to mark this year is October 25, 1970, the 50th anniversary of the canonization of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales by Pope St. Paul VI. So we are starting a new series on the Son Rise Morning Show on Monday, June 8 (at the usual time, 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern). Each Monday morning, we will highlight two (or three) martyrs, concluding on Monday, October 26 the day after the anniversary.

Please listen live here; the podcast will be archived here.

To start us off, on Monday, June 8, I'll talk to Anna about the time and the context of the canonizations in 1970, 35 years after St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More were canonized by Pope Pius XI--eleven of these 40 martyrs had been beatified with Fisher and More by Pope Pope Leo XIII in 1886 (84 years before); 29 more of these 40 martyrs had been beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929 (41 years before).

So why did Pope Paul VI canonize these 40 martyrs in 1970? Why were there some who thought the timing inopportune?

For answers, we turn to this article from the weekly English edition of L'Osservatore Romano on October 29, 1970, preserved for us in the EWTN library.

To examine the second question first: Pope Paul VI and Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had met in Rome and issued The Common Declaration by Pope Paul VI and the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Michael Ramsey on March 24, 1966. They agreed to enter into a dialogue, seeking unity:

In willing obedience to the command of Christ who bade His disciples love one another, they declare that, with His help, they wish to leave in the hands of the God of mercy all that in the past has been opposed to this precept of charity, and that they make their own the mind of the Apostle which he expressed in these words: ‘Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus’ (Phil 3:13-14).

They affirm their desire that all those Christians who belong to these two Communions may be animated by these same sentiments of respect, esteem and fraternal love, and in order to help these develop to the full, they intend to inaugurate between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion a serious dialogue which, founded on the Gospels and on the ancient common traditions, may lead to that unity in truth, for which Christ prayed.

The dialogue should include not only theological matters such as Scripture, Tradition and Liturgy, but also matters of practical difficulty felt on either side. His Holiness the Pope and His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury are, indeed, aware that serious obstacles stand in the way of a restoration of complete communion of faith and sacramental life; nevertheless, they are of one mind in their determination to promote responsible contacts between their Communions in all those spheres of Church life where collaboration is likely to lead to a greater understanding and a deeper charity, and to strive in common to find solutions for all the great problems that face those who believe in Christ in the world of today. . . .

As the L'Observatore Romano article notes, the canonization of these 40 Martyrs seemed to contradict the quotation from Saint Paul's Letter to the Philippians ("Forgetting those things which are behind"), and Dr. Ramsey opined that it was not timely, ecumenically speaking:

In more recent times—November 1969—the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Ramsey, had expressed his apprehension that this Canonization might rekindle animosity and polemics detriment to the ecumenical spirit that has characterized the efforts of the Churches recently. But the reaction of the press, lay, Anglican and Catholic, showed clearly that this concern—though shared by some Anglicans and Catholics—did not correspond to the view of the vast majority. Many people, in fact, both Anglicans and Catholics, were aware of the fact that, right from the beginning of the re-opening of the Cause, the policy of its Promoters had been characterized by an extremely serene and ecumenical note; what is more, they realized the positive repercussions it offers just in this field if it is presented in this very spirit.

In fact, public opinion seemed to accord with the postulator's view:

The vast majority of people understood all this. The most authoritative voice in this sense was that of the British Council of Churches, which made a public declaration on the matter on December 17th, 1969. Not only does it recognize the importance for the Catholic Church to venerate its Martyrs, to whom the survival of the Catholic Church in England and Wales is essentially due, but it also expressed satisfaction that the various Christian denominations are united today in recognizing the tradition of the Martyrs as a common element from which we must all draw strength disregarding denominational frontiers.

