REGINA Inspiring. Intelligent. Catholic.

The Secret Catholic Insider’s Guide to England Summer 2013

1 | Page ur third issue focuses on Catholic England, traditionally ‘Our Lady’s Dowry.’ The ancient heart and soul of this sceptered isle is Catholic to its core – from REGINA Oarchitecture and liturgy to traditions in fashion (bridal dresses and church Editor hats), food (Sunday Roast) and famous writers (G.K. Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh and Beverly De Soto Hilaire Belloc).

From her tortured religious history to the realities of her multicultural and secular Writers present-day, England has always been a bellwether for Catholics. Christianity Michael Durnan was a persecuted slave religion, which after the fall of the Roman Empire was re- Suzanne Pacis Duque introduced by St. Augustine at Canterbury. Legend has it that Pope Gregory, inspired Barbara Monzon-Puleo by the sight of blond English children (“Angles’ who he dubbed “Angeli”) for sale in Christopher Gillibrand slave markets, dispatched Augustine and his monks to bring the Faith there. Robert Beaurivage Beverly De Soto The Romans reconciled with the Irish monks at the Synod of Whitby in 663. Christianity thereafter grew strong roots in ’Angle-land’; Canterbury is still the Layout/Graphic Designer ancient seat of the Church. In the light of history, scholars today argue that the Reformation was top-down, imposed by a tyrant and later cemented by a ‘robber Phil Roussin class’ of avaricious barons enriched by stolen Church wealth. Certainly the more than 400 official martyrs murdered by the Crown in those tragic days attest to the Photography Credits: strength of the Faith. Many Catholics fled underground – and over the Channel -- Harry Stevens for more than two centuries until the Toleration Acts of 1823. The recusant families Michael Durnan stubbornly remained. Evelyn Nicholson Joseph Shaw All of this was a long time ago. Today, the Oxbridge nexus and London’s power in the global financial markets give the British media and its intellectual class Webmaster tremendous influence. While this has been true for centuries, the Internet today extends this beyond the confines of the academy and the world of journalism. The Jim Bryant Catholic Church has long held pariah status with these elites, of course. England’s unparalleled intellectual heritage makes independent thinkers, however – as the stories of the famous Oxford Movement converts illustrate. This remains true today, as we shall see in this issue. REGINA Magazine is a quarterly Catholic review published electronically on www.reginamag.com. Within England, the Catholic Church is news. The Anglican Ordinariate provides a home for new converts fleeing the modernist hegemony of the Established Church. In a new ironic twist of history, a direct descendant of Charles Darwin, Laura Keynes, REGINA draws together extraordinary Catholic writers with has joined Catholic Voices, an apologist organization set to defend the Church in a vibrant faith, and wide-ranging interests. We’re interested in the UK. everything under the Catholic sun — from work and family to religious and eternal life. Meanwhile, floods of immigrant workers from Eastern Europe revitalize many parishes. England’s famous recusant families – loyal through the centuries – We seek the Good, the Beautiful and the True – in our Tradition today are alive and well, quietly influential and supportive of the Old Faith. While and with our God-given Reason. We really do believe in one, Catholics who have finally been accepted in suburban, wealthy London steer clear holy, Catholic and apostolic Church. We are joyfully loyal to of controversy, Latin Masses grow -- attracting artists, intellectuals, professionals the Magisterium. We proudly celebrate our literary and artistic and young people wherever the Mass is allowed to blossom. heritage and seek to live and teach the authentic Faith.

Outside of England, what happens there in the Catholic Church has great influence – particularly in the Commonwealth countries. This is arguably also the case in the United States, England’s estranged-but-still-loving daughter.

REGINA is under the patronage of Our Lady, Mary Most Holy. We pray that she lays our humble work at the feet of her Son, and that His Will be done.

Beverly De Soto Editor, REGINA London, August 2013

Today we place REGINA under the patronage of Our Lady, Mary Most Holy. We pray that she lays our humble work at the feet of her Son, and that His Will be done.

There is no charge for REGINA. Inquiries should be directed to “Regina Magazine” on Facebook or the Editor at [email protected].

2 | Page Table of Contents

GK Chesterton’s “Secret People” English Catholics Today

Shades of Evelyn Waugh Eye-Opener: Update on the Latin Mass in England and Wales

A ‘Modest Proposal’ The English Bride

Sunday Roast Bucking the System

What’s in a ‘Christian’ Name? Clues to Britain’s Catholic Past

When God Hated Susan What had she done?

The Message of Julian of Norwich All Will Be Well

The Sisters of Saint Cecilia’s Abbey Traditional English Benedictine Order

Glorious Hats Make a Comeback The Church Lady

The Saints of England’s Holy Island The Legend of Lindisfarne

Ghosts of a Catholic Age The Haunted Ruins of England

A Story of Catholic Valour When Jesuits Were Hunted in England

A Tale of Two Margarets A King’s Niece and a Butcher’s Wife

The English Catholic Exiles Refugees to Spanish Shores

A Homeschooler’s Guide to Inspiring England “Divorced, beheaded, died…”

The ‘Pope of Oxford’ The Real Cardinal Newman

The Enigmatic G.K. Chesterton Anglican Convert and Defender of the Catholic Faith

Hilaire Belloc The Englishman Who Walked Across America

Famous Converts Beyond the Oxford Movement

A Passion for England The Astonishing Story of the Passionists

Honour Roll of English Martyrs

The Art of the English Recusants Upper Class and Underground

Jerusalem Glastonbury Tor

3 | Page Chesterton’s Secret People The English Catholics

By Beverly De Soto Editor, Regina Magazine

t was a rainy spring morning in Wallingford, a charming grey stone English luminaries, including the redoubtable Anglican Dame Agatha market town in Oxfordshire bordering the meandering Thames. I Christie. (Legend has it that Paul VI was a fan of detective fiction; hence Islipped out of a friend’s house on foot, headed for morning Mass. The the indult.) wet streets were practically empty, save for a few early Sunday shoppers. Today, the pews are also filled with Catholic immigrants, from Eastern Finding the church was a little tricky, as its location in an un-charming, new- Europe – Poles are the largest group –and the Middle East, Southeast brick edifice around the corner from a street ATM was more than discrete; Asia and indeed everywhere. These people are in England to work, and a tiny sign was the only indication of its presence. Inside, however, were they have brought their Faith with them. Most are oblivious of the historic pews filled with Catholics, standing room only. I looked around mein persecution and oppression that existed in England. wonder – the place was filled with people from every continent and walk of life. From my cramped seat in the back, I listened carefully. The priest Catholics tell me that a slice of English society is still vocally anti-Catholic, was an Irishman, and his homily was forceful and direct. though not in the same ways as years ago. Whereas before the Church was Public Enemy Number One for the No-Popery crowd, nowadays they In the last 15 years, I have attended Masses all over England, and what has have been replaced by the equally-intolerant Fashionable Atheistic crowd, struck me most about English Catholics in the pews is how similar they are according to James Bogle, a London barrister and head of the Catholic to Catholics in the United States today. In the suburbs, you find the churches Union, a lay organization dating back to the 19th century. Both were/are filled with older people, there out of long habit and young families, trying fringe elements in society. to pass on the Faith. There are almost no single young people. In the big city churches, a grand mix of types of all races and nationalities – singles, There are subtler forms of anti-Catholicism, however, as anyone who couples, old and young, plus a sprinkling of tourists. And in the solemn objects to ‘political correctness’ knows -- a subject familiar to generations of Latin Masses, the pews are filled with a creative minority of intellectuals, English Catholics in the pervasive Protestant interpretation of the nation’s artists, entrepreneurs and young families with lots of children. history. (This is also true in England’s former colonies.) For centuries, the English have been taught that the Crown’s unprovoked and brutal attack on So who are they, G.K. Chesterton’s ‘Secret People,’ the Catholics of England? the Church was justified by the supposed ‘superstition’ and ‘corruption’ of the ‘rich abbeys.’ Only in recent years have less-biased scholars begun to Today’s Catholics represent a small minority – 9.6 percent of the population unearth the true story, about how the wealth and property of the abbeys in England and Wales, about 5 million people. These derive from five distinct passed into the hands of the petty nobles willing to do Henry’s dirty work, groups: Lancastrians, Irish, recusant families, converts and immigrants. To and how those same families generations later turned the peasantry off varying degrees, these groups have inter-married and mixed, of course, but their lands in the hated “Enclosure Acts.” it helps to understand their provenance. The poor, with no place else to go, wound up on the streets of the industrial Lancaster, in the north of England, stubbornly persisted in the Faith for cities, whose appalling conditions Dickens recorded and the Methodist nearly four hundred years, despite the persecutions of the Crown and Wesley brothers decried. It was these same urban poor whom the Labour later oppression and discrimination. Its capital is Liverpool – home of the movements mobilized, spurred on by the theories of the German Karl Beatles, but more importantly the center of immigration for Irish fleeing Marx, writing in the British library. the famine of the 1840s. Thousands died of cholera and other diseases; in the crypt of the Cathedral are buried ten priests who died heroically, But this was many years ago, and today the Catholic Church in England struggling to save the lives of the sick poor refugees. In Liverpool, and represents every class, and every conceivable background. On the surface, in many other northern cities, the Irish set up urban parishes in ‘ghetto’ all is well. But Bogle points to a new, and perhaps more devastating threat patterns which will be familiar to ethnic European diaspora Catholics the than rack or rope ever was – indifferentism, and its cousin, secularism. Both world over. Today, Liverpool is 46 percent Catholic. essentially derive from 19th and 20th century materialistic philosophies, though the individual lapsed Catholic may not know or care about this. The recusant families of England are famous for both their wealth and Essentially, it boils down to unbelief. For university graduates, the story intransigent adherence to the Faith through the centuries of brutal may read: ‘since there is no scientific proof that God exists, and history is repression. Many of the high aristocracy trace their lineage back to the replete with painful proof that religion breeds intolerance and sectarian Norman French who invaded the island in 1066, though recusants can also violence, why bother?’ For those less ideologically-inclined, ‘if the Church be found among ordinary people and the country squires in remote villages is not helping me materially or spiritually, why bother?’ in the North unreached by the Crown. For hundreds of years, these families paid astronomic sums to the Crown in order to be allowed to practice their Attempts to address this by making the Church more ‘relevant’ since religion. Their unofficial leader has always been the Duke of Norfolk, a the 1960s have ended in abject failure, for the most part. Watered- hereditary dukedom based in the diocese of Arundel. The Duke has stepped down catechism has resulted in a situation where many English Catholics in at various critical points, for example in the depths of World War II Nazi would be hard-pressed to explain what the difference actually is between bombing of Birmingham, to quietly arrange to move John Henry Newman’s Catholicism and Anglicanism – or any other religion, for that matter. This Oratory School to safety on 600 bucolic acres in Berkshire. (When the is especially true in the parishes, which have been dominated by an Irish next Monarch is crowned, it will be the Duke who will be in charge of the hierarchy with strong modernist tendencies since Vatican II, says Bogle. coronation, a responsibility traditionally entrusted to him, regardless of his religion.) The English have been more strongly represented in the various Catholic orders since the Reformation. Brave Jesuits were hunted, drawn and Catholicism attracted famous converts in the 19th and early 20th centuries, quartered by a Crown wielded by a Monarch whom Protestant historians mainly intellectuals who found themselves kneeling alongside the Irish taught us all to regard as ‘Good Queen Bess.’ (One young priest’s ‘quarters’ servant class in the pews of the Church. Today, converts still find their were hung from the church steeples of the four towns he frequented, fascinating way to Holy Mother Church, often through the Latin Masses including his birthplace, Preston – a warning against others who might that were permitted by special indult from Pope Paul VI in 1971. This was decide to ‘Pope.’) in response to a letter penned by Evelyn Waugh and signed by a host of

4 | Page Elsewhere, Passionists dreamed of bringing Our Lady’s Dowry back into the Melkite Rites – all in communion with Rome – are also present in England today. fold, and were spat upon in English cities when Catholicism became legal again in 1823. Benedictines labored to rebuild their abbey schools – once As always, history is never far away from English Christians, however. A thousand the glory of England – and now teach the children of wealthy Catholics years ago, another pope released St. Edward the Confessor from a vow — if the at co-ed ‘posh’ schools such as Ampleforth and Downside Abbeys. The king built a monastery dedicated to the first bishop of Rome. Thus, St. Peter’s Oratorians at London, Oxford and Birmingham – and very recently, York – Abbey was rebuilt in Westminster. fill their urban churches with several Masses a day where the faithful come for frequent Confession, reverent liturgies, Latin Chant and demanding Legend has it that as the abbey neared completion, St. Peter appeared to some homilies. Thames fishermen, asking to be ferried to the site. As they neared the structure, the entire building was suddenly filled with light. The Saint told them that he had There are two major Catholic publications in England – The Tablet, a consecrated the church and that they would be rewarded with a great catch of venerable-but-fusty old maid much concerned with ‘social relevance’ and salmon. Then he instructed them never to work on Sunday, and disappeared. the Catholic Herald, a livelier mix of news and opinion whose webmasters are kept busy policing a red-hot readers’ commentary column. Overall, Pope Benedict XVI gently stressed our common history during his visit to however, Catholics rejoice that Archbishop Antonio Mennini’s appointment Westminster Abbey, “I thank the Lord for this opportunity to join you … in this as nuncio to Great Britain has been having an effect on a most critical area magnificent abbey church dedicated to St. Peter, whose architecture and history – the appointment of orthodox bishops. Ancient pilgrimage sites are also speak so eloquently of our common heritage of faith. Here we cannot help but being revived, drawing Catholics and other Christians to walk in the steps of be reminded of how greatly the Christian faith shaped the unity and culture of their forefathers, before such popular expressions of faith were banned by Europe and the heart and spirit of the English people. Here, too, we are forcibly the Crown -- and later suppressed by modernizing elements in the Church. reminded that what we share, in Christ, is greater than what continues to divide us. …I thank the Lord for allowing me, as the successor of St. Peter in the See of Whatever they are, the English are never boring. A case in point was the Rome, to make this pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Edward the Confessor.” much-ballyhooed visit of Benedict XVI in 2010, where the British press feverishly prophesied massive anti-Pope rallies – apparently unconscious R. of the historic irony they were courting. The freedom-loving British, they confidently predicted, would not tolerate Ratzinger the Rottweiler, the Pope who dared to uphold the Church’s hated teachings.

In the event, the massive anti-Pope crowds never materialized. A few London crazies with multi-colored hair and complicated sex lives waved banners for the cameras. But the TV crews soon packed up and headed off to the real story – the crowds that lined the streets ten-deep to wave excitedly, greeting the papal motorcade joyfully in London, and in every city and small village it passed.

Somewhat more controversially, the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham was set up by Pope Benedict XVI to allow Anglicans to enter into full communion of the Catholic Church while retaining much of their spiritual, liturgical and pastoral tradition. English leaders of the Anglican Ordinariate include the Duke of Norfolk, the Countess of Oxford and Asquith, the Duchess of Somerset, Lord Nicholas Windsor, Sir Josslyn Gore- Booth and the Squire de Lisle, whose ancestor Ambrose de Lisle was a 19th-century Catholic convert who advocated the corporate reunion of the Anglican Church with Rome.

The Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, Monsignor Keith Newton, recently told thousands of Mass-goers in the Catholic Westminster Cathedral that many Catholics are unaware of - or misunderstand - the Ordinariate. He said it could be quite distressing for Anglicans who had made a difficult journey in order to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church to be asked, for example, why they did not become “proper Catholics”.

“Our priests are just like any other Catholic priests; you can attend Mass with an Ordinariate congregation with an Ordinariate liturgy and fulfill your obligation, just as you would by going to Mass in any Catholic church anywhere in the world”, he said, speaking of the great joy of Ordinariate members and of how its clergy were serving in the wider church as chaplains in prisons, hospitals and schools or as diocesan parish clergy. He quoted Pope Benedict’s description of the Ordinariate as a “prophetic gesture” to promote Christian unity.

Finally, the Apostolic Exarchate for Ukrainians serves the 15,000 Ukrainian Greek Catholics in Great Britain and the Lebanese Maronite Catholic Church, as well as the Eritrean, Chaldean, Syriac, Syro-Malabar, Syro-Malankara, and

5 | Page FAMILY TRIBUTE: Hundreds of years later, England’s Catholics recover an altar from the ruins of a robber baron’s mansion. RECUSANT NOBILITY: The Duke of Norfolk, who during World War II, saved Newman’s Oratory School from Nazi bombings. PILGRIMAGES RETURN TO ENGLAND: Catholics re-discover their ancient faith. GROWING MOVEMENT: Typical congregation at a Latin Mass in England. ANCIENT CATHOLICS: The tomb of the Black Prince in Canterbury cathedral. GAUNT REMAINS: The arch of a monastery destroyed by King Henry VIII, one of hundreds of such Catholic ruins. CATHOLIC FUTURE: The Oratory boys (in yellow and black) rugby team wins against bigger, richer secular schools. MAN FOR ALL SEASONS: St. Thomas More’s earthly remains. BELMONT ABBEY: The Benedictines have long labored in England for the Faith. HAUNTED RUINS: Bolton Abbey suffered badly under King Henry VIII, one of hundreds destroyed and looted, their wealth stolen to build great private fortunes. Owned today by the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. CANDLES IN THE DARK: the ‘Slipper Chapel’ in remote Walsingam was where pilgrims left their shoes so they could walk the last mile barefoot. A young Henry VIII was among them; later, the prior of Walsingam hoped to be spared the King’s wrath because of this. He was hung, drawn and quartered, and 6 | Page Walsingham mercilessly stripped. Shades of Evelyn Waugh Update on the Latin Mass in England and Wales

‘SINCE the Second Vatican Council in 1962, the Roman Catholic church has striven to adapt to the modern world. But in the West—where many hoped a contemporary message would go down best—believers have left in droves. Sunday mass attendance in England and Wales has fallen by half from the 1.8m recorded in 1960; the average age of parishioners has risen from 37 in 1980 to 52 now. In America attendance has declined by over a third since 1960. Less than 5% of French Catholics attend regularly, and only 15% in Italy. Yet as the mainstream wanes, traditionalists wax.’