As to why the cause of the English martyrs was revived so many years after the previous beatifications and canonizations Fr. Paolo Molinari, SJ the postulator of the cause explained:

In still more recent times, the Hierarchy of England and Wales, conscious of the deep devotion to the martyrs who on different occasions had been declared blessed by the apostolic See, and aware that this devotion was addressed especially to some of the most popular of them was induced by the requests of the faithful and the multiplicity of favours obtained, to promote the canonization not of the whole host of these martyrs, but of a limited group of them. Right from the beginning of the negotiations, the Canonization Cause of these Martyrs was entrusted by the Hierarchy of England and Wales to Fr. Paolo Molinari, Postulator General of the Society of Jesus and President of the College of Postulators. He in turn nominated as Assistant Postulators Father Philip Caraman and James Walsh of the English Province of the Society.

Furthermore, there were miracles attributed to the intercession of the martyrs:

Even before the rehearing of the Cause, many reports of favours and apparently miraculous cures attributed to the intercession of our Blessed Martyrs, had come to the knowledge of the Catholic Hierarchy of England and Wales, which hastened to inform the competent Roman Authorities.

Catholics in England had been encouraged to honor the martyrs and to seek their prayers:

As a result of the intensification of the devotion of the faithful and their prayers, a good many events took place which looked like miracles. Sufficient data were collected about them to induce the Archbishop of Westminster, then Cardinal William Godfrey, to send a description of 24 seemingly miraculous cases to the Sacred Congregation.

The most striking of these and of the others that continued to be notified to the Postulation were first examined with special care by doctors of high repute. On the basis of their answers, two cases were chosen and the usual Apostolic Proceedings were instituted, and the acts were sent to the Sacred Congregation of Rites in Rome.

So on May 18, 1970, Pope Paul VI announced the canonization of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales:

"We greatly rejoice that unanimously you have asked that these blessed Martyrs of England and Wales be canonized; this is also our desire. It is our intention to enroll them among the saints and to declare them worthy of the honours that the Church attributes to those holy persons who have obtained their heavenly reward. With God's help, we will do this on the twenty-fifth day of October of this year in the Vatican Basilica".

The 40 Martyrs are, in the chronological order in which we'll discuss them on the Son Rise Morning Show (unless otherwise noted, they are priests; unless otherwise noted, they are seminary, non-order priests):

From the reign of Henry VIII:

John Houghton, Carthusian Prior, London Charterhouse
Augustine Webster, Carthusian Prior, Epworth Charterhouse (Isle of Axholme, Lincolnshire)
Robert Lawrence, Carthusian Prior, Beauvale Charterhouse, Nottinghamshire
Richard Reynolds, Briggitine Priest of Syon Abbey
John Stone, Augustinian Canon of Canterbury Abbey

From the reign of Elizabeth I:

Cuthbert Mayne
Ralph Sherwin
Edmund Campion, SJ
Alexander Briant, SJ
John Payne
Luke Kirby
Richard Gwyn, layman*
Margaret Clitherow
Margaret Ward
Swithun Wells, layman
Eustace White
Polydore Plasden
Edmund Gennings
John Boste
Philip Howard, layman
Robert Southwell, SJ
Henry Walpole, SJ
John Jones (Griffith), Franciscan*
John Rigby, layman
Anne Line

During the reign of James I:

Nicholas Owen, Jesuit lay-brother
Thomas Garnet, SJ
John Roberts, OSB*
John Almond

During the reign of Charles I and/or the Civil War/Interregnum period:

Edmund Arrowsmith, SJ
Ambrose Barlow, OSB
Alban Roe, OSB
Henry Morse, SJ

During the reign of Charles II:

John Southworth

The Popish Plot Martyrs during the reign of Charles II:

Philip Evans, SJ*
David Lewis, SJ*
John Wall, Franciscan
John Kemble
John Lloyd*
John Plessington

*The six Welsh martyrs are:

Richard Gwyn, layman
John Jones (Griffith), Franciscan
John Roberts, OSB
Philip Evans, SJ
Davis Lewis, SJ
John Lloyd

Holy Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us!

Saint Petroc of Cornwall

Having just read about "Katholic Kernow" (Catholic Cornwall) in Lest We Be Damned, I was happy to see that St. Petroc of Cornwall's feast is today. He is venerated in the Catholic Church, the Church of England, and the Orthodox Church.

In fact, I will cite the post from the Orthodox Christianity website for Saint Petroc:

Cornwall, the peninsula in the south-west of England and now one of 48 ceremonial English counties, was in ancient times a part of the kingdom of Dumnonia, which comprised territories of the present-day counties of Cornwall, Devon and part of Somerset and Dorset. The Gospel was brought to Cornwall in the fifth century or even earlier, and monastic life began there in 475. At that time Cornwall became known as “the land of saints” or “the Thebaid of saints”. Indeed, between the fifth and seventh centuries Cornwall produced so many saints, ascetics, hermits, abbots, missionaries, holy bishops and kings, that nearly each town and village in the region has its own patron-saint.

Christian life and the monastic tradition of Cornwall were similar to those of Wales and Brittany and many ascetic customs were indeed derived from the desert fathers of Egypt, the “Thebaid”, and Syria. Unfortunately, the lives of many ancient Cornish saints were lost at the Norman Conquest or else after the Reformation. And today, though veneration for them continues and many churches and holy wells are dedicated to them, we can say very little about most of these saints. The most venerated saint in Cornwall, who is considered to be one of the main enlighteners of Dumnonia, is St. Petroc (Petrock/Peter), who together with the Archangel Michael and St. Piran, has for many years been the patron-saint of Cornwall. Though two later medieval versions of his life are not very reliable, they are mainly based on ancient traditions, so we can outline the major events and activities of his life.

Please read the rest there, as the post includes many excellent pictures of the Church of St. Petroc in Bodmin. The stained glass window pictured above--public domain--is from St. Petroc in Bodmin, now an Anglican church. Of course, it was a Catholic church before the English Reformation, and was the abbey church of an Augustinian Priory of the Canons Regular of the Lateran (the Priory of Saint Mary). That priory was suppressed in 1538 and all the buildings except the church destroyed. Thomas Sternhold, Groom of the Robes to Henry VIII and translator of 51 of the Psalms into metrical English, received the land. The ruins of a chapel dedicated to St. Thomas Becket still stand precariously on the grounds of the Anglican parish.

The Canons Regular of the Lateran left England after the suppression and did not return until 1884 to establish a new Priory in Bodmin, also named Saint Mary's, granted that status in 1953. Evidently, however, the canons left Bodmin for Birmingham and St. Michael's Church at the request of Archbishop Longley in 2013. The site for the parish church of St. Mary's in Bodmin is here.

I cannot let the feast of St. Petroc of Cornwall pass without mentioning the historical fantasy Brother Petroc's Return about a survivor of the Prayer Book Rebellion in Cornwall, written by S.M.C., a Cornwall native!

Saint Petroc of Cornwall, pray for us!

Book Review: Lisa McClain's "Lest We Be Damned"

Clearly, I did not buy this book based on its cover!

From Routledge, Lest We Be Damned: Practical Innovation & Lived Experience Among Catholics in Protestant England, 1559–1642 was written by Lisa McClain. She is an "Assistant Professor of History and Director of Women's Studies at Boise State University. She studies popular religion during the Reformation era, and has authored articles in journals such as the Sixteenth Century Journal and the Journal of Religious History", according to Routledge. As the publisher blurbs the book:

Through compelling personal stories and in rich detail, McClain reveals the give-and-take interaction between the institutional church in Rome and the needs of believers and the hands-on clergy who provided their pastoral care within England. In doing so, she illuminates larger issues of how believers and low-level clergy push[ed] the limits of official orthodoxy in order to meet devotional needs.

Table of Contents (from my notes and including the subheads in the chapters):

Introduction

Chapter 1. "Knitting the Remnants": Catholic Challenges and Priorities in Protestant England

--A Changing Religious Environment: Penal Laws against the Practice of Catholicism

--How Many Catholics Were There?

--Who Was a Catholic?