Joseph Shaw is the 42 year old Chairman of the Latin Mass Society a pamphlet arguing that it was invalid. He saw a strong parallel with the liturgical of England and Wales. An Oxford don, he teaches Philosophy changes made by Cranmer in the course of the English Reformation. at St Benet’s Hall, the Benedictine house of studies in Oxford University. In this exclusive Regina Magazine interview, Dr. Shaw Arnold Lunn was a great apologist, as well the inventor of slalom ski racing; as discusses the Society, its history and the amazing success the an agnostic he had a debate with Monsignor Ronald Knox which was turned into Extraordinary Form has met with in recent years. a book, ‘Difficulties’, and although many thought he’d done rather well inthe debate, two years later he became a Catholic. Even as an agnostic he had been a Q. Tell us about the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales. When was it fierce opponent of scientific materialism, and was very interested in the roots of founded, and by whom? the decline in religious belief. He researched the way religion was being taught in the great Anglican public schools and published a book, ‘Public School Religion’, Three people are principally responsible for the founding of the Society, in 1965: about it. Evelyn Waugh, the foremost Catholic writer of his day (“Brideshead Revisited”), Sir Arnold Lunn, controversialist and skiing pioneer, and Hugh Ross Williamson, media Basically it wasn’t being taught at all because the chaplains in those places no personality and historian. longer had any confidence in their religion – this was in the 1930s. The great contrast, he discovered, was with the Catholic schools, where it was still being taken Evelyn Waugh’s concerns about Vatican II and the liturgical reform are recorded in very seriously. He could see where things were going; like many in the early 20th his diaries and letters, and in a famous Spectator article at the onset of the Council. Century the Catholic Church looked like the last bastion of reason and civilisation, Much of this material, and responses to his letters from Cardinal Heenan, has been let alone religion. And then the Catholic Church started to incorporate many of the turned into a book, ‘A Most Bitter Trial’ (ed Scott Reid). Waugh didn’t live to see the same ideas and reforms which had hollowed out the Anglicans. 1970 Missal, but he was deeply concerned about the 1955 Holy Week Reform, the Dialogue Mass, and Mass in English. He wrote in the Spectator article: The attitude of these three was not unusual: one of the great early successes of the LMS was organising a petition to ask Pope Paul VI that the Traditional Mass ‘Participation’ in the Mass does not mean hearing our own voices. It means God be preserved. This led to the ‘English Indult’ of 1971. The petitioners were all hearing our voices. Only He knows who is ‘participating’ at Mass. I believe, to intellectual and cultural figures, mostly non-Catholic; the included Yehudi Menuhin, compare small things with great, that I ‘participate’ in a work of art when I study it Agatha Christi, Grwham Greene and Sir Colin Davis. You can see more about that and love it silently. No need to shout. …If the Germans want to be noisy, let them. here and here But why should they disturb our devotions?’

That is a key idea: the responses, the English, the jumping up and down, shaking hands and so on ‘disturbs our devotions’: the serious business of engaging prayerfully in the Mass.

Hugh Ross-Williamson was an Anglican clergyman who converted. He had been brought up in a non-conformist (Presbyterian) family, had become a High Anglican, and was finally received into the Catholic Church when the Anglicans recognized the orders of a group of Methodist clergy in India in 1955. He wrote a book about the Roman Canon, ‘The Great Prayer’, as well as plays, history, and journalism; he was on the ‘Brains Trust’ TV programme until his conversion. (His complaint ‘This is 1955, not 1555!’ fell on deaf ears: a Catholic was not acceptable on the programme.) PHOTOS TOP: Annual Requiem 2012, Celebrated by Bishop John Arnold, in Westminster Cathedral. ABOVE: Pilgrimage to Walsingham 2012 Williamson was very disturbed by the theology of the New Mass and later wrote

7 | Page Q. Given that England was the first nation to obtain an indult for the Latin Mass, what progress do you see being made, say, since the Motu Proprio of 2007?

We have records for the number of publicly advertised Masses taking place, as we publish lists every quarter, and have done so for decades. A few months ago we put these figures together for The Economist

• In 2007, there were regular Masses in the Extraordinary Form being celebrated in 26 locations. • In 2012, the figure is 157.

A typical Holyday of Obligation: All Saints, 1 November: Second, you get individual priests who fall in love with the Mass in the Extraordinary • In 2007 there were 10 Form. This has now become quite common. There are quite a few priests who do a Masses in the Extraordinary weekday or Saturday Mass and the occasional ‘big’ thing they manage to arrange; Form celebrated on All Saints others have taken it a step further and introduced it into their parishes on a Sunday. Day. • In 2012, the figure is 60 and For example Fr Bede Rowe, assigned to a remote parish in Clifton Diocese, started counting. a Sunday evening EF Mass and a congregation for this gradually established itself. Fr John Saward in Oxford (the translator, in fact, of Pope Benedict’s ‘Spirit of the Q. Extraordinary! Are there many more priests learning the Mass? Liturgy’) says the EF in his parish of SS Gregory and Augustine twice a week on weekdays and once a month has a sung TLM on a Sunday: it is really entirely his Since 2007, we have run eight residential training conferences for priests and 200 own initiative, though of course he is also mindful of pastoral needs. Another local places have been taken up at these. Many have attended more than one conference, example is Fr John Osman, in St Birinus, Dorchester on Thames. Fr Osman waxes so that represents around 120 individual priests. Of these, we understand that quite lyrical about how he fell in love with it, and how important it has been for his about 100 have gone on to celebrate the old rite at least occasionally, but usually spiritual life. at least monthly, in public. A good example of how this happens is Fr Timothy Finigan of Blackfen in London, In addition, the LMS is aware of some 50 or so priests who celebrate the Traditional who was asked some years ago to say a TLM for a funeral. He said: ‘yes why not?’ Latin Mass in public at least occasionally. These are priests who taught themselves and had to learn it from scratch. It made such an impression on him that he privately, or who are older priests who were taught at seminary when they were gradually learned more and introduced it to his parish on a Sunday. younger. There is an unknown number of priests (mainly retired now) who celebrate the Extraordinary Form privately. Recently, we did an exercise identifying priests Another important factor is priests influencing each other. We find little ‘hot spots’ who say the TLM and I think the total is certainly in the region of 200. Before the of priests learning the Mass because they all know a particular priest who loves it, Motu Proprio we reckon there were about 50 priests. and spreads the word.

Q. This is great news. Does this mean that the Mass is now available regularly on Q. You have publicly discussed the Inclusivity of the TLM; what did you mean? Sundays all over England and Wales? I’ve certainly noticed that in a big parish with different Masses the congregations The availability of EF Sunday Masses in stable venues (ie a Mass every week) is still tend to separate into different groups limited, at 33 in England and Wales, plus a handful of ‘rotating venue’ situations according to liturgical preference; this (one in Kent, one in Arundel and Brighton diocese, for example.) also happens between parishes. This separation can very easily gain a class Even this represents a big increase on the number before the Motu Proprio. character – in England, where class is never very far away! Q. So, in your experience, how does the Mass gain a foothold? What typically happens? The universal appeal of the TLM is very evident from talking to members of First, you have groups of the congregation. You really do have all the Faithful asking for the sorts of people. Some engage with the Extraordinary Form. This was liturgy primarily in an intellectual way. the usual case until the Motu Others engage primarily in an aesthetic Proprio, but it was very hard or emotional way. The intellectual and work. A group like this kept the the other aspects of the TLM are not in TLM going at the Brompton competition with each other -- you can Oratory, for example, where it take out of it whatever you need. was said in the Little Oratory for years – not the main church There is an excellent book about this by – and wasn’t advertised. A a Dominican (now ex-Dominican) sociologist Anthony Archer, ‘The Two Catholic group of laity in the Reading Churches.’ area managed in the end to get the FSSP to come to serve Archer says the working classes engaged with the liturgy in a particular way, in them. A group in Oxford had a relation to what they saw as ‘ritual efficacy’: what was going on at the Altar was succession of priests who were real, objective, it made a difference, it made something happen. They focused on retired to say Mass for them that and were absorbed by it. in private houses; eventually this was taken over by the The things which are supposed to help participation in the New Mass are more Oratory here. The community appealing to the middle class: they require social confidence, being articulate. There in Chesham persuaded a is a class distinction also about what sort of community people are comfortable local priest to say the EF and, with -- little cliquey groups (middle class) and larger numbers (working class). All following his recent death, the stuff about sharing your experiences at a charismatic prayer meeting or cosy has been proactive in getting little house Masses is middle class and off-putting to everyone else. priests in week by week to keep it going. That is Archer’s thesis, and it fits with my own observations.

8 | Page Q. In many countries, there seems to be no crisis of priestly vocations in circles have lapsed were it not for the TLM. A good female friend converted from Judaism where the Extraordinary Form of the Mass is supported. Have you noticed this to in the context of the EF. be the case in England and Wales? The aesthetics and emotionality of many Novus Ordo celebrations can be exquisitely This is certainly true. We have now 10 young men from England and Wales in painful, particularly to young men. When they find the TLM, they can fall in love traditional seminaries, mostly the FSSP; two more are joining them in September. with it instantly – that happened to me, in a Low Mass. That’s not aestheticism, That is totally disproportionate to the size of the EF-going community in England even if we agree we are using the term in a non-pejorative sense: it is glimpsing and Wales, compared to vocations coming out of the Novus Ordo congregations. Christ made present in the liturgy.

What is more, a great many seminarians in ordinary seminaries have had contact ‘Beauty’ is perhaps a misleading term here. No doubt some people will go to a with the EF and like it, and it has played a part in their spiritual development and Mozart Mass because of the Mozart, but such Masses are actually quite rare. The vocation. They will be wanting to learn it as soon as they can. music and the vestments vary from the ‘decent’ to the ‘not very good’ in a lot of places, and there are a lot of Low Masses going on. In fact, the only new priest for East Anglia this year said a TLM a day or two after his ordination; he was at the Priest Training Conference the LMS had this year in They can be very attractive, nevertheless, because of the contemplative quality, the Leicester. This is increasingly common. peace, the reverence, the invitation to pray and be quiet with God. A better term than ‘beauty’ here would be ‘spirituality’: they are attracted by the spirituality of Q. Many Catholics today no longer see the need for Confession, or Reconciliation, the TLM. though this does not seem to be the case for those who attend the TLM. Why do R. you think this is?

Yes certainly EF-goers seem to go to confession more than the average Catholic (who, I suppose, goes pretty infrequently). This is an indication of a wider truth, that the TLM brings with it traditional spirituality, theology, preaching, and so on. The priests encourage it and make it available, the people read the good old books which encourage it, and the Mass itself fosters a sense of sin and a sense of the reality of grace and of sacramental efficacy.

The communities which grow up around the TLM quickly become characterized by traditional attitudes and devotions, a strong pro-life stance, large families, modest clothing, mantillas, all that stuff. This alarms some people, but these are counter- cultural communities giving each other mutual support.

Q. Anecdotally, I have heard many people say that they were converted to Catholicism through the beauty of their experience of the Extraordinary Form. Do you find this to be true?

I can’t say I know many atheists, but a good non-Catholic friend of mine certainly finds the EF more attractive than the OF (he also for a time went to the Orthodox). I know a number of young men who lapsed and came back for the TLM, or could

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Two ‘lost generations’. most of the groundwork, campaigning and organiz- ing to achieve that in England has been done by the From the mid-1960s, every official indicator Latin Mass Society and its small army of volunteers. of the Catholic Church in England and Wales went into free-fall. Ordinations, conversions, baptisms, They care about their immortal souls, and those Catholic marriages—all went through the floor. of their children and grandchildren, and their fellow Lapsation rates of children at Catholic high countrymen. They are working now to ensure an or- schools have reached 98 percent. Regular Mass at- thodox Catholic future for their families, starting tendance has reduced to a rump—a mere 15 per- with the Mass. cent. But this comes at a price. Our resources are lim- But in 1965, something else happened. Buck- ited, often stretched to breaking point, and we need

ing the cultural trend, the Latin Mass Society was some assistance, right now, from you, our friends. founded to defend the Traditional liturgy and the In England we also have a legacy of protestant Faith that it embodies. A beacon of hope. Now, anti-Catholicism to contend with and, even more nearly 50 years later, the Latin Mass Society is worrying, a new and aggressive secularism that leading a small but growing revival within the mocks religion, and the Catholic Church in particu- Church, in England and Wales, and within English lar. It has the ear of those in government. We have a society, and it needs your help. battle on our hands. Will you help us? Against the current, the Traditional Latin Please, if you can, make a donation towards our Mass is growing in popularity, and availability, and work at www.lms.org.uk. Thank you. The Latin Mass Society 10 | Page www.lms.org.uk A Modest Proposal The English Bride

England the land of princess brides, is the trend-set- ter. The 2011 wedding of Kate Middleton to Prince William held the entire world in thrall, harkening back to the late Diana, ‘England’s Rose.’

Fashion commentators breathlessly reported on Kate’s gown, which was so, well, modest. Experts wondered -- was Kate setting a trend away from the naked shoulders and deep décolleté of the last decade?

Debra Turvey, the English proprietor of Sunflower Bridal, specializes in modest wedding clothing for British brides. In this exclusive Regina interview, she reveals all -- about not revealing all.

11 | Page “Brides like to feel comfortable, demure and elegant. Many don’t even realize that they have a choice.”

‘A bride should wear what she

is comfortable Q. Do you think Kate Middleton’s dress has had an impact on modest wedding clothing?

with and what A. I think Kate Middleton has had some impact; her dress was so beautiful and elegant. I think however that brides are makes her feel just wanting to be different and follow their desires, rather than fashion. good.’ Certainly Kate Middleton showed that a bride should wear what she is comfortable with and what makes her feel good. She shouldn’t feel compelled 12 | Page to simply follow fashion. Q. What inspired Sunflower Bridals?

A. In October, 2009 one of my daughters got engaged. She didn’t want a dress that needed a jacket or camisole, but did want to be covered for religious reasons.

We visited many bridal boutiques but it was impossible to find one in the UK, so Emily looked on the internet. She found a dress she fell in love with, found a source for the dress in Utah and we called them and ordered it. Her father was able to pick the dress up on a business trip there.

However, as a mother I missed the experience of trying dresses on with Emily and finding that one special dress. So Sunflower Bridal was born. I began trading in September 2010.

© 2013 Emily Beale Photography www.emilybealephotography.com

“Brides are relieved that they have found dresses they can try on in the UK. They are happy and excited and travel great distances to come.” 13 | Page Q. How and why do brides seek out Sunflower Bridals?

A. It’s exciting to see how my business is growing. My brides either come from word of mouth, or by internet search, looking for ‘wedding dresses with sleeves’ or ‘modest wedding dresses’. (They find us at http://www. sunflowerbridal.co.uk) My brides come to Sunflower Bridal for all sorts of reasons: religious, coverage, size (at both ends of the spectrum), or because they want something different because of their age or second marriages.

One of the first reactions I get from bridal enquiries is simply an expression of relief that they have found dresses they can try on in the UK. They are happy and excited and travel great distances to come and try them on.

I’ve had brides from all over the United Kingdom, and even some from mainland Europe. Because brides are often travelling a long way to get here, I try to keep a good selection of styles and sizes and often the bride can take her dress away with her. I also encourage brides to try lots of different styles so they can see for themselves which suits them best.

England has always been a taste-maker, particularly in weddings and coronations. (Above: The 1953 coronation gown of Queen Elizabeth II, designer’s rendering.)

Q. England has always been a tastemaker, particularly in weddings and coronations. Do you see growing interest in modest wedding clothing among English brides?

A. I have been surprised how many brides I have seen who simply want to be a little more covered, purely to suit their own taste, and not necessarily for religious reasons. ‘Dare to bare’ might work for some on a beach but not for such a special occasion as a wedding. Brides like to feel comfortable, demure and elegant and I see that there is definitely a growing interest in wedding dresses with a little more coverage.

Many brides don’t even realize that they have a choice. R. 14 | Page “Bless us, oh Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive, from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord, Amen.”

Sunday Roast Roast Goose with Apples (serves 8) 1 13-lb. goose, giblets and neck discarded (you’ll need 1 lb per person) 3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced Bucking the System 8 golden delicious apples, peeled, each cut into 6 wedges ow deeply ingrained the Old Faith is in the English culture can be found in both its calendar and 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice table culture. For example, English schools traditionally begin with the Michaelmas (pronounced 6 TBSP sugar MICKel-mus) term, on or near the September 29 feast of St. Michael the Archangel. 1/4 cup Calvados (apple brandy) H 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon St. Michael is usually depicted in art carrying a sword and/or shield, battling Lucifer. Christian tradition holds that Michael (whose name in Hebrew translates, “Who is like God?”) was the leader of the Position rack in bottom third of oven and preheat to angelic army that threw Satan out of Heaven after a considerable row. He is the patron of knights, 350°F. Rinse goose inside and out; pat dry with paper policemen, soldiers, paramedics, ambulance drivers -- and also danger at sea, for the sick, and of a towels. Sprinkle inside and out with salt and pepper. holy death. Using knife, cut small slits all over goose; place garlic slices into slits. Place goose on rack, breast side down, in large roasting pan. Roast goose 2 hours 45 minutes, The Michaelmas Daisies, among dede weeds, basting occasionally with drippings and removing Bloom for St Michael’s valorous deeds. excess fat; reserve 6 tablespoons fat. Turn goose And seems the last of flowers that stood, over. Roast until brown and thermometer inserted Till the feast of St. Simon and St. Jude. (October 28) into thickest part of thigh registers 175°F, basting occasionally with drippings, about 45 minutes longer. “She Loves Me:” At this time of year, the Aster (Aster nova-belgii) blooms, known as the Michaelmas Meanwhile, toss apples and lemon juice in large bowl. Daisy – famous as a portent for lovers. English-speakers the world over are familiar with seasonal Pour 6 tablespoons goose fat into 15 x 10 x 2-inch custom of pulling these daisy petals, reciting “S/he loves me,” and “S/he loves me not,” until all the glass baking dish. Using slotted spoon, transfer apples petals are gone. (The words one intones while pulling off the last petal lets one know if one’s love is to baking dish; toss apples in goose fat. Add sugar, requited.) Calvados and cinnamon to apples; toss. Bake apples alongside goose until very tender and golden, about Michaelmas was when geese were brought to market to be sold from farms into towns, so roast 1 hour. Serve goose with caramelized apples and a goose dinners are traditional. It was also the time when the fishing season ended, the hunting season Bordeaux wine. began, and apples were harvested. R.

If one day you are invited to ‘Sunday Lunch’ in England, say a grateful prayer and accept with pleasure. Whether in a gastro- pub or an Englishman’s castle, these people know what they are doing. You are in for a treat-- classically delicious seasonal roasted meat, complemented by local vegetables. And though your hosts may not know it, they are continuing a centuries-old Catholic tradition. For, from the time when the earliest Christians came to England in 159 AD,* we have come together over a table blessing after Sunday Mass.

CHRIST IN THE KITCHEN: English Catholics in the Middle Ages would cross-section an apple to show their children how the 5 seeds inside the 5-pointed star found inside represented the Five Wounds of Christ. * According to the Venerable Bede, during the reign of Roman emperor Marcus Antoninus, a British king named Lucius wrote Pope Eleutherus in Rome requesting instruction in the Christian faith. 15 | Page What’s in a ‘Christian’ Name? Clues to Britain’s Catholic Past

t was long ago in the U.S. that we abandoned Despite reformation and secularism, it is a sign this terminology, ostensibly for fear of offending of the ongoing English respect for Christian Inon-Christians. (As a result, many Americans tradition that the country’s most popular baby now invent their children’s first names out of names in 2012 still derive from these Catholic whole cloth, with lamentable results. Or name sources. It may be a sign that most of us don’t them after celebrities. Actually, sometimes it’s know history that ‘Oliver’ -- the third most hard to decide which is worse.) popular name for boys -- is the name of the last Catholic martyr in England (see chart). Digressions aside, what exactly, is a Christian name? My Anglican friends think this a very “The English school application strange question, until I point out that Christian form stopped me dead in my names are actually saints’ names, or biblical names. tracks. What was my son’s ‘Christian’ name?” Names are manifestations of a culture. For centuries, Catholics, orthodox Christians and Interestingly, the other five of the six top baby many Protestants have given their children the names in England are foreign – French, Spanish, names of saints. Belgian, German and Jewish – saints. Perhaps this is another cultural clue, harkening back to a This was done as a religious talisman and also time when England was part of an international as a life-long reminder of the careers of these Catholic civilization? successful Christians. In some countries people http://www.babycentre.co.uk celebrated the feast days of their name saints in So, here’s the full Catholic treatment for the

lieu of their ‘birth’ days. top six baby names in England in 2012: source:

Harry Boys #1 From St. Henry, Holy Roman Emperor from 1014- 1024, the only German monarch ever to be canonized.

Jack Boys #2 From St. John. There are more than 70 saints by this name, derived from John the Baptist (Jesus’s cousin, depicted left, by El Greco) or John the Evangelist, one of the four Gospel writers.) Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor Henry II, Holy Roman

16 | Page O l i v e r Amelia Boys #3 Girls #1 St. Oliver Plunkett, From Saint Amalberga archbishop of Ireland. of Maubeuge, a On 1 July 1681 (aged 51), Belgian who was the Plunkett became the last mother of five saints; Roman Catholic martyr to she died in 773. There die in England when he have been several was hanged, drawn and other saints with this quartered at Tyburn name since. Lily Emily Girls #2 Girls #3 From Saint Liliosa, a lay woman St. Emily de Vialar, in Moorish- controlled 9th Foundress of the Sisters century Cordoba, Spain. Lily was of St. Joseph “of the cruelly martyred for appearing Apparition” in France. She in public with her face exposed is the patron saint of single during the persecutions of Caliph women and neglected Abderraham II. children. She died in 1856. When God Hated Susan What had she done to deserve this?

hey are that rare bird, English broke down and sobbed. He was a ‘sex Catholics. Susan’s mother had insisted addict,’ he said. Ton the church wedding to her first husband. Her mum wanted to ‘make things Susan knew there was trouble. respectable.’ As far as Susan was concerned First there was the porn she no amount of respectability could make her found on his computer, then the stay with her partying, abusive ex-husband. pay-for-sex telephone numbers He was in the Queen’s Arms in Coles End, on the bill. utterly stoned, while she was in court for the divorce. Things didn’t get any better when she was diagnosed with breast cancer at age Jim was nothing like her ex, though. He was a 40. Shortly after her course of radiation tall, dark and handsome civil engineer, well- was complete, Jim was arrested for paid by the local council. And at 29, Susan the first time. A ‘sting’ operation had was still a charmer -- small, lithe and filled swept him up, along with dozens of with fun. Her eyes danced with mischief, and the rollicking good humor other hapless men, in a porn-and-prostitution ring. As it was Jim’s first of her Irish ancestors. After a quick wedding with a hired preacher in offense, he was let go with a stern warning. But the illness and the a hotel (“We don’t need to be paying the Church any money for one arrest had taken its toll on Susan; she slept in a separate room, and of their divorces,” Jim had said) they settled in an ‘upper middle-class’ prayed that the nightmare would go away. suburb of Birmingham. She couldn’t get pregnant right away after all those years on the Pill, so she’d endured a year of intensive hormone It was not to be. Over the next ten years, the internet sex business ‘therapy.’ Two births quickly followed, a boy and a girl. She promptly exploded. The third time Jim was arrested, the police came to the commenced to take the Pill again afterwards, reasoning that there was house. He was led away before the incredulous eyes of his 19 year old no sense in endangering their financial well-being. Plus, Jim showed son and 17 year old daughter. This time, the judge was not so lenient. signs of impatience with the strain of caring for two little babies. Jim had progressed further in the sex business, going from consumer to procurer, hustling girls younger than his own daughter for paying She spent the next few years blissfully caring for their family. But by clients. He was convicted on seven felony counts of human trafficking, the time the children were in their early teens, Susan knew there and sentenced to a minimum of twenty years in prison. was trouble. First there was the porn she found on his computer, then the pay-for-sex telephone numbers on the bill. Confronted, Jim The judge gave Susan control over their finances, which helped them

17 | Page survive. Without marketable skills, she was reduced to stocking shelves It was from that day forward that Susan dated their recovery. Small in the local Boots pharmacy, at £4.92 (US$7.48) an hour. Their house steps back to sanity, beginning with her own trip to the confessional was put up for sale. after more than 20 years away from the Sacrament. The priest was compassionate, listening carefully to her halting attempts to explain Her son’s fury and shame erupted on the football field one day, and her life, between floods of tears that often left her unable to speak he was beaten quite badly in a melee sparked by his attack on an between wracking sobs. He taught her The Prayer. I renounce my will. opposition team player. As he lay unconscious, Susan found herself I turn it all over to you, Mary my true mother, to lay at the feet of Your sobbing uncontrollably in the ladies’ room at the local hospital, when Son. Not my will, but His be done. “For your penance, I want you to the nun walked in. say this prayer at least three times a day, and I want you to visualize taking these great burdens off your shoulders, and laying them at the Her son’s fury and shame erupted on the football field one feet of Our Lord,” he told her. In the darkness of the confessional, day, and he was beaten quite badly in a melee sparked by tears streamed down Susan’s face as she watched his hand raise in the his attack on an opposition team player. words of absolution. Afterwards, she knelt in the pew for a very long time, repeating the Prayer over and over again.

She felt cleansed, and at peace for the first time in years, strong enough to persevere through the annulment process from her first husband. She then obtained a simple ‘disparity of cult’ document for her marriage to Jim. A year later, Susan had a heart-to-heart talk with her children.

“The Church took very seriously what I – in my ignorant youth – refused to,” she told them. “This is because the Church understands marriage as a sacrament – not simply as an agreement between a man and a woman that can be dissolved at will. If I had understood that, I would have gotten my first marriage annulled after it was over – which would have helped me understand that both of us had gone into that marriage completely incapable of sustaining it. It would have also prevented me from marrying your father.”

The girl hung her head. “That means that I would have never been born,” she whispered sadly. Her brother looked away stonily. There’s something about a sister in a habit, as any nun will tell you. People tell you their troubles – especially fallen-away Catholics in deep “Yes,” Susan said quietly. Then she smiled and took both young people trouble. in her arms. “But God is always generous, and He gave me you – the lights of my life. You both were the greatest gift I have ever received.” Her excruciating story came out all in a rush. Through her tears, Susan wanted to know what she had done to deserve all this pain, she told But Susan wasn’t finished. “That a marriage should be open to life the nun. Why did God hate her? She had wanted a family. Was that turns sex into a completely different thing,” she went on doggedly, so bad? She had taken some shortcuts, okay. A marriage outside the despite her children’s evident discomfort. “The Church understands Church. All that contraception. But what did the Church expect? That the body with great reverence, as the ‘temple’ of your soul. Your body she be a baby-making machine? Jim would have never agreed to any is not a ‘thing’ to be used – manipulated in any way for pleasure, or of it, starting with the pre-Cana classes. “That’s probably true,” Sister to produce babies. Your body is to be cherished, and nurtured, and Mary Clare nodded, looking into Susan’s swollen red eyes. She handed rightly understood by your spouse, and you – because we are made in her a Kleenex. “And then what would have happened?” the image of God.”

“If I-I followed what the Church said, I would have n-never married ‘The Church understands the body with great reverence, as him.” Susan heard herself say it, as if in a dream. For a moment, she the ‘temple’ of your soul. Your body is not a ‘thing’ to be contemplated the truth of this. Her life would have been completely used – manipulated in any way for pleasure, or to produce different, had she followed the rules. babies.’

Susan was an honest woman. This simple fact was crystal clear: she In that year, Susan discovered Natural Family Planning. NFP required had married a man who scorned the Church, and everything the Faith both understanding how her body functioned, and a little bit of restraint, stood for. And he had then proceeded to build their lives on his lies, and she wondered why she had never heard of it before. Though she and his addiction. had to admit, Jim would have never accepted such restrictions on his sexual ‘rights’ – just as he had accepted no restrictions on the sexual “Addictions are ways in which we sin, and sin repeatedly,” the nun said slavery that led to his prison cell. sympathetically. “They always involve the people we love, dragging them down with us.” Susan’s house was sold, and their belongings moved to a small apartment with cheap rent. Susan has found a job as a receptionist, Susan nodded, looking down at the balled-up tissue she was clutching. and she and her children are slowly rebuilding their lives. Both children After the agony of this sex business, she herself felt besmirched. She are attending Mass along with their mother. knew her children felt it too – smeared filthy with Jim’s sins, and deeply angry. As for Sister Mary Clare, she is glad that her habit gave her the opportunity to step into Susan’s life that day in the hospital ladies’ After the agony of this sex business, she herself felt room. “We religious are a sign of God’s love in this world,” she says besmirched. She knew her children felt it too – smeared simply. “Our religious habits make that very clear.” filthy with Jim’s sins, and deeply angry. R.

18 | Page The Message of Julian Norwich ‘All Will Be Well, and All Manner of Things Will Be Well’

he was a medieval English anchoress of a convent tucked away in East Anglia, far from London’s Sbusy streets. But Mother Julian of Norwich has a message for today’s Catholics: “[God] did not say ‘You shall not be tempest-tossed...But he did say, ‘You shall not be overcome.’ God wants us to heed these words so that we shall always be strong in trust, both is sorrow and in joy.” As many of us are having our comfortable faith tested by today’s climate, I believe a revisit of Julian’s teaching may be in order.

Julian lived in the 1300s in Norwich and served as an Anchoress, which effectively meant that she never left her room attached to the church. There, she wrote the first book in English by a woman, an account of the “showings” she claimed to have received from Christ in 1373.

Although a cult (a group of followers who are devoted to her cause for sainthood) developed around her and she is called “Blessed Juliana,” she has never been canonized. As she lived two hundred years before the Reformation, Julian was most definitely a Roman Catholic, and many Anglicans also hold her in high regard.

According to Julian, her visions came about at the end of a severe illness which she actually asked God to send her. Seeing it as a way to physically participate in the sufferings of Christ and hoping to better understand God’s love, she begged God to bestow on her a year of special suffering when she was 30, the same age when He began His ministry.

Mother Julian received a series of fifteen visions of the suffering of Christ and immediately after wrote them down in a short text. Many years later, after contemplating them and praying over their possible meaning, she wrote a much longer text, The Revelations of Divine Love, the first book written in English bya woman.

The visions, centering on the Passion and death of Christ, and indeed her whole text can be best summed up in one word: love.

As Julian said, “Know it well, love was His meaning. Who reveals it to you? Love. What did He reveal to you? Love. Why does He reveal it to you? For love. Remain in this, and you will know more of the same.”

In sharing Christ’s suffering, Julian was able to more fully understand God’s love for the world. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Ironically, Julian’s ancient church, including the small cell where she spent her life, was all but destroyed : Bridget by a Nazi bomb in World War II. Today it stands, fully ABOUT THE AUTHER Green is a wife, mother, reconstructed, a monument to the durability of Mother homeschooler, and writer who Julian’s legend, and the tenacity of the Gospel message is obsessed with the lives of the in England.) saints and checking closets for Narnia. She lives with her husband Julian’s is a lesson that should be taught: to understand and their six children in her love we must understand suffering. If we understand hometown of Newark, NJ, where these things, then we will also understand her wisdom she chronicles their lives in her in saying “All will be well, and all manner of things will personal blog, Life at Le. Rheims, be well.” and contributes weekly to Truth R. and Charity. 19 | Page The Sisters of St.Cecilia’s Abbey Young Novices Enter Traditional English Benedictine Order

ounded in 1882 in Ryde on the Isle of Wight, St Cecilia’s Abbey belongs to the Benedictine Order, part of the family of houses connected to Fthe famous Abbey of Solesmes, France. The nuns live a traditional monastic life of prayer, work and study in accordance with the ancient Rule of St Benedict. At the heart of their life is the praise of God, expressed through the solemn celebration of the sacred liturgy.

The Sisters maintain ‘the truth of the hours,” singing the Church’s Liturgy of the Hours at the same times which have been kept by the monastic orders since ancient times. For example, the “little hours” (Terce, Sect and None), ‘sanctify the day and are a powerful help in “the return to God” that we make throughout the day,’ according to Sister Mary David.

Ceremony, a strong family spirit and pure contemplation are characteristic of the Solesmes Congregation, founded in 1832 by Dom Prosper Guéranger. For almost two hundred years, Solesmes and its daughter houses have worked to preserve what is called ‘plainchant’ in England and ‘Gregorian chant’ elsewhere.

Q. Why do you still have your Liturgy in Latin? A. “We always have the Mass readings in English. In the Divine Office we have the Patristic readings in English. But we made a deliberate choice to keep the rest in Latin for several reasons. First, the Gregorian Chant which we use for all of our liturgy was composed for Latin texts. The melodies weren’t written first and then the words fitted to them; the melodies were made for the existing texts (almost all quotations from Scripture). We couldn’t use the same melodies for English words, and they’re so subtle and beautiful that to adapt them would be to spoil them.” “Today, young people are drawn to a rich liturgical life which includes the These chants evolved from the music of singing of Mass and the Divine Office in Latin, the Church’s traditional language, the synagogues which the first Christians and Gregorian Chant, its traditional song,” says Sister Mary David. “In the last adopted, and developed over more than a thousand years. There’s often a theology in year and a half, we have been blessed with a Solemn Profession, two First the melody itself - for example, as it becomes Professions, and two new entrants. Except for the most recent entrant, who more elaborate at the important words or is now a novice, all were in their twenties when they entered. One was only phrases. Then, all the great monastic figures nineteen.” in the western Church wrote in Latin and it’s good to keep in touch with them. 20 | Page Often we’re singing chants which they would have known and prayed with just as we do. While Vatican II allowed the use of modern languages and modern music in the liturgy, it also insisted on the value of the Latin language and Gregorian Chant, and subsequent Popes have stressed that Benedictine monasteries have a particular duty and privilege to cherish and draw life from this wonderful spiritual heritage.

If girls don’t know Latin when they enter - and they usually don’t know any - they learn it in the novitiate. It is astonishing how quickly you pick it up with one-to-one teaching and singing it in the liturgy several times a day. The same is true of Gregorian Chant. Most of us are not “musical”, but our choir mistress says she has found that anyone can learn to sing the Chant. People nowadays often use discipline in posture and breathing as aids to prayer, or learn to discern the promptings of the Spirit through their memory or imagination or emotions. Learning Latin and music for the sake of praying through the Chant is just another discipline which centuries of experience have shown to be a way to deeper union with God.