--Catholic Priorities

   --Immanence

   --Saints, Priests, and Sacraments

   --Salvation

--Meeting Catholic Priorities

   --Evolving Goals

--Book Trade

Chapter 2. A "Church" Without a Church: English Catholics' Search for Religious Space

--Three Degrees of Separation

--Prisons

--Examinations, Trials, and Executions

Chapter 3. Using What's at Hand: English Catholic Reinterpretations of the Rosary

--Praying the Beads

--Sacraments Versus Sacramentals

--Obtaining the Beads

--Society of the Rosary

--Changing Role of the Rosary and Mary

--One of Many Emerging Views of Mary

   --Pre-Reform Use and Interpretation of the Rosary in England

   --In Contrast to Post-Tridentine Continental Portrayals of Mary

Chapter 4. Reclaiming the Body: Receiving the Benefits of the Mass in the Absence of Priests

--Functions of Catholic Sacraments

--Filling the Need

--Spiritual Reception of the Body of Christ

--Finding the Body

--Reclaiming the Body: Christ's and One's Own

Chapter 5. Lawyers, Jailbirds, Grocers, and Diplomats: Catholic Options for Piety and Community in London

--Inns of Court

--Prisons

--Catholic Geography of London

--Executions

--Relic Takers

--Merchants and Tradespeople

--Foreign Aid

Chapter 6. Katholic Kernow: Catholics of Cornwall

--Cornish Independence

--Cornwall's Celtic Past: "An Ancient Song, Lilting Before You Came"

--Lives of the Celtic Saints

--Celtic-Cornish Immanence: Places, People, and Things

   --Places

   --People

   --Things

--Cornish Catholic Participation in a Larger Catholic Community

Chapter 7. "Border of Wickedness?": Catholics in the Northern Shires

--A Convenient Partnership

--New Experiences in the North

--Protecting What was Theirs: Distinctive Attempts to Thwart Protestant Authority

--The Importance of the Borders

   --Border Instability
--Why and How Catholics Flowed Back and Forth Across the Border
   --Why Was This Possible?
   --How Was This Possible?
--Northern Catholic Identity and Community
--Conclusion

Chapter 8. From the Old Comes the New: Catholic Identities and Alternative Forms of Community
--English Catholic Identity: How English Catholics Perceived Themselves
--Identifying with Persecution and Martyrdom
--Building New Catholic Communities
--Communities of Prayer
--Communities of the Book
--Communities of the Living and the Dead
--Conjunctions of Identity and Community: How English Catholics Perceived their Relationship to Rome
--Increasing Frustration with Rome
--Oath of Allegiance Controversy

Conclusion

Notes
Select Bibliography
Index

McClain does present many compelling stories and much rich detail--sometimes repetitiously--in delineating the response of English Catholics to the loss of their churches, their parishes, their public devotional life, their communities, and most crucially, their Church's Sacraments. She carefully traces the changing circumstances of Catholics in England from the beginning of Elizabeth I's reign until the end of Charles I's reign, not strictly chronologically, but topically. For example, McClain notes that during the first years of Elizabeth's reign enforcement of the Acts of Uniformity (worship) and Supremacy (authority) was rather lax. She continues her examination of the development and variations in that enforcement during Elizabeth's reign by looking at the prisons in London, the distance and independence in Cornwall, and the distinctive issues of distance, the border with Scotland, and nobles' authority in the northern counties.

In another example of this topical treatment of changing circumstances during the period (1559 to 1642), she examines the controversy over the Oath of Allegiance during James I's reign but does not continue that theme into the reign of Charles I. So a reader should not expect a strictly chronological description of Catholic issues in England during this recusant period.

Because of my great devotion and interest in St. Robert Southwell, I was fascinated by her citation of his advice to Catholics during his time as a missionary priest to use their imaginations in their homes and in their environments. He encouraged them to dedicate rooms or areas in their houses to Jesus, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to angels and saints; to use walking in fields or forests as pilgrimages to holy sites, to consecrate time and space to God in prayer and unity. These passages, cited from his Short Rule to a Good Life, accorded very well with what Anne R. Sweeney had written of St. Robert Southwell in Snow in Arcadia as images and imagination--inspired in him by the art and architecture of Counter-Reformation Rome--were so essential to his Ignatian poetic.