For Dom Guéranger, the Benedictine is someone who ‘tends towards God’ and who invites others by his example to also tend towards God. The monk is a contemplative, and his contemplation, like that of the angels, expresses itself in a life of praise. In praising God, the monk is a sign to all in the Church of their primary duty to pray.

In a letter to the Abbot of Solesmes signed in a shaky hand just ten days before he died, Blessed Pope John Paul said “be strengthened in their commitment and in the service that they give to the world in an invisible way, keeping vigil before God in liturgical prayer. Thanks to them, the world is lifted up towards God . . . Reviving the figure of Dom Guéranger is an invitation for all the faithful to rediscover the roots of the liturgy and to give a new breath to their journey of prayer.”

For almost two hundred years, Solesmes and its daughter Benedictine houses have worked to preserve the haunting, ineffable strains of ‘plain’ or ‘Gregorian’ chant, the ancient music of the Church.

21 | Page Is your life very austere?

“Learning Latin and music for the sake of praying through the Chant is just another discipline which centuries of experience have shown to be a way to deeper union with God.”

Anyone can try to fast from chatter or from trivia or from shutting doors noisily. Some find it an austerity to respond promptly when the bell goes for prayer or if they are asked to lend a hand unexpectedly: it’s good to remember that these are opportunities for showing love, just as a mother responds promptly to her crying baby, even if she’s not filled with a warm maternal glow at that particular moment. Monastic poverty does not mean living in destitution but it does mean cutting out, as far as possible, all that is su- perfluous. So we eat sensibly and have sufficient clothing and heating but we try to avoid luxuries. Benedictine pov- erty includes taking care of material things, even if they’re old and worn, and avoiding waste. We do not each plan our own finances but we can exercise responsibility about not wasting water or electricity. We do a certain amount of fasting in Lent and Advent and at certain other times, and newcomers accustom themselves to this gradually. The Abbess has to take into account St. Benedict’s prin- ciple that the regime should be such that “the strong may still have something to long after and the weak may not draw back in alarm” (Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 64). R. ‘Happy is he who prays with the Church. Prayer said in union with the Church is the light of the understanding, the fire of divine love in the heart. Let not the soul that is possessed with a love of prayer be afraid that her thirst cannot be quenched by these rich streams of the liturgy, For more information on the Sisters of St. Cecilia’s Abby, which now flow calmly as a streamlet, now roll with the loud impetuosity of a please write to: torrent, and now swell with the mighty St Cecilia’s Abbey Ryde heavings of the sea. The liturgy is suit- Isle of Wight able for all souls, being milk for children England PO33 1LH and solid food for the strong, thus resem- Tel (01983) 562602 Fax (01983) 614003 bling the miraculous bread of the desert.’ email: [email protected] http://www.stceciliasabbey.org.uk

23 | Page or centuries before the 1960s Vatican II, women veiled themselves in church. In fact, in 1917 the Church clearly prescribed head-coverings for women with Fcanon 1262 -- which under pressure from modernists was abrogated in 1983. The English fondness for hats in church derives from their 1394 years of Catholicism before the Reformation. The biblical source for this proscription is the Apostle Paul’s injunction in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. The Church Lady

The American Catholic Jackie Kennedy instinctively grasped what the English Glorious always knew: there’s just something about Hats Make a lady in a hat. And in England, hats for church weddings have always a Comeback been de rigueur.

While in the last 50 years most Catholics have abandoned head-coverings, the Anglicans retained this churchly tradition, especially for weddings. Kate and William’s wedding has brought hats out in full force – first, all over Westminster Abbey, and now, the world! Who knows, perhaps hats will make a comeback in Catholic churches, too? R.

24 | Page The Saints of England’s Holy Island The Ancient Legend of Lindisfarne

indisfarne is a cold, wild and lonely island, isolated from the rest of England by twice-daily tides. But its misty Lshores have witnessed strange and marvellous things. The story of Lindisfarne reaches far back into the mists of time, to another island, Iona. It was here that the Irish began to save civilization when St. Columba, or Columcille, arrived from Ireland in the year 576 AD with twelve companions. From here, Columba and his monks took the Gospel to the Pictish Tribes of Scotland – and founded another monastic community on Lindisfarne. Lindisfarne was to become as influential and significant as Iona in the development of Christianity in Britain, especially England.

Our story begins in 634 AD when Oswald became King of Northumbria. A recent convert, he wished to evangelise his subjects, so he sent to Iona for missionary monks. The Abbot of Iona, Segenius, dispatched Corman, an austere monk, who, on finding the Anglo-Saxons of Northumbria to be both barbarous and obstinate, promptly returned to Scotland.

Fortunately, the Abbot’s next recruit, Aidan, turned out to be a better choice. It was Aidan who selected Lindisfarne as a secluded and peaceful place, ideal for the monastic life – yet close enough to the Northumbrian capital, present day Bamburgh.

From Lindisfarne, Aidan preached the Gospel throughout the Kingdom of Northumbria, sometimes with the assistance of King Oswald who acted as interpreter. Aidan’s mission flourished; people donated land and money to establish churches and monasteries throughout the kingdom. Parents sent their children to be educated by the Celtic monks and four brothers who arrived there, Cynebil, Caelin, Cedd and Chad were ordained priests.

As we learn from the chronicles of St Bede the Venerable, St. Aidan earned a reputation for his pious charity and devotion to those less fortunate, such as his assistance to orphans and paying to free slaves. He insisted on travelling on foot, rather than horseback. The monastic community he founded quickly grew, as did its reputation as a place of scholarship and learning. Aidan died on 31st August, 651 AD, and his body was interred beneath Lindisfarne abbey. St. Aidan has been proposed as a patron saint for the entire United Kingdom because of his Irish origins, his Scottish monasticism and his mission to the Anglo-Saxons of northern England. of wildlife and he is particularly associated with the Eider Duck, known locally On the night St. Aidan died, a young man named Cuthbert was tending his sheep as Cuddy’s Duck. in the Lammermuir Hills in southern Scotland, near Melrose Abbey. According to the Venerable Bede, he saw a vision of Aidan’s soul being taken up by a Heavenly In 687 AD, Cuthbert’s body was buried on Lindisfarne. More than 100 years later, Host. When Cuthbert learned that Aidan had died at the exact time of his vision, Vikings attacked the island, and in 875 AD Cuthbert’s loyal monks took up his he immediately entered the monastery. body and fled. In one of the most astounding stories of Christian monasticism, these monks wandered for generations, safeguarding the incorrupt body of Whilst tending his sheep, Cuthbert saw a vision of Aidan’s soul being taken up by Cuthbert, until eventually founding a church in Durham. When the Norman a Heavenly Host. When he learned that Aidan had died at the exact time of his French built Durham Cathedral almost 300 years later, they re-interred Cuthbert vision, Cuthbert immediately entered the monastery. behind the altar, where he rests today.

Ten years later, Cuthbert became Prior of Lindisfarne, where he often spent time The ancient Saint Aidan has been proposed as a patron saint for the entire alone on a rocky outcrop, today known as Cuthbert’s Island. Later he went into United Kingdom because of his Irish origins, his Scottish monasticism and his greater isolation, retreating to the Inner Farne Island and building himself a cell mission to the Anglo-Saxons of northern England. and oratory. Cuthbert’s solitude would be broken by visitors seeking counsel from this wise and pious man, but when he was alone legends have it that he St. Wilfrid, the son of a nobleman, left Lindisfarne for Rome -- the first known would mortify himself by standing in the sea up to his waist for the entire night, pilgrimage by an Anglo-saxon to the Eternal City. There, he learned the Roman and sea otters would dry his feet and warm his frozen legs. He had a great love method for calculating Easter. Wilfrid returned to Northumbria and became

25 | Page involved in the historic dispute between the Celtic and Roman calendars. The as is St. Cuthbert Gospel, a pocket gospel written in Latin in the 7th C. and placed dispute came to a head when King Oswiu of Northumbria, who followed the inside St. Cuthbert’s coffin. Celtic date for Easter, married Eanflaed, who followed the Roman date for Easter. The nine saints of Lindisfarne are St. Aidan, St. Finan, St. Colman, St. Tuda, St. Eata, St. Cuthbert, St. Eadberht, St. Eadfrith and St. Ethelwald.

To resolve the issue, the famous Synod was held at Whitby in 664 AD, chaired by the Abbess of Whitby, St. Hilda. St. Wilfrid supported the Roman method The lonely ruins of Lindisfarne still stand today, mute testimony to the light of the whilst the Celtic method was supported by Cedd and Colman of Lindisfarne Gospel carried by St. Aidan, which illuminated Anglo-Saxon England. along with King Oswiu and Hilda of Whitby. Wilfrid’s arguments in support of the Roman practice won the day and the Kingdom of Northumbria from then on adopted the Roman practice. Wilfrid also introduced the Rule of St. Benedict at After the Viking raids, Lindisfarne remained uninhabited for over 200 years, the many monastic houses he founded; some say he was the first to introduce when Benedictine Monks re-established the monastic life there. They renamed the Benedictine Rule into England and not St. Augustine of Canterbury. Lindisfarne ‘Holy Island,’ to commemorate the holy blood shed during the Viking raids. The Benedictine Monks were on Holy Island for about 450 years until the In one of the most astounding stories of Christian monasticism, these monks Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1533 under Henry VIII. The ruins of Lindesfarne wandered for generations, safeguarding the incorrupt body of Saint Cuthbert. still stand today, mute testimony to the light of the Gospel carried by St. Aidan, which illuminated Anglo-Saxon England. Besides producing nine saints and evangelizing large parts of England, Lindisfarne’s R. monks produced one of the greatest treasures of Anglo-Saxon England, The Lindisfarne Gospels. This priceless illuminated manuscript is one of the finest surviving examples of Celtic Art. The Gospels are now kept in the British Library

PRAYER OF St. CUTHBERT

Bless, O Lord, this island, This Holy Island. Make it a place of peace and love. Make it a place of joy and light. Make it a place of hospitality. Make it a place of grace and goodness And begin with me.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A graduate of Bristol University and for many years a Catholic educator, Michael Durnan made a pilgrimage to Lindisfarne in 2002. He walked the sixty 26 | Page mile route from Melrose in Scotland in the footsteps of St. Cuthbert. They were great favorites of the Victorians. The Romantic Age poets sighed over them; painters silhouetted them against blazing sunsets.

Ghosts of a Catholic Age The Haunted Ruins of England

Today, towns plant flower gardens in them, and keep the lawns 27carefully | Page tended for tourists. n reality, these romantic ruins were once scenes of a Iferocious government attack on a centuries-old way of life. Modern historians agree that King Henry VIII ordered the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536 to ruthlessly suppress any political opposition – and grab the Church’s property.

Henry had willing accomplices. While many of his great nobles avoided committing such sacrilege, the King found ample minor nobility eager for the generous percentage of loot promised them.

And so it began. The ‘King’s men’ descended on 600 monasteries, intent on looting the unarmed religious houses that had been the great centers of learning, agriculture and medicine for the English peasantry since time immemorial.

Monks and nuns were evicted, church treasure stolen and the very stones carted away to build the estates of Henry’s supporters. Any resistance was met with vicious cruelty, and many a grave old abbot was hung from the towers of their monastery, then drawn and quartered, disemboweled and forced to watch as their entrails were burnt before their eyes.

In the North, brave nobles and peasants joined forces in the name of the Faith in the ill-fated ‘Pilgrimage of Grace.’ When Henry’s soldiers were victorious, the king was merciless. The head of every religious house involved was executed, and Henry’s troops then took their terrible revenge on the hapless people in what has been called ‘the Harrying of the North.’

But this is not commonly known. In fact, for centuries English schoolchildren have been taught that the monasteries were ‘rich’ and that they kept the peasantry ignorant with their ‘superstitions.’ Only recently have revisionist historians such as Yale’s Eamon Duffy done the careful scholarship that proves this to be a myth, invented by the victors to conceal the true origins of the wealth of England’s upper classes 28 | Page Today, these gaunt bones of stone still vault into English skies, stark reminders of the Catholic roots of the English culture. And many a ‘stately home’ bears the name of the religious house it supplanted. Think

‘Downton Abbey.’ R.

29 | Page A Story of Catholic Valour When Jesuits Were Hunted in England

here is a sculpture in St. Peter’s Basilica Chairs and Fellows who refused to take the Oath and to counter the zealous and violent erasure which flanks Bernini’s Monument to of Submission, Douai in the Spanish Netherlands of everything Catholic from England. TPope Alexander VII, strategically and and Rheims in France caught England’s most metaphorically set over an exit door from the valuable cultural resource: the erudite Catholic. A.O. Meyer described these priests as “worthy Basilica. The Allegory of Truth by Lazzaro Morelli representatives of the spunk of the English and Giulio Carteri is a gigantic marble figure of One could certainly say that without the national character.”2 They had to adapt to a a woman with one toe on a thorn symbolizing ‘Oxfordizing’ of the universities in Douai and strange way of life; in public, the priest wore Protestantism, set atop England. Rheims, there might not have been higher a disguise; in hiding spaces he was priest. His education for England’s Catholic youth and the life was spent “laid low in the attic room which From the point of view of England’s Crown, the Jesuits might not have stepped in to administer contained a bed, a table and an altar, and was told Jesuits could very well be to walk along the beams a thorn in England’s side; so that the floor would they created obstacles not creak and to be careful to Protestant uniformity about opening windows by ministering to the and showing lights; he was spiritual needs of English not allowed to go about Catholics and fueled zeal the house, might only slip to defy acquiescence to out after dark, and must the Church of England. To not come back until the the Protestant, “‘Jesuit’… servants were at supper meant conspiracy…Their or in bed. In an otherwise founder was Spanish bustling household he and they were sworn to might spend weeks or another allegiance than months alone, seeing only the Queen’s…The Jesuits those who came to mass, were the vanguard of the maid who brought his Spanish invasion; their dinner, and with luck after business was to murder meals one of the children, the Queen and Council… or their mother looking in The news that disguised to apologize for not having Jesuits were now at large been able to pay him a visit in the English countryside sooner.”3 caused indignation and alarm.”1 This took place Life in a Priest’s against a background Hole: “he lay low where humanism in the attic room sanctioned a shift in focus which contained from a theocentric to an a bed, a table and anthropocentric view of an altar, and was the world, and intellectual told to walk along skepticism normalized a the beams so that historical-critical reading of the floor would the Bible. not creak and to be careful about At the same time, the opening windows Society of Jesuits was and showing establishing its ministry lights.” as educators and soldiers for Catholic orthodoxy. This Jesuit engagement Naturally, men who with the world marked the worked under such period when the myth of conditions were perceived the ‘evil Jesuit’ began. This as major threats. An article looks at the effects elite corps formed under of Jesuit involvement in the preservation of seminaries to accommodate the rise in priestly military standards who vowed obedience to Catholicism in England during the first century vocations among English Catholic men -- not the Pope, these former Oxford Catholics had a of the Anglican Church. to mention a spike in English scholarly priests vested interest in preventing the total eclipsing choosing to be Jesuits. Without Douay and of England’s Catholic heritage. Jesuits were an It is important to note that the English Catholics Rheims, there might not have been a regrouping entirely different breed of priests from the type from Oxford who went to Douai and Rheims of English Catholics. These English exiles English Catholics were used to: “men of new were the same men who returned as Jesuit prayed together and worked to implement light equipped in every continental art, armed missionaries in the English Mission. With the various daring strategies to abort the total against every frailty, bringing a new kind of exodus to the continent of Catholic Oxford protestantizing of England’s religious heritage intellect, new knowledge, new holiness.”4

30 | Page Even before the first Jesuit missionaries were sent to England, secular Edward Campion was hung, drawn and quartered, but the truth of the priests from Douai were already being deployed. They were ordered not English Mission did not die with him. Several other English Jesuit martyrs to engage in disputation but to simply focus on the pastoral care of English who became saints, including Alexander Briant, a pupil of Campion’s in Catholics. Their movements were limited to covert activity, under the Oxford; Henry Walpole, who while watching the execution of Campion radar to avoid apprehension and execution. Regulations for Jesuits were was sprinkled with his blood, prompting him to abandon his law practice, different in that they were expected to be “responsible for adjustments”5 leave England and convert at Rheims; and Henry Morse, another convert and to adapt to time, persons and places. This suggests that the Jesuits at Douai, to name only a few. were expected to execute pastoral agility. As first hand witnesses to the plight of English Catholics, it would have been so against the grain to expect Such valour does not die, or tarnish with the ages. I shouldn’t have been a Jesuit disciplined by Ignatian Spirituality and experienced in Oxfordian surprised but I was when a Google search on the keywords ‘English confrontational discourse to remain passive and quiet. Mission’ retrieved an entry from the America’s Central Intelligence Agency. “Clandestine methods of the Jesuits in Elizabethan England as illustrated in One Oxford refugee with influential friends in the Continent, Fr. Robert an operative’s own classic account” is based on the Latin text of Fr. Gerard Parsons SJ, felt that the English mission need not just be a march to the SJ where he described “the 18 years’ undercover duty in England.” The gallows by a ‘growing martyr cult.’6 Parsons believed it was his sacred CIA entry opined that while “Gerard’s book is not in any modern sense duty to be a missionary in a situation that had “taken on the importance a tradecraft manual, it is possible to derive from it a confident sense of and urgency of a holy war.”7 According to his memoirs and letters, how he and his Superior made expert use of the standard paraphernalia of Parsons planned to accomplish several missions akin to a spy thriller. covert action-- cover, aliases, safe houses, secret printing presses, invisible Besides establishing connections with the Recusants, they solidified and ink.” systematized the underground network by securing a network of gentry- owned country houses -- including rented ones in London -- to serve as America’s Central Intelligence Agency is interested in safe houses for priests. In these houses, Jesuit Brother Nicholas Owen “Clandestine methods of the Jesuits in Elizabethan England as built priest holes in case these houses were searched. And for a sense of illustrated in an operative’s own classic account.” community among the missionaries, the Jesuits established semi-annual meetings for all mission operatives, secular priests included, to pray and The community of Catholics in Douay and Rheims were hopeful that the hold “discussions to prevent concessions to secular life from eroding protestantizing of England was only temporary. All England needed was religious fervor and identity.”8 To disseminate rebuttals to Protestant a Catholic monarch and Catholicism would be restored. But what they propaganda, a clandestine printing press was set up. Moreover, the Jesuits hoped never came to be. laid down an ecclesiastical structure to enable fielding priests, including secular ones, to specific locations. There was a network of communications The Anglican Church stabilized, a female monarch showed the world what to enable contact with church authorities in Rome. And of course, they she could do with power, and the will of the secular aristocracy held strong. instituted a way of transferring funds out of the country. By the time of Elizabeth’s death, successor James I was no longer Catholic enough to effect any major changes. But the small group of faithful English Their success came at a price, however. Secular priests felt threatened Catholics was able to preserve traditional Catholic rituals and a mode of by Jesuit domination. People became paranoid and suspicious that some spirituality to enable English Catholics to thrive at the margin of English foreign power backed their activities, which included a plot to assassinate culture, even down to today. the Queen. “Opponents saw Jesuits as overly-Hispanized zealots whose R. high-profile antics only goaded the Government’s more extreme measures.”9 ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Suzanne Duque-Salvo is a Filipina-American Roman Catholic with a MA But then there was Edmund Campion. He was serving as a missionary in (Harvard Divinity School), a BA in Religion and Poland when he was recalled to be part of the English Mission. For one a BA in Psychology (Wellesley College). She is thing, it meant certain execution, for simply being priests. The anticipation Director/Founder of a non-profit organization of martyrdom transformed men so that “they came with gaiety among a now establishing a homestead for recovery people where hope was dead. The past only held regret and the future, and healing. In 2012, her book (and eBook) apprehension; they brought with them, besides their priestly dignity and the A Battered Woman Went to Harvard was ancient and indestructible creed, an entirely new spirit of which Campion is published. Duque-Salvo has five adult children the type; the chivalry of Lepanto and the poetry of La Mancha, light, tender, and four grandchildren. She is a member of the American Academy of Religion generous and ardent.”10

Sensing it was only a matter of time that he would be apprehended and 1. Waugh, Evelyn. Edmund Campion. (San Francisco: Oxford Press, 2005), executed, Campion decided to take advantage of the print media to say 128-129. what should not be left unsaid. Campion wrote two final documents; the 2. Carrafiello, Michael L. “English Catholicism and the Jesuit Mission of first was his letter to the Privy Council informing them who he was and 1580-81.” The Historical Journal, 37:4 (1994), 762. that his mission in England was strictly for religious rather than political 3. Bossy, John. The English Catholic Community 1570-1850, (New York: reasons. His final piece, Decem Rationes or Ten Reasons why the Roman Oxford Press, 1976), 255. Catholic Church is the True Church, was written in the recognizably Campion 4. Waugh, p.130. rhetorical style that would have been familiar to upper reaches of English 5. Coupeau SJ, J. Carlos. “Five Personae of Ignatius of Loyola.” Worcester, society. Campion had once been referred to by the Queen’s top adviser as Thomas, Ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits, (New York: the ‘diamond of England.’ What could have been more irksome than the Cambridge Press, 2008), 45. diamond of England defecting to the Catholic side, and becoming a Jesuit 6. Carrafiello, p. 762. priest? 7. Ibid, p. 768. 8. McCoog, SJ, Thomas. “The Society of Jesus in Three Kingdoms.” Henry Walpole watched the execution of Edward Campion Worcester, Thomas Ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits, (New and was inadvertently sprinkled with his blood, prompting York: Cambridge, 2008), 90. him to abandon his law practice, leave England and convert at 9. Ibid, p.91-92. Rheims. He, too, became a Jesuit priest and martyr. 10. Waugh, 114.

31 | Page A Tale of Two Margarets My Lady Margaret, A King’s Niece

odern A frail and ill old lady, Margaret In a move that would have catastrophic consequences myth- for his mother, Lady Margaret, Pole withheld his makers was dragged from her cell, support and went into self-imposed exile in Italy M still protesting her innocence, have propounded and France. By 1536, Reginald Pole finally broke a view in films and and refusing to put her head with Henry VIII over his divorce of Katherine and books showing his marriage to Anne Boleyn. At this point, events

Catholic women on the block willingly. overtook the Pole family in breath-taking sequence. ‘oppressed’ by Over his objections, Reginald was appointed Cardinal When Margaret was eighteen, Henry VII gave their religion – by the Pope. Cardinal Pole then encouraged the her in marriage to his cousin and supporter, Sir relegated to the Catholic monarchs of Europe to overthrow Henry. Richard Pole. The marriage was a happy and fruitful status of inferiors, He also wrote to Henry indicating his objections one, as Margaret soon gave birth to five children. incapable of valour and criticisms of Henry VIII’s policies concerning the The background to her happiness was deeply or great deeds. Church in England and his marriage to Anne Boleyn. overshadowed, however, when Margaret’s brother As the stories of Edward, was imprisoned in the Tower of London these two great Henry was incensed by the Cardinal, and ordered simply because he was a claimant to the throne. In a Englishwoman his agents to assassinate him. Several attempts foreshadowing of the cruelty of the Tudors, Edward demonstrate, real ended in failure, so Henry exacted his revenge on was later executed, alleged to have been involved in history tells a very Lady Margaret and her other children. They were a plot against Henry. different story. all arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London; Margaret was stripped of her titles and property. She Lady Margaret, however, was considered to be She lived at the summit of English society. In 1473, was held in the Tower for two and half brutal years blameless. She was appointed to be Katherine Margaret Plantagenet was born at Farley Castle, near before being sentenced to death for High Treason of Aragon’s lady-in-waiting when Katherine was Bath. Margaret’s family was the famous Plantagenet against The Crown – an accusation she denied to the betrothed to Henry VII’s son, Prince Arthur -- but royal dynasty, which had ruled England since the late end. That end came on the morning of the 27th May, this was short lived, as Arthur died soon thereafter. 12th century. Indeed, she was the niece of two kings 1541, when she was executed on Tower Hill. Just two years later, Sir Richard Pole suddenly died, -- King Edward IV and King Richard III of England. leaving Margaret a widow with five children. She Her father, Prince George, was brother to two kings. Because she was of noble birth, she was spared the was left with only a small amount of land, no income Her mother, Isobel, was the daughter of Richard humiliation of being executed as a public spectacle. or future prospects. Neville, the Earl of Warwick, the most powerful man By now a frail and ill old lady, she was dragged from in England after The King, known as “Warwick the her cell, still protesting her innocence, and refusing to Lady Margaret’s fortunes took a turn for the better Kingmaker”. put her head on the block willingly. As she struggled when she once again became Katherine of Aragon’s on the block, the inexperienced executioner swung lady-in-waiting after Katherine married Henry VIII in Power and connections, however, have their price down but gashed her shoulder and missed her neck. 1509. Her fortunes and outlook continued to improve – especially if you happen to be born, as Margaret It needed a further ten blows to finally execute her. after Parliament restored the lands and titles from was, in the midst of the tumultuous and bloody Wars her brother, Edward, which had been confiscated by of The Roses. Anyone familiar with Shakespeare’s Lady Margaret was buried in the chapel of St. Peter the Crown. Lady Margaret became the Countess of history plays will know the cast of characters from ad Vincula (St. Peter in Chains) within the Tower Salisbury, and by 1538 she was one of the richest this period of English history. Rival factions of the of London. After her execution, a poem was found nobles in England. After the birth of Henry VIII’s first Plantagenet Dynasty, the Houses of Lancaster and inscribed into the stone of her cell: child, Princess Mary, she was chosen as her sponsor York, were vying for the Crown. In 1476, when at Baptism and Confirmation and later appointed Margaret was three years old, her mother, Isobel, For traitors on the block should die; her Governess. died. Two years later, her father, George, Duke of I am no traitor, no, not I! Clarence, was imprisoned in The Tower of London My faithfulness stands fast and so, Lady Margaret had placed her promising son, after he led a revolt against his brother, King Edward Towards the block I shall not go! Reginald, in the care of the Church after she was IV. He was later tried and executed -- in Shakespeare’s Nor make one step, as you shall see; widowed. Now Reginald was a rising star, educated Richard III, he is drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. Christ in Thy Mercy, save Thou me! at Oxford University and Padua in Italy. Half his tuition fees were paid for by Henry VIII; when Now an orphan, Margaret lived at Court with her When he heard of his mother’s brave death, Cardinal Reginald Pole returned home, Henry VIII offered him cousins, the children of King Edward IV. When he Reginald Pole said he would “ ….never fear to call the Archbishopric of York or Bishop of Winchester. died in 1483 and was succeeded by Margaret’s himself the son of a martyr.” Lady Margaret’s trial Either appointment would come at a great price, other uncle, Richard, both Margaret and her brother and execution were considered a grave miscarriage however: Henry wanted Reginald’s support in his Edward continued to reside at court. A scant two of justice, both at the time and subsequently. annulment from Katherine of Aragon. years later, Richard III was defeated by Henry Tudor Some say that Henry VIII’s cruelty when dealing at the Battle of Bosworth. In 1487, Henry VII married with Margaret and her family can be traced to Margaret’s cousin and the daughter of Edward IV, She lived at the summit of the fact that they were the last direct Plantagenet Elizabeth of York, a move uniting the rival factions of English society. Power and descendants and therefore possible claimants to the The Wars of The Roses. The child of this union would throne that Henry’s own father had seized at The be the future King Henry VIII. connections, however, have Battle of Bosworth. their price.

32 | Page Under Queen Elizabeth I it had become High Treason against the Crown to assist a Catholic priest ordained outside of England; the punishment was execution. The Clitherows’ house in The Shambles became a Mass centre and a hiding place for Catholic priests; one of the priests Margaret sheltered was her husband’s brother. In time, Margaret’s own son, Henry, was sent to Douai College in France to train for the priesthood.

Margaret was brought in for questioning in 1584, as the authorities were suspicious about her son’s disappearance and his whereabouts, since any prolonged period of absence, especially overseas, was interpreted as meaning those involved were linked to the Catholic Mission. For sending her son abroad, Margaret was placed under House Arrest for a total of eighteen months, though she was able to slip out at night, to pray at places where Catholic priests had been executed.

From time to time, those suspected of harbouring priests would have their houses searched; in Margaret’s house there was a hole cut between the attics of the neighbouring house and hers, so that a priest could escape if there was a raid. During this time, John Clitherow remained silent which made him an accessory to her deeds, which suggests a possible sympathy with the Catholic cause. In 1586 he was called in for questioning about his son’s continued absence, whilst at the same time the authorities went to search the Clitherow’s house. A little Flemish boy guided them to a place where Mass vestments were hidden.

Margaret was promptly arrested and called before York assizes for the crime of harbouring Catholic priests, specifically Fr. John Mush and Fr. Francis Ingleby. She charged with High Treason. She was interrogated at length by both civic and ecclesiastical authorities but she would not yield to accepting the Church of England. John and the children were also seized and imprisoned at isolated places around the city. Her twelve year old daughter, Anne, was especially harshly treated after she refused to answer questions about her mother’s activities and because she continued to pray according to Catholic practice.

At her appearance before the judges at York assizes, Margaret refused to plead to the charges against her saying, “Having made no offence, I need no trial. If you say I have offended, I will be tried by none but God and your own conscience.” Margaret refused to plead so as to spare her family the ordeal of being called as witnesses. On December 29th, 1886, some 350 years after her execution, Lady Margaret Pole But by refusing to enter a plea, Margaret was condemning herself to death. The was beatified by Pope Leo XIII. (See ‘The Honour Role of English Martyrs” in this trial judge had little choice in issuing the sentence and, despite his qualms about issue.) executing a woman, The Council of The North laid down what he must do.

Margaret Clitherow, A Butcher’s Wife The judge pronounced her sentence, “You shall be taken to the place from whence She is called the ‘Pearl of York.’ St. Margaret was born in the Northern English city you came, and in the lower part of the prison be stripped naked, laid down with of York about the year 1533, just two years before the Church in England broke your back on the ground, a door placed over you and as much weight laid upon you with Rome under Henry VIII. At the age of 18, Margaret married a butcher and as you are able to bear and thus you shall continue for three days without meat chamberlain of the city, John Clitherow. Margaret and her husband moved into a or drink except a little barley bread and puddle water; and the third day you shall house on a street known as ‘The Shambles’, which still stands today. have a sharp stone placed under your back and your hands and feet tied to posts, that more weight being placed upon you, you shall be pressed to death.” John Clitherow had embraced the new Protestant faith but several of his family were Recusants, and it was under their influence that Margaret began to associate Margaret calmly accepted the verdict and began to prepare for her death. In the with other Recusant Catholics. Finally she reverted to the Catholic Faith of her days leading up to her execution, she was repeatedly urged to conform tothe childhood. By this time, Henry VIII was dead and his third child, Elizabeth, was Church of England and so save herself or at least offer a plea to the charges, but Queen of England. In Margaret’s young life, the faith and religious landscape of Margaret’s knowledge and love of her Catholic Faith was enough to rebut the England had changed completely. arguments of those trying to persuade her to abandon her Catholic Faith. Further pressure was put on her when it was discovered she might be pregnant, but still John Clitherow already had several children when he married Margaret, but she Margaret refused to tell the judge, which might have saved her life. cared for them as if they were her own. John was fined repeatedly because Margaret refused to attend the Church of England. (The fine for non-attendance at C of E Margaret declared, “I die not desperately, nor procure mine own death; for not services was about £20 per month, an enormous sum of money in Elizabethan being found guilty of such crimes as were laid against me, and yet condemned, I England.) could but rejoice – my cause also being God’s quarrel. I die for the love of my Lord Jesus. I ground my Faith upon Jesus Christ and by Him steadfastly believe to be Margaret remained steadfast in her Catholic Faith; she was eventually imprisoned saved, as is taught in The Catholic Church through all Christendom and promised for two years for repeated non-attendance at her local Anglican Parish Church. to remain with her unto the world’s end and hell’s gates shall not prevail against Despite being kept in a cold, damp cell away from her family and being fed meagre it: and by God’s assistance, I mean to live and die in the same Faith; for if an angel prison food, she kept her faith and described her imprisonment as a, “a happy and come from heaven and preach any other doctrine, I should disobey the Apostle’s profitable school,” since she was able to fast and pray without interruption. It was Commandment.” during her imprisonment that Margaret learned to read and write and upon her release she applied her new-found education to teach the Catholic children of her The three day sentence as handed down by the judge was not carried out but neighbourhood about the Faith. on Good Friday, 25th March 1586, Margaret Clitherow walked barefoot, to Ouse Bridge Tollbooth. She had sent her shoes to her daughter, Anne, so she could follow Even though John Clitherow attended Anglican services, he supported Margaret in her mother’s footsteps. The authorities tried to persuade Margaret to plead and for she was, “a good wife, a tender mother, a kind mistress, loving God above all still accused her of High Treason but she responded, “No, no, Mr. Sheriff, I die for things as herself.” the love of my Lord Jesu.”

John Clitherow said his wife Margaret was “a good Two Sergeants chosen to carry out the task could not bring themselves to do so, so they hired four desperate beggars to execute her. She was stripped naked and then wife, a tender mother, a kind mistress, loving God laid down with her arms outstretched, with a sharp rock, the size of a man’s fist, above all things as herself.” underneath her back. A door was then placed on to of her and gradually loaded 33 | Page with immense weight of rocks and stones so that, eventually, her spine would be broken. Unusually, Margaret’s execution was held in private, possibly because it was so opposed by the residents of York.

As the weight placed upon her was increased, and with it her suffering, Margaret cried out in excruciating pain, “Jesu! Jesu! Jesu! Have mercy upon me!” She endured about 15 minutes of suffering before her sternum gave way and was crushed causing her ribs to burst out from under her skin and she was then left for a further six hours before the weight was removed from her corpse.

After her death, her corpse was buried in secret on a dunghill within the confines of York city walls, so as to prevent Catholics from taking her remains for veneration and as relics. However, about six weeks later, her remains were found uncorrupted by a party of Catholics and they buried her privately away from the city. One of her hands was removed (a common practice with Catholic Martyrs during Penal Times) and is now preserved in the Bar Convent, York.

In an ironic gesture for our ‘gender-neutral’ times, after Margaret’s execution, Queen Elizabeth I wrote to her subjects in York to say how horrified she was at the treatment of another woman; due to her gender, Margaret should not have been executed.

St. Margaret’s stepson, William, became a priest, as did her own son, Henry, whilst her daughter, Anne, became a nun at St. Ursula’s in Louvain, France.