On the other hand, I was confused by her final statement about Blessed John Hambley, whose life and career she traces in two chapters (5 and 6): offering Mass at the Inns of Court in London and being born in Cornwall and leaving to become a missionary priest. She indicates that he died in prison in 1587 (p. 198) but he was hanged, drawn, and quartered on March 29 that year, according to martyrology.

McClain also alludes often to the trial and questioning of St. Margaret Clitherow, especially on the question, "What is the Church?" to which Clitherow had a good answer:

"It is that wherein the true word of god (sic) is preached which Christ langhs [launched] and left to his Apostles and they to their successors: ministering the seven sacraments which the same church has always observed, doctors preached, and martyrs and confessors witnessed. This is the church which I believe to be true."

McClain emphasizes the continuity recusant Catholics sought while they had to adapt to a great disruption: they could not practice their faith as they had done before (or as their parents and grandparents had done before Henry VIII's break from Rome) and yet they wanted to maintain the connection with the past because it was still alive and well in the world, just over the English Channel. At the same time that she emphasizes how they sought continuity, McClain explores how they had to change: praying the Rosary privately; reading their breviaries or Little Offices of the Blessed Virgin Mary in secret; if they did attend Anglican services to avoid paying the financially crippling fines, praying Catholic prayers; holding their rosaries in their pockets, etc.

Sometimes she stresses how far English Catholics were deviating from standard Catholic practice, but they were only doing so because it was the only thing they could do to maintain some continuity with the faith. When they couldn't attend Mass, confess their sins, receive Holy Communion, or even join their fellow citizens in the parish church their ancestors may have built and contributed to, they had to make Spiritual Communions, confess their sins to God and make a perfect act of contrition (declaring they never wanted to sin again!), join their intentions to Masses said on the Continent, etc. McClain notes that many of these devotions were based on late-medieval mystical piety, once considered rather dangerous because it bypassed the mediation of the ordained priesthood--but it was all that Catholics had, absent the regular ministrations of a priest, unless they were able to shelter their own chaplain, afford the fines, or benefit from friendly laxity in the enforcement of recusant laws. I think she might press this view of deviation too far, especially since it was Catholic priests recommending these practices to devout Catholics. They were not dissenting from Catholic teaching.

She does adopt what could be considered a controversial view of who was Catholic, accepting that Church Papists, those who outwardly conformed to the Church of England by attending services (not receiving Communion) but inwardly remained semi-faithful (?) to the Catholic Church were indeed still Catholic. In this, she could be following William Cardinal Allen's advice to the missionary priests he sent to England: if the laity confess attending an Anglican service as a sin, grant them absolution mercifully and gently, even if it's a sin they confess again and again (as most penitents do confess the same sins again and again).

Again, this study provides a great deal of detail: stories of arrests, imprisonments, conversations; data about books, martyrs, executions, prisons, embassy chapels; individual examples, etc, to develop a view of English Catholics' experience and life as a persecuted/prosecuted religious minority in a country that had once believed, prayed, and worshipped exactly as they did.

In her Conclusion, however, McClain tries to make more global claims of this history's significance in current situations of dissent within churches on doctrinal matters--something that never really occurs during this period among these Catholics--and the struggle to live in pluralistic societies, accommodating one another's beliefs and religious practices, bringing up book burnings, religiously inspired terrorism, all in the passive voice! ("Books are burned, martyrs are made, holy wars are declared, acts of religiously motivated terrorism proliferate"). Who burns the books, who executes the martyrs, who declares holy wars, who proliferates acts of religiously motivated terrorism? The passive voice avoids naming the actors. That's a lot of significance to cram into four paragraphs at the end of the book, especially when the purpose of the book was to help us understand the past, not necessarily help us understand the present, and especially when the situation, at least in the democratic West, is not that comparable.

I wish the book could have more illustrations and especially maps. And have a pretty cover!--but it's print on demand like so many scholarly books are now. It's an excellent resource, based on analysis of both primary and secondary sources, as McClain demonstrates familiarity with current scholarship.