On the 26th October, 1970, Margaret Clitherow, along with thirty-nine other English and Welsh Catholic Martyrs from Penal Times, was canonised by Pope Paul VI. Collectively they are known as the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Her feast day in the current Roman calendar is the 26th March. THE TOWER OF LONDON R.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: On 4th May, 2013, Michael Durnan attended the National Pilgrimage to York in honour of St. Margaret Clitherow which was organised by The Latin Mass Society of England and Wales. The Pilgrimage started with Solemn Mass in the Extraordinary Form at St. Wilfrid’s Catholic Church, York, followed by a procession carrying a statue of St. Margaret through the streets of York to the house where she lived. The procession ended at the English Martyrs Catholic Church where there was Benediction and Veneration of the relic of St. Margaret.

TRAITORS’ GATE: Entrance to the Tower from the River Thames

34 | Page The English Catholic Exiles Refugees to Spanish Shores

ne little-known consequence of the Under Philip II and his son Philip III, seminaries for fateful divorce of Henry VIII of England the purpose of training and returning English priests Ofrom Catherine of Aragon is that the to restore Catholicism in England were established fallout locked England and Spain in a political and and protected. The Jesuit Robert Persons, an religious struggle which brought waves of English associate of St Edmund Campion, opened schools refugees fleeing to Spanish shores for almost 150 in Valladolid, Seville, and Madrid. years afterwards. The most notable of these was the Royal English Between 1533 and College of St Alban. Twenty-two 1675, thousands of alumni of this college became Englishmen and women martyrs in England, including fled their homeland for Blessed Henry Walpole and St. their lives, accused of John Roberts. The priest Joseph hiding recusant priests. Cresswell authored numerous These English exiles Catholic pamphlets there for settled in various cities circulation in England. By 1591, the in Spain -- particularly Lord Treasurer of England, William in the colder North Cecil, proclaimed Spain “a center -- and their presence of sedition.” The English sent a spy, influenced both the infamous Titus Oates, to report religious practices and the names of the English students political intrigues in there. their adopted country for years afterwards. Today, the Valladolid seminary still houses the mutilated image of Our John Dutton -- a nobleman who had accompanied Lady of Vulnerata, rescued from the British sack of Philip II on his marriage trip to wed Mary of England the port of Cadiz in 1596. The Church has a long -- settled in the town of Viveiro, Galicia during the memory. An Act of Reparation for the sins of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Dutton brought English Protestants is performed in that church many wooden images from English churches to every single day -- more than four centuries later. Spain. One of these, an image of the Madonna he rescued from St Paul’s Cathedral, now hangs R. in the sanctuary of the Blessed Sacrament in the ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Barbara Monzon- Cathedral Church in Mondoñedo. Known as the Puleo is a Traditionalist Catholic wife ‘English Madonna,’ it is still venerated in procession and mother of two children as well as each year. a retired assistant principal, educator of 29 years and an historian. She did her graduate work at New York University Dutton also brought the famous ‘Christ of the and in Spain with specializations in Chains’ now in the Church of Santa Maria de medieval religious history and the Nedad in Corunna. He also sold several pieces to an history of women. industrious priest, Alonso Ares de Mourelle, who then distributed the English images throughout his diocese.

Other exiles also seemed to have undertaken the sale of religious images from the port of El Ferrol. These images and statues were brought by Spanish priests to their small village churches, eventually becoming points of interest on the ‘English Way’ along the Compostela pilgrimage route.

The English sent a spy, the infamous Titus Oates, to report the names of the English students in Spain. Twenty-two alumni of the Royal English College of St Alban became martyrs in England.

Photos Top:The English Madonna in Mondroñedo, smuggled to Spain from the old St. Paul’s Cathedral during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Right: Father Robert Persons, founder of English Seminaries in Spain. 35 | Page A Homeschooler’s Guide to Inspiring England

“Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived.”

Finally, for older students, meeting the great British authors within the dynamics of a Catholic co-op is an excellent way to hone critical thinking skills. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, A Man for All Seasons and the works of Chesterton and Belloc come alive in peer discussions -- with parents taking turns as facilitators, guiding the conversation through the eyes of faith. This is a great time for teens to hear adults other than their own parents reflect the same values and priorities that they are being taught at home. Their newly emerging logic and argumentation abilities will be challenged to grow and solidify, equipping them for a lifetime of discriminating thinking.

Contemplating the role that the Faith has played in England is especially relevant to homeschoolers, as we share not only a common language but also a common Catholic ancestry with the English people. Students learn about the sacrifice and service that led men to greatness – and the repercussions when vice triumphs over virtue, and culture inevitably begins to disintegrate.

present-day American secular ideas into high t’s the Fourth of July in America, a fitting time to relief. Statesmen who kept their eye on Heaven reflect on all things British, the country where despite the threat of execution contrasts with our Ithe foundation of democracy was laid. We contemporary weak-kneed politicians -- especially enjoy the freedom to homeschool here, derived Catholic ones -- who seem unable to think past the from the ancient freedoms won in England. I have next election. the great privilege of knowing some fine young adults, homeschooled as children. What, I asked There is much in English history to inspire children, them, had they learned about British history? so here are some tried-and-true techniques: As Americans, scrutinizing in the light of faith First, kids love castles – and there’s lots of teaching the footsteps that England has taken is both an tools out there. There’s fantastically-detailed full inspiration and a warning, helping our children see color books with diagrams and cut-away illustrations, past secular rhetoric and remain focused on the great call to follow Christ. three dimensional computer programs which R. permit your student to wander around the inside of a castle and intricate cardboard cutout models with elaborate details sturdy enough to survive multiple curious siblings. (We had one monastery model which features miniature friars and animals -- a great touch for young imaginations.)

Second, combining food with lessons grabs kids’ attention. Constructing a simple graham cracker “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, castle with icing mortar is engaging for a 5 year- survived” recited one, remembering the hapless old. Huge, elaborate co-op projects engage older wives of Henry VIII. Others told me about Saints students. (Hint: Pointy-ended ice cream cones Margaret Clitherow, Edmund Campion and Thomas make great turrets. Ditto for stained glass window More. Still others spoke of Shakespeare, Dickens cookies!) Photos: Above, Constructing a and Austen. (Poor old George III was down the list.) simple graham cracker castle Third, nothing beats dressing up as peasants, with icing mortar is engaging Such vivid portraits are fascinating proof that good for a 5 year-old. Huge, elaborate knights and ladies. Knights are especially cool, co-op projects will engage homeschooling indelibly engraves ideas in students especially if you get to wear armor and a sword. older students. Left, Dorothy in a way that state-approved, bland and puréed Throw in a knight who was a saint and you have a Gill is Regina Magazine’s curriculums simply cannot. Exploring the days ‘Homeschooling Goddess.’ win/win. And if that saint slew a dragon, you just She is the mother of four when monasteries anchored a whole civilization scored a trifecta! homeschooled boys, and lives and feast days set the rhythm of public life throws with her husband and family in Vancouver, Washington.

36 | Page The Pope of Oxford The Real Cardinal Newman

By Beverly De Soto, Regina Magazine had been handed down intact since Apostolic times. direct, control, purify, enlighten the mass of human Against everything he had ever learned and taught thought and action, but not to be a separate and e is Pope Benedict’s favorite theologian, and at Oxford, Newman’s intellectual honesty forced definite something, whether doctrine or association, hundreds of “Cardinal Newman” schools him to admit that Catholicism was the true Faith. existing objectively, integral, and with an identity, Hhave made his name familiar to Catholics and forever, and with a claim upon our homage in the English-speaking world. But who was John Newman paid a huge personal price for crossing the and obedience. And all this fearfully coincides with Henry Newman, really? Tiber. His family emphatically did not understand; in the symptoms in other directions of the spread of fact, leaving his living at Oxford essentially removed a Pantheistic spirit, that is, the religion of beauty, his ability to support his widowed mother. His old imagination, and philosophy, without constraint, friends at Oxford refused him. Newspapers openly moral or intellectual, a religion speculative and self- berated him. Eventually, he became an Invisible indulgent. Pantheism, indeed, is the great deceit Man as far as English society was concerned. which awaits the age to come.”

Newman paid a huge personal Cardinal Newman Pope Leo XIII refused to let any of Newman’s price for crossing the Tiber. personal frustrations frustrate his own intentions: Eventually, he became an he would make Newman a Cardinal. And a Cardinal Invisible Man as far as English the frail old Oxfordian became, at the age of 80. Newman responded to the papal bestowal of a society was concerned. red hat in his famous biglietto speech, once again seeing far into the future, down to our present day: Worse, English Roman Catholics seemed not to know what to do with this towering intellect who “For thirty, forty, fifty years I have resisted to the In the years since his death, Newman’s works have been translated spoke so softly. The Catholic bishops did not receive best of my powers the spirit of liberalism in religion. into many languages, and read by serious Christians around the world. him with joy; recently re-established in England, Never did Holy Church need champions against it At Littlemore in Oxford, people from all over the world have sent in in a delicate position vis-a-vis an unsympathetic photos, paintings and sculptures of Newman. more sorely than now, when, alas! it is an error Protestant nation, they did not need this high- overspreading, as a snare, the whole earth… His amazing long life spanned nearly all of the profile convert to complicate things. Far from being 19th century. Born in a time when Napolean was lauded as the great theologian he was, Newman was Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no threatening the West, he died as the 20th century assigned to an urban parish, filled with immigrants positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as was dawning. He was a don, a leader of the “Oxford and the poor with no idea who this man was who good as another, and this is the teaching which is Movement” and perhaps the leading Church of heard their confessions and worried about the gaining substance and force daily. It is inconsistent England theologian (“the pope of Oxford”) in plumbing in the old building. with any recognition of any religion, as true. It a proud age when the British Empire was at its teaches that all are to be tolerated, for all are apogee. In fact, throughout his life as a Catholic, Newman matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth, would be regarded with suspicion by other but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, Doing the Unthinkable Catholics, which caused him great pain. Every not miraculous; and it is the right of each individual single project he labored to begin seemed to to make it say just what strikes his fancy. Devotion struggle hopelessly, causing him no end of worry is not necessarily founded on faith. Men may go to and concern. In fact, his two greatest works Protestant Churches and to Catholic, may get good – the establishment of the Oratory School at from both and belong to neither. They may fraternize Birmingham and a Catholic University at Dublin – together in spiritual thoughts and feelings, without faced seemingly-insurmountable problems at their having any views at all of doctrine in common, or inception, and indeed only prospered after he was seeing the need of them. Since, then, religion is so no longer involved with them. personal a peculiarity and so private a possession, we must of necessity ignore it in the intercourse of Every single project Newman man with man. If a man puts on a new religion every labored to begin seemed to morning, what is that to you? It is as impertinent to think about a man’s religion as about his sources of struggle hopelessly, causing income or his management of his family. Religion is At the very height of his career, however, Newman him no end of worry and in no sense the bond of society.” took a turn that shocked and dismayed the Victorian concern. ‘chattering classes’ in a way that even Charles In 2010, John Henry Newman was declared blessed Darwin’s revolutionary Theory of Evolution failed to Newman in the 21st Century by his 20th century pupil, Pope Benedict XVI, amidst do. He continued to write and to teach, however. One a crowd of English well-wishers in a Birmingham reason he speaks so compellingly to Catholics today park. The old Pope had braved a hostile press and He did the unthinkable. He became a Catholic. is that he was one of the earliest to identify the protests by anti-Catholics to come to England, problem of liberalism in religion. In 1838 he made telling the thousands of faithful Catholics who Stranger still, John Henry Newman read and an outlandish prediction which has become all too stood in the rain that Newman’s “insights into the reasoned his way into the Catholic Church. He didn’t true in our day: relationship between faith and reason, into the vital actually know any Catholics. When he read the early place of revealed religion in civilised society, and Church Fathers on heresy, however, his superbly “The view henceforth is to be, that Christianity into the need for a broadly-based and wide-ranging trained mind could reach no other conclusion. does not exist in documents, any more than in approach to education were not only of profound institutions; in other words, the Bible will be given importance to Victorian England, but continue He explained himself at great length to Victorian up as well as the Church. It will be said that the today to inspire and enlighten many all over the society in a variety of books and sermons, but benefit which Christianity has done to the world, world.” essentially it came down to the basics: Rome was and which its Divine Author meant it should do, was the ancient seat of Peter. The doctrine of the Faith to give an impulse to society, to infuse a spirit, to 37 | Page The Cardinal’s Miracle In 2001, Jack Sullivan, a deacon from Massachusetts, attributed his recovery from a spinal cord disorder to Cardinal Newman. On 24 April 2008, the Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory reported that the medical consultants at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints had met that day and voted unanimously that Sullivan’s recovery defied any scientific or medical explanation. The question of the genuineness of the alleged miracle then went to the panel of theological consultants who unanimously agreed to recognize the miracle a year later, clearing the way for Pope Benedict XVI to beatify Newman. Canonisation – which awaits one more miracle -- would make Cardinal Newman The Cardinal’s School Today the first English person who has lived since the 17th century to be officially recognized as a saint. The Oratory School motto of “Cor ad cor loquitur” (heart speaking to heart) is John Henry Newman’s own, taken from his Cardinal’s Coat of Arms. “I could add my own motto of ‘a busy boy is a happy boy’!” says the present Headmaster, Clive R. Dytor MA(Cantab) and MA(Oxon). “Boys need a particular approach to help them achieve their academic potential within their overall personal growth. Girls outperform boys on many levels and a school dedicated to boys-only can concentrate on boys’ strengths – and weaknesses!”

The Oratory School came into being on 1st May 1859. It was founded by Blessed John Henry Newman, at the request of a group of eminent Catholic laymen of the time, in order to provide a boarding school for boys run on English public school principles for the small English Catholic community. Newman was closely involved with the school during its first thirty years, and it remained attached to the house of the Oratory Fathers in Birmingham until 1922, when it moved to what is now the BBC Monitoring Station at Caversham Park, Reading. The Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory handed over control of the School to a Governing Body in 1931, but links with the London and Oxford Oratories, as well as with the one at Birmingham, remain strong. To escape Nazi bombing of city centers during World War II, the School moved in 1942, to settle finally on its present site at Woodcote, South Oxfordshire, some 40 miles west of London.

“We embody and practise today our Founder’s spiritual, moral and educational principles, which are just as relevant at the beginning of the twenty-first century as they were when he imbued his School with them. Each individual is to be valued for his own sake; the system should be there to support the needs of the individual, not vice versa. In this way a person’s dignity and sense of self-worth are respected in the way that they should be; as a result they will be more at ease in the society in which they find themselves and more willing to accept the necessary constraints of that society. Furthermore if each individual is regarded as special, then his special needs and gifts will be given proper respect and attention.

“The pastoral welfare of the boys in the School, the relationships with their families, the continuing contact with past pupils – all these, therefore, are central to the ethos of Newman’s educational vision.”

Left: Newman’s Chapel: He had a spare stall in the old barn at Littlemore converted to a Catholic chapel – with all the windows and walls carefully covered so that no curious passerby could peer in and report on his ‘popish’ worship. Bottom Left: ‘Littlemore,’ the converted stables where Newman and his friends moved from Oriel College at Oxford. Here, he came to the conclusion that the great Church that he was the leading light of was heretical -- and that the religion of the poor, despised Irish immigrants who had cleaned his rooms at Oxford was actually the true church. Below: Newman’s own writing desk and chair, from which he penned his famous letters to his friends and family announcing his decision to convert to Catholicism.

38 | Page Anglican Convert and Defender of the Catholic Faith The Enigmatic G.K. Chesterton Today, we acknowledge G. K. Chesterton as one of the greatest Catholic minds of the twentieth century, and perhaps its greatest writer. More than 75 years after his death, Chesterton Societies abound in the English- speaking world, and many of his 90 books are in multiple printings.

But who was this man, really – this English convert, formidable intellect, prolific writer and staunch defender of the Catholic Faith?

ilbert Keith Chesterton was born in London, England on May Chesterton’s could not have children of their own so they frequently 29, 1874. Though he thought of himself as a journalist, GKC entertained other people’s children in their home. Gwas actually many things including a playwright, novelist, literary and social critic, poet, illustrator, essayist, apologist, GKC publicly debated the leading figures of his day, including hagiographer and broadcaster. H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, and Clarence Darrow. Despite differences in views, Chesterton’s opponents admired him. He made Chesterton wrote voluminously and brilliantly in most literary genres no enemies. His life exemplified the Christian virtues of charity and of the day. His prodigious output includes about ninety books and humility. thousands of essays for London newspapers such as the Daily News, Illustrated London News, and G.K.’s Weekly. Chesterton’s books, Orthodoxy (his 1908 companion volume to Heretics, 1905) and The Everlasting Man (1925), were destined to Chesterton’s Early Years become classics of Christian apologetics. The latter book contributed Chesterton was born into a middle-class, liberal Unitarian family and to C.S. Lewis’ conversion to Christianity. retained fond memories of childhood. “What was wonderful about childhood is that anything in it was a wonder. It was not merely a Chesterton Converts to Catholicism world full of miracles; it was a miraculous world” (Autobiography, In 1922, GKC converted to the Roman Catholic Church. Frances 1936). converted four years later through her own convictions. Hilaire Belloc, the famous Catholic historian, essayist and poet, and Chesterton’s GKC attended St. Paul’s School, where he was an academic under- close friend, said, “He advanced towards the Faith over many years achiever and forgetful student. He enrolled next in the London’s Slade and was ultimately in full communion with it…. He approached the School of Art, making no significant accomplishments. Somewhat Catholic Church gradually but by a direct road. He first saw the city later, he attended lectures in English literature at London’s University from afar off, then approached it with interest and at last entered. College. He did not earn a college degree. Few of the great conversions in our history have been so deliberate or so mature. It will be for posterity to judge the magnitude of the Chesterton was a large figure of a man, event.” at 6’ 4”, 300 lbs., cigar-smoking – and Chesterton was motivated to conversion by his concern for legitimate sporting a swordstick, cape and sombrero. authority. The teaching authority of the Church exemplified a firm point of reference in a changing world. “The Catholic Church is the GKC’s Career and Marriage only thing that saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a During 1900, Chesterton began publishing essays for periodicals, child of his age.” collections of verse, and fantasies. His writing transformed him from an obscure scribbler into a Fleet Street legend and household name. Even more significant to GKC was the Sacramental authority of the Church to forgive sins. To those critics who believe it is morbid to GKC was to become a familiar sight on Fleet Street. He was a large confess one’s sins, Chesterton replied, “The morbid thing is not to figure of a man, 6’ 4”, 300 lbs., cigar smoking, sporting a swordstick, confess them. The morbid thing is to conceal your sins and let them cape and sombrero. eat away at your soul, which is exactly the state of most people in today’s highly civilized communities.” In 1901, Chesterton married Frances Blogg, a devoted Anglo- Catholic. The marriage was a happy one. Unhappily, though, the 39 | Page Chesterton’s Death GKC died on June 14, 1936 in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. Étienne Gilson, the pre-eminent 20th century Thomist philosopher and historian of medieval “The philosophy, called Chesterton “one of the deepest thinkers who ever existed.” difficulty of Shortly after his death, Pope Pius XI declared Chestertondefensor Fidei, Defender explaining of the Faith. why I am a R. Catholic is that there “The most absurd thing that could be said of the are ten Church is the thing we have all heard of it …. that thousand the Church wishes to bring us back into the Dark reasons all Ages…. The Church was the only thing that ever amounting brought us out of them.” to one reason: that Catholicism is true.”

Furthermore, in The Well and the Shallows (1935), Chesterton explains the role of the Virgin Mary in his conversion:

“I never doubted that the figure (of Mary) was the figure of the faith; that she embodied, as a complete human being still only human, all that this Thing had to say to humanity. The instant I remembered the Catholic Church, I remembered her; when I tried to forget the Catholic Church, I tried to forget her; when I finally saw what was nobler than my fate, the freest and the hardest of all my acts of freedom, it was in front of a gilded and very gaudy little image of her in the port of Brindisi, that I promised the thing that I would do, if I returned to my own land.”

Chesterton said, “The difficulty of explaining why I am a Catholic is that there are ten thousand reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true.” He often challenged critics of the Church by turning their arguments around to expose their hollowness. For example, he says, “The most absurd thing that could be said of the Church is the thing we have all heard of it …. that the Church wishes to bring us back into the Dark Ages…. The Church was the only thing that ever brought us out of them”.

“The morbid thing is not to confess your sins. The morbid thing is to conceal your sins and let them eat away at your soul, which is exactly the state of most people in today’s highly civilised communities.” ‘Because my name is Lazarus and I live.’

Few people have applied thought to defending Christianity and Catholicism as Immediately after his reception into the Church, G.K. Chesterton successfully as Chesterton. Hilaire Belloc said, “His mind was oceanic, subject composed this sonnet: indeed to a certain restriction of repeated phrase and manner, but in no way restricted to the action of the mind. He swooped upon an idea like an eagle, tore THE CONVERT it with active beak into its constituent parts and brought out the heart of it. If ever a man analyzed finally and conclusively Chesterton did so.” After one moment when I bowed my head And the whole world turned over and came upright, And I came out where the old road shone white. I walked the ways and heard what all men said, Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed, Being not unlovable but strange and light; Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite But softly, as men smile about the dead. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Thomas Yonan The sages have a hundred maps to give currently resides in California (USA). He’s That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree, an avid Chesterton aficionado who enjoys They rattle reason out through many a sieve Thomistic philosophy, backpacking, nature That stores the sand and lets the gold go free: studies and hosting a Facebook page about G.K. Chesterton (https://www.facebook. And all these things are less than dust to me com/G.K.Chesterton). Because my name is Lazarus and I live.

40 | Page Hilaire Belloc The Englishman Who Walked Across America to Win His Bride

e live in times What Would Belloc Say? where the Catholics today need to remember the other side of the coin. Despite all our Widea that many faults and scandals, we have the Truth. This is no credit to us, nor a ‘everything is relative’ measure of our superiority. The Truth is a gift, a trust given to us by God to has trumped all. Catholics pass on to others. in the West are now routinely admonished From Hilaire Belloc: Letter to an Anglo-Catholic by our neighbors, politicians, academia “IS there a God? Yes. and the media that our Is He personal? Yes. Faith is merely a matter Has He revealed Himself to men? Yes. of opinion, just one Has He done so through a corporation—a thing not a theory? among many. Moreover, Has He created an organism by which He may continue to be Catholicism is an opinion known to mankind for the fulfillment of the great drama of the that some of our fellow Incarnation? Yes. men find particularly inconvenient. “Where shall that organism be found? There is only one body on earth which makes such a claim: it is the Catholic Roman Apostolic Small wonder that Church. That claim we of the Faith accept. The consequences of today Catholics seem that acceptation are innumerable, satisfactory and complete. We like a defeated people, are at home. No one else of the human race is at home.” befuddled by politics and economics. Gone is the conviction of Jesus’s first disciples when they went forth to “teach all nations.” Of Belloc and Drinking Songs It will be young Catholics who will be charged with the noble cause of As a result of our befuddlement, Catholics now stand in danger of losing restoring society. To do this, they must understand our patrimony, that great our patrimony, our inheritance, and our way through this Valley to the gift. They must understand what we are, doctrinally as well as culturally. longed-for Paradise in the next. We also stand to lose everything that can This is a tall order, to say the least. For example, in the long history of the make our way through this life so delightful --‘the Good, the Beautiful and Faith, the plethora of ancient heresies can result in confusing Arians with the True’ elements of a Catholic society. Donatists or Manicheans. But you will never forget what a Pelagian is if you have read Belloc’s The Pelagian Drinking Song. What can shake us out of our doldrums? Well, a large dose of ‘the Good, the Beautiful and the True’ would help. Luckily, we have the work of the Pelagius lived at Kardanoel great early 20th century Anglo-French writer and historian, Hilaire Belloc, And taught a doctrine there to help us in this, our time of great need. How, whether you went to heaven or to hell It was your own affair. Vigour and humour It had nothing to do with the Church, my boy, After being educated at John Henry Newman’s Oratory School (see article), But was your own affair. Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc served his term of military service as a French citizen, with an artillery regiment. He then studied at Balliol College, No, he didn’t believe Oxford, as a History scholar, where he obtained first-class honors. In Adam and Eve He put no faith therein! One of the “Big Four” of Edwardian letters, Belloc’s appreciation for what His doubts began made the Faith great is second to none. A Catholic historian with an With the Fall of Man understanding and love for the Catholic underpinnings that made Western And he laughed at Original Sin. Civilization great, Belloc had the heart of a poet -- and the ability to entertain. With my row-ti-tow Ti-oodly-ow This was a great asset, as Belloc publically debated the major figures of He laughed at original sin. his day. H.G. Wells remarked that “debating Mr. Belloc is like arguing with a hailstorm.” Belloc’s review of Outline of History famously observed On a more sober note, Hilaire Belloc can teach us courage. When Belloc ran that Wells’ book was a powerful and well-written volume, “up until the for Parliament, his campaign adviser sternly warned him not to speak about appearance of Man, that is, somewhere around page seven.” Wells’ riposte his Catholic Faith. Belloc took this as a challenge, and at the first opportunity was a small book, Mr. Belloc Objects. Not to be outdone, Belloc responded addressed a political rally thus: with Mr. Belloc Still Objects. “I am a Catholic. As far as possible I go to Mass Alas for the humourless and the politically-correct, Belloc wrote some of the most hilarious children’s verse of all time. Among his best-remembered every day. This (taking a rosary out of his pocket) poems are ‘Jim, who ran away from his nurse, and was eaten by a lion’ and is a rosary. As far as possible, I kneel down and ‘Matilda, who told lies and was burnt to death.’ tell these beads every day. If you reject me on Belloc was powerfully built, a vigorous man given to long bouts of walking account of my religion, I shall thank God that wherever he wanted to go. For example, in the days before online dating He has spared me the indignity of being your he walked from the Midwest to California to woo his San Francisco bride, representative!” Elodie. She accepted him, and theirs was a deeply happy marriage blessed with five children until her untimely death from influenza in 1914. There was stunned silence -- followed by applause, and to the everlasting credit of his Anglican constituency, they elected Hilaire Belloc to Parliament.

41 | Page Belloc’s Boldness Belloc’s boldness in the defense of the truth did not always lead to adulation Stout adventurer, brilliant teacher, great entertainer and fascinating and (worldly) success, however. Though one of the brilliant writers of his age, muse -- what more can we ask of a writer as we make our way down Belloc lived a life of frequent material want due to his lack of acceptance in our own path of pilgrimage, under the banner of Faith, to our heavenly the literary establishment -- which he wore as a badge of honor. The brilliant home? English scholar and theologian Msgr. Ronald Knox said it best in his panegyric R. at Belloc’s funeral:

“He was such a man as saw what he took to be the evils of our time in a clear light, and with a steady hatred; that he found, or thought he had found, a common root in them and traced them back to their origins in history.

A prophet… is one who speaks out. He must not wrap up his meaning; he must not expect success. ‘To brazen-faced folk and hard-hearted thy errand is, and still from the Lord god a message thou must deliver, hear they, or deny thee a hearing; rebels all, at least they shall know that they have had a prophet in their midst.’ There is the double tragedy of the prophet; he must speak out, so that he makes men dislike him, and he must be content to believe that he is making no impression whatever.”

Belloc: Prophet and Catholic Muse Belloc put many of the issues we struggle with today into a Catholic perspective.

He refused to view science as the modern dispenser of infallible doctrine. In his essay on Science as the Enemy of Truth, he opines on the “Modern Scientific Spirit” -- not to be confused with the Scientific Method.

“It adds together numerically a comparatively small number of ascertained truths with regard to any object and then propounds its conclusion, as though by possession of these few gross certainties it had a sufficient basis for that conclusion. What is more, it very impudently puts forward such a conclusion against the sound conclusion arrived at by the powers of integration present in the common man.”

He also predicted the rise of Islam in his book The Great Heresies, and understood the malaise that was coming and what its effects would be.

As a historian, Belloc explodes the historical myths that the English- speaking world grew up with. To this day, his writings point out the folly of Western Civilization in deviating from those Catholic and Natural Law principles -- our patrimony, which has come down to our times. He regales us with stories of good food, wine, and the real-life characters he meets along the way. He educates, informs and entertains. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Robert Beaurivage obtained a law degree in San Diego Hilaire Belloc loved Life, but he loved two things best of all: his wife and practiced there for a while before and his Church. For each he walked many miles on foot in search of returning back to his home state of his goal. In his delightful book,The Path to Rome, Belloc describes the Maine. He has an interest in current journey he made to “see all of Europe, which the Christian Faith had events, Catholic theology and liturgy. saved.” He walked from southern France to Rome, to be present at Mass for the Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul. Exhausted, Belloc traversed the last few miles of the Appian Way on a mule-driven cart– with feet dragging so his vow would not be broken. 42 | Page Famous Converts Beyond the Oxford Movement

ince doubting Saint Thomas responded to the invitation of Such are the supernatural realities that have attracted men and Jesus to touch His wounds by saying, Dominus meus et Deus women to the Catholic Church for almost two thousand years. Smeus- my Lord and my God, there have been converts to Catholicism. The great prototype of modern conversions was that of Saint Augustine who defected from the self-loathing sect of Manichaeism. The conversion is towards the divinity and humanity of Jesus, as subsequently defined by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Deeply It is the first in which deep spiritual longing, as expressed by the associated with the conviction that Jesus is divine is that His intent Saint himself, was not conditioned by history and society, but rather that the Church which He founded and entrusted to Saint Peter, the first Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I Pope, is of divine origin. As such, infallibility in doctrine inheres in loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there Her and no other ecclesiastical groupings, who suppose themselves that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely to be churches. things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace,

is accompanied by intellectual assent to the Church and laid out in all its majesty and integrity in the saint’s voluminous works. Yet beyond the intellect, it is a discovery of ‘beauty, truth and love’ -- the almost inexpressible transcendentals -- of the Catholic Faith. This Faith exists across time and space, in the words of Saint Vincent of Lerins:

Now in the Catholic Church itself we take the greatest care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all. That is truly and properly ‘Catholic,’ as is shown by the very force and meaning of the word, which comprehends everything almost universally.

Much later, in 1591, the Oratorian Father Bozio identified no less than one hundred signs of the Church in his work De signis Ecclesiae, which made Her distinct from all other claimants to Christ’s inheritance. However, by the time of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, these had already be crystallised in debates with non-Catholics into four notes, Unity, Holiness, Catholicity and Apostolicity, to coincide with the Et unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam of the Nicene Creed.

So what attracted the saintly Cardinal to the Catholic Church? It was not such much his intellect, although it was formidable and he was later to write the highly academic Essay in Aid of a Grammar Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! ‘ The great of Assent. He had not been argued into the Church, although prototype of modern conversions was that of the North African Saint Augustine who defected many later converts certainly read themselves into the Church from the self-loathing sect of Manichaeism in the 400’s. (On left, with Saint Jerome in red.) before they converted. (For example, Chesterton’s great Catholic book, Orthodoxy was written before he converted.) Rather it was personal, ‘Heart speaking to the Heart,’ Cor ad Cor loquitur to quote The supreme climax of the expression of divine intention for the the Cardinal’s motto, which was taken from Saint Francis de Sales’ future glory of the Church was the institution of the most Holy Treatise on the Love of God. Eucharist by Our Lord on Holy Thursday, the summit and summation of his life, as a prefiguring of the Passion to take place the next day. Eyes speak to eyes, and heart to heart, and none understand what Every Catholic Mass is a repetition of the Sacrifice of Our Lord on passes save the sacred lovers who speak. Calvary, save that it is unbloody and at every Catholic Mass, Christ is indeed present in substance. Other ecclesiastical groupings have This echoes moreover Saint Augustine for whom the Cardinal had a form resembling the Eucharist, but none His Presence. such a deep devotion, rejecting what he felt to be dry intellectualism of the other great master of Catholic thought, Saint Thomas Aquinas. Also associated with the unique divinity of Christ is the necessity that he should be free from Original Sin and its baleful effects, yet at the Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it same time His humanity is preserved. Every Catholic experiences finds its rest in thee. the sweetness of devotion to Our Lord’s Mother, but her unique privilege of being conceived Immaculate is also in conformity with The great barrier for the then-Reverend Newman was that he could reason. As Our Lady was the handmaid of the Lord, so in all these not identify the Catholic Church with holiness, one of the four marks matters reason is the handmaid of Faith but must never usurp it. of the Church cited above. He said:

43 | Page If they want to convert England, let them go barefoot through our industrial cities, let them preach to the people like Francis Xavier, let them allow themselves to be beaten and spat upon, and I will recognise that they can do what we cannot…Let them use the true weapons of the Church, and by using them they will prove that they are “the” Church.

Providence disposed his encounter with the holy Passionist, Blessed Dominic Barberi who was indeed barefoot save for open sandals, following a rule based on the Franciscan Rule. Then Newman could indeed recognise holiness in the Church.

Monsignor Ronald Knox famously quipped that ‘those who want to travel on the Barque of Saint A thread running through Peter had better not examine the engine room. ‘ the Anglican conversion narratives from Cardinal Newman down to the present day (for example, in the collection of essays, A Path to Rome published by Gracewing) is deep scepticism about the apostolic succession inherent in the Church of England. Indeed, the only thing that the bench of Anglican bishops has in common with the Apostles is their ability to run away at crucial times - an ability seen at its height during the Reformation, when one after another caved under the King’s duress.

Many indeed have been brought to the Faith by the study of history. Few of any intellectual and spiritual honesty can read the History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland by William ‘I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Cobbett (he of “Rural Rides”) and remain indifferent to the claims of Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him...’ -- the Church. Such was the case with the distinguished historian of Francis Thompson the English and Welsh Catholic martyrs, Bede Camm OSB and more in tender places, throwing stones at Sacred Congregations and.... recently the prolific traditional Catholic author, Michael Davies. discharging pea shooters at Cardinals.

Some Catholic converts accept the providence of God with docility The convert, George Tyrell, even got himself excommunicated for his while others have a tougher spiritual life. Francis Thompson, the intransigent modernist views. son of a convert, recounts his experience in The Hound of Heaven: But the Gates of Hell will and have never prevailed against the Church. I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; Any new Crosses which coverts must bear will be lightened by the I fled Him, down the arches of the years; realisation that the he is privileged to be sharing in the suffering of I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Christ, the King who reigns from the Cross. The Revd. Sibthorpe, Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears an Anglican precursor of Cardinal Newman who converted, then I hid from Him, and under running laughter. returned to the Anglican ministry for almost two decades. He then re-converted but was never really happy, dying with the Book of And closes, Common Prayer in his lap. Time will always find out motives - Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly? Anglicans in recent times who converted simply because they did ‘Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, not like the idea of women in any walk of life or profession have I am He Whom thou seekest! soon found that Rome is not so safe a harbour. Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me. The glory of the converts are surely Chesterton and Belloc, so close Monsignor Ronald Knox famously observed that ‘those who want to that George Bernard Shaw nicknamed them the ‘Chesterbelloc.’ Far travel on the Barque of Saint Peter had better not examine the engine from being morbid in belief and practice, they enjoyed the Faith that room.’ This is even more true in modern times, when one scandal God had led them to. Belloc was so unashamed to be Catholic that has followed another and the modern Church is gripped by liturgical when seeking a Parliamentary seat, he stated in one of his speeches. decadence. As Evelyn Waugh, himself a convert (later disillusioned by the, as it turned out, temporary abandonment of the Latin Mass Gentlemen, I am a Catholic. As far as possible I go to Mass every day. in 1969), said of Knox, ‘He became a Catholic in violation of all his This is a rosary. As far as possible, I kneel down and tell these beads tastes and human sympathies.’ every day. If you reject me on account of my religion, I shall thank God that he has spared me the indignity of being your representative. Converts took in the whole range of opinion within the Catholic Church, from Dr William G Ward, the don deprived of a tutorship by Oh that more Catholics today would assert their Faith in such terms! the University of Oxford for saying that ‘the only hope for the Church of England lay in submission to the Catholic Church.’ Ward bluntly Belloc’s five years in Parliament left him disillusioned, thinking that stated that he would be ‘happy with an Infallible pronouncement the Opposition and the Government were virtually indistinguishable. to arrive from the Pope each day at breakfast’ to the Shakespeare He would surely have recognised the even greater decadence of scholar, Richard Simpson, of whom Newman said, modern politics.

He will always be flicking his whip at the Bishops, cutting them

44 | Page In the 19th century, the great barrier to converting for the then -Anglican Rev. Newman was that he could not identify the Catholic Church with holiness, one of the four marks of the Church. “If they want to convert England, let them go barefoot through our industrial cities, let them preach to the people like Francis Xavier, let them allow themselves to be beaten and spat upon, and I will recognise that they can do what we cannot…Let them use the true weapons of the Church, and by using them they will prove that they are ‘the’ Church.”

One can only end with the last words of Cardinal Newman to the Church of Followed by Cardinal Newman’s own fictional account of his conversion in the England, his sermon called, the Parting of Friends. For in those days before religion novel, Loss and Gain, became a personal lifestyle choice, converting to Catholicism would mean, for intellectuals, to be put outside the mainstream of academic life, and for others He was still kneeling in the church... before the Tabernacle, in the possession of a more generally to sacrifice personal and social bonds. The University of Oxford had deep peace and serenity of mind, which he had not thought possible on earth. It its first post-Reformation Catholic fellow, Francis “Sligger” Urquart only in 1896. was more like the stillness which almost sensibly affects the ears when a bell that has long been tolling stops, or when a vessel, after much tossing at sea, finds itself And, O my brethren, O kind and affectionate hearts, O loving friends, should you in harbour. It was such as to throw him back in memory on his earliest years, as know any one whose lot it has been, by writing or by word of mouth, in some degree if he were really beginning life again. But there was more than the happiness of to help you thus to act; if he has ever told you what you knew about yourselves, or childhood in his heart; he seemed to feel a rock under his feet; it was the soliditas what you did not know; has read to you your wants or feelings, and comforted you Cathedræ Petri. He went on kneeling, as if he were already in heaven, with the by the very reading; has made you feel that there was a higher life than this daily throne of God before him, and angels around, one, and a brighter world than that you see; or encouraged you, or sobered you, or opened a way to the inquiring, or soothed the perplexed; if what he has said or For conversion is indeed but a beginning of the glory to be revealed. done has ever made you take interest in him, and feel well inclined towards him; R. remember such a one in time to come, though you hear him not, and pray for him, that in all things he may know God’s will, and at all times he may be ready to fulfil it.

45 | Page A Passion for England The Astonishing Story of the Passionists f all the amazing stories surrounding England and Christianity, to read from a country lad of his own age; although he read all the the story of the Congregation of the Discalced Clerks of books he could obtain, he had no regular education until he entered O the Most Holy Cross and Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ the Passionists. (‘Passionists’) stands out. What can one say about a group of Italian idealists – monks and priests – who consecrated their lives to the In 1844, Barberi wrote to the Passionist Superior General, Father conversion of England, just when all seemed darkest for the Catholic Anthony Testa, declaring England is our portion, our vineyard, more cause? than any other place in the world, That thought was always dear beyond words, and deep-rooted in the mind of our Holy Founder. For it was almost 200 years after Henry broke from Rome, in the waning Barberi had long shared the devotion of his Founder towards England. days of 1720, that Saint Paul of the In 1831, he wrote the Lamentation for England, modelled on the Cross recorded his thoughts and Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah, Ah yes! England was once prayers in a diary kept during a Forty that island, that was with reason called the island of saints; ah it was Day retreat whilst writing the Rule that land that abounded with soothing milk for its children, with the of his Passionist order. On the Feast honey of sweetness and the fruits of holiness. Oh England whither of Saint Stephen, December 26, he has thy beauty fled, how has thy loveliness disappeared? Ah this was tells us, ‘On Thursday I experienced the abode of all beauty, that rejoiced the whole earth! oh how it is a particular spiritual uplift, especially now left destitute! her people groan, her children beg their bread, during Holy Communion. I longed to but they can find no one go and die as a martyr in some place who gives them any thing where the adorable mystery of the but poisoned food. Alas! most Blessed Sacrament is denied. alas! unhappy England, all The Infinite Goodness has given me thy beauty is departed from this desire for some time, but today thee. Passionist Father Ignatius Spencer, convert I felt it in a special way. I desired the from Anglicanism and the great, great, great conversion of heretics, especially The deeply emotional uncle of Lady Diana Spencer, prior to his own entrance into the Order in 1840. in England and the neighbouring Barberi pulled no punches kingdoms, and I offered a special when allocating the blame prayer for this intention during Holy Communion.’ for the unhappy state of the spiritual desert that Three days later, on the Feast of that most faithful of all English martyrs, was England, Our temples, Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Paul wrote ‘I had a particular inspiration those venerable churches to pray for the conversion of England, especially since I wanted the which were built by our ancestors and dedicated to thy divine majesty standard of the faith to be raised there so that the devotion, reverence, which, in the happy days of old England when we were thy elect homage, love and frequent adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament people, we used to assemble before thee, have been seized and …would be increased.’ polluted by strangers, by the followers of Calvin and Cranmer, and innumerable other heretics, who impiously blaspheme thee in their ‘From their commencement of their existence infamous conventicles. Alas my God! alas divine Jesus! alas for these holy churches erected in ancient times by the hands of thy holy saints, as a body, Passionists have been sighing to where thy everlasting gospel was daily announced to us! alas for these shed their blood for England.’ churches, in which an innumerable company of thy servants each day and each hour of the day lifted up their suppliant hands to thy divine For the fifty years of his life that followed, Paul was unable to pray majesty! without pleading for the conversion of England, such was the height and breadth of his devotion and love. He said indeed, ‘As soon as I A Fascinating Connection pray, England comes before my eyes.’ Today, the extraordinary work of these 19th century missionaries has been re-interpreted in some circles with unfortunate results. He was often heard to murmur during the day, ‘Ah! England, England: Identifying Fathers Barberi or Spencer (who founded the Prayer let us pray for England!’ Often during Mass, he would fall into ecstasy, Crusade for the Conversion of England) as prototypes of modern ‘Where was I just now? I was in spirit in England considering the great ecumenism is misleading. Indeed, it tends to distract from the real- martyrs of times past and praying God for that Kingdom.’ He even life conversation and connection amongst these Victorian-era divines, had a mystical vision shortly before he died, after which he was full of which is fascinating. tears, crying ‘Oh, what I have seen, my children in England!’ Spencer did desire Christian unity and even once visited John Henry Paul’s spiritual sons, the Passionists would no more forget England Newman, while the latter was still an Anglican, to invite him to join than Jeremiah would forget Jerusalem -- as the prophet attests in the Catholic Church. Newman sent Spencer away but he was later put Jeremiah 51.50: Remember the Lord from afar, And let Jerusalem in touch with Dominic Barberi by an earlier convert from Anglicanism, come to your mind. Generations of Passionists worked and prayed for the remarkable, John Dobree Dalgairns, a product of Exeter College, the fulfilment of Saint Paul’s desire to send missionaries to England. Oxford and later himself an Oratorian. Indeed, it wasn’t until 120 years later that it began to bear fruit in an extraordinary series of conversions. In fact, it was Dalgairns’ letter to the French Catholic newspaper, L’Univers, while he was still an Anglican (he converted in 1844) which The Italian Peasant prompted the second great piece of writing from the pen of Dominic Dominic Barberi couldn’t have come from a more different milieu than Barberi, the heart-felt Letter to the Professors of the University of learned and aristocratic Oxford. His parents were peasant farmers Oxford. outside Viterbo, Italy who died while Dominic was still a small boy. He was employed to take care of sheep, and when he grew older he did Dalgairns had maintained, against the clearest meaning of the text farm work. He was taught his letters by a Capuchin priest, and learned and all reason, that the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Book of Common

46 | Page Prayer could be interpreted as being consistent with the Decrees of baronets or knights, seventeen honourables and forty squires. the Ecumenical Council of Trent. This theory Barberi methodically and lovingly takes apart, prefacing his remarks in the most emotional Barberi In England of terms: “The second spring did not begin when Although I have never seen you with the eyes of the flesh, I have always kept you in my heart; and on, how often and how fervently in Newman converted nor when the hierarchy the bitterness of that same heart have I besought the Lord for you! was restored. It began on a bleak October How long, O Lord, wilt Thou be forgetful of us? When will the heart day of 1841, when a little Italian priest of the Father be turned towards His children? How long am I to wait in expectation? When shall there be one fold and one shepherd? Wilt in comical attire shuffled down a ship’s Thou be angry with us even for ever? Wilt thou forget us in the length gangway at Folkestone.” of days? Thee, O Lord, do the islands expect, and thy name will they honour: but how long are they to wait? In February, 1842, after twenty-eight years of effort, Dominic Barberi established the Passionists at Aston Hall in Staffordshire. His And further reception was less than welcoming, as local Catholics feared these newcomers would cause renewed persecutions. His attempts to read Not only does the Church militant here on earth, but the Church prayers in English were met with laughter from his congregation. triumphant in heaven pray for you. Beautiful hope, which can be But the community increased in numbers and as the people of Aston founded on the faith of the Church in the communion of saints, and grew to know Dominic they began to love him – the Passionists soon on her belief in the intercession of the saints in paradise. The saints began to receive a steady stream of converts. pray, especially SS Gregory, Augustine, Anselm, Thomas; they pray for England, as they always have done, I hope, even after the separation. In neighboring Stone where Dominic would say Mass and preach to the local populace, youths would throw rocks at him. (Two such Barberi chose his words – and his saints – carefully, intending that converted to Catholicism when they saw Dominic kiss each rock that the stories of these ancient connections with Rome would stir some hit him and place it in his pocket.) Local Protestant ministers often response in his learned readers’ hearts. He was also alluding to the held anti - Catholic lectures and sermons. One followed Dominic along close connections across time and space between England and Rome, a street shouting out various arguments against transubstantiation. tied intimately to the Passionists’ own history. The priest was silent, but as the man was about to turn off, Dominic suddenly retorted: “Jesus Christ said over the consecrated elements, Centuries before, it had been Pope Saint Gregory the Great who had “This is my body” you say “No. It is not his body!” Who then am I sent Saint Augustine of Canterbury to England, who then converted to believe? I prefer to believe Jesus Christ.” Converts increased at the people by first converting the King. (This was not dissimilar to the Stone, so much so that a new church had to be built. way that Barberi hoped first to convert the nation’s intellectual and social elite of Oxford.) It was at Aston however that in June 1844 that the first Corpus Christi procession since the Reformation was held in the British Isles, an Saint Augustine had been sent from the Benedictine Monastery of event which attracted thousands of Catholics and Protestants alike. Saint Andrew’s on the Caelian Hill which, by providence, is adjacent Dominic then began to visit other parishes and religious communities to the even more ancient Basilica of Saint Paul and Saint John, of in order to preach. His ‘missions’ frequently took place in the which the Passionists took possession in December 1773. In May industrial cities of northern England, such as Manchester, Liverpool 1832, Ignatius Spencer had been ordained in the Church of Saint and Birmingham – just as John Henry Newman (see article, this issue) Gregory, which is attached to Saint Andrew’s, on the Feast Day of had requested as a sign of the ‘true’ Church. Saint Augustine of Canterbury itself. R.

Father Spencer waited another fifteen years before seeking admission into the Passionists, but in his person and on this day united the special ABOUT THE AUTHOR: place in which England is held by the Benedictine and Passionist Christopher Gillibrand, MA orders. Every Saturday, the English Benedictines are meant to say a (Oxon) MBA is a European Salve Regina for the conversion of England, following a promise made policy consultant. He lives in to Father Spencer by the Rector of the English Benedictine College at Wales. Douai in 1854.

Aristocrats and Intellectuals Dominic Barberi’s first meeting with an Englishman was when he instructed the widowed Sir Harry Trelawney, 5th Baronet, on how to say Mass. The seventy year old convert, about to be priested, was accompanied by his daughter, who had herself been the first to convert. Trelawney was a living connection with history, as the 1st Baronet had distinguished himself in the service of King Charles I.

After finally arriving in England and establishing a religious house in Aston, Dominic Barberi’s greatest convert, however, was undoubtedly John Henry Cardinal Newman. The historical importance of this conversion should not be underestimated- Masses of thanksgiving were said and Te Deums sung throughout the continent when they heard the story of England’s greatest theologian kneeling before the astonished Italian peasant priest:

‘What a spectacle it was for me to see Newman at my feet! All that I have suffered since I have left Italy has been well compensated by that great event and I hope that the effects of such a conversion may be great.’

Barberi could not have known what a bounty he would help to harvest. Indeed in the nineteenth century the list of converts from the English aristocracy and the gentry filled no less than 106 pages, headed by a duke, two marquises, ten earls, twenty-two lords, twenty-seven

47 | Page Requiescant in Pace English Confessors and Martyrs (1534-1729) Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) by John Hungerford Pollen (1858-1925)

Cardinal John Fisher + Lord Chancellor Thomas More + John Houghton + Robert Lawrence + Augustine Webster + Humphrey Middlemore + William Exmew + Sebastian

Newdigate + John Rochester + James Walworth + Thomas Johnson + William Greenwood + John Davye + Robert Salt + Walter Pierson + Thomas Green + Thomas Scryven

+ Thomas Redyng + Richard Bere + Robert Horne + Richard Whiting + Hugh Farringdon + Thomas Marshall (or John Beche) + John Thorne + Richard James + William

Eynon + John Rugg + Thomas Abel + Edward Powell + Richard Fetherstone + John Haile + John Larke + Richard Reynold + John Stone + John Forrest + Adrian Fortescue

+ Margaret Pole + German Gardiner + John Felton + Thomas Plumtree + John Storey + Thomas Percy + Thomas Woodhouse + Cuthbert Mayne + John Nelson + Thomas

Nelson + Everard Hanse + Edmund Campion + Ralph Sherwin + Alexander Briant + John Payne + Thomas Ford + John Shert + Robert Johnson + William Filby + Luke

Kirby + Lawrence Richardson + Thomas Cottom + William Lacey + Richard Kirkman + James Thomson + William Hart + Richard Thirkeld + Anthony Brookby + Thomas

Belchiam + Thomas Cort + Friar Waire + John Griffith + Cardinal Pole + Sir Thomas Dingley + John Travers + Edmund Brindholme + Sir David Gonson (also Genson and

Gunston) + John Ireland + John Larke + Thomas Ashby + John Slade + John Bodley + William Carter + George Haydock + James Fenn + Thomas Hemerford + John Nutter

+ John Munden + James Bell + John Finch + Richard White + Thomas Alfield + Thomas Webley + Hugh Taylor + Marmaduke Bowes + Edward Stransham + Nicholas

Woodfen + Margaret Clitherow + Richard Sergeant + William Thompson + Robert Anderton + William Marsden + Francis Ingleby + John Finglow + John Sandys + John

Adams + John Lowe + Richard Dibdale + Robert Bickerdike + Richard Langley + Thomas Pilchard + Edmund Sykes + Robert Sutton + Stephen Rowsham + John Hambley

+ George Douglas + Alexander Crowe + Nicholas Garlick + Robert Ludlum + Richard Sympson + Robert Morton + Hugh Moor + William Gunter + Thomas Holford +

William Dean + Henry Webley + James Claxton + Thomas Felton + Richard Leigh + Edward Shelly + Richard Martin + Richard Flower (Floyd or Lloyd) + John Roche +

Mrs. Margaret Ward + William Way + Robert Wilcox + Edward Campion + Christopher Buxton + Robert Windmerpool + Robert Crocket + Edward James + John Robertson

+ William Hartley + John Weldon (vere Hewett) + Robert Sutton + Richard Williams + John Symons, or Harrison) + Edward Burden + William Lampley + John Amias +

Robert Dalby + George Nichols + Richard Yaxley + Thomas Belson + Humphrey Pritchard + William Spenser + Robert Hardesty + Christopher Bayles + Nicholas Horner

+ Alexander Blake + Miles Gerard + Francis Dicconson + Edward Jones + Anthony Middleton + Edmund Duke + Richard Hill + John Hogg + Richard Holliday + Robert

Thorpe + Thomas Watkinson + Monford Scott + George Beesley + Roger Dicconson + Ralph Milner + William Pikes + Edmund Jennings + Swithin Wells + Eustace White

+ Polydore Plasden + Brian Lacey + John Masson + Sydney Hodgson + William Patenson + Thomas Pormort + Roger Ashton + Edward Waterson + James Bird + Joseph

Lampton + William Davies + John Speed + William Harrington + John Cornelius + Thomas Bosgrave + John Carey + Patrick Salmon + John Boste + John Ingram + George

Swallowell + Edward Osbaldeston + Robert Southwell + Alexander Rawlins + Henry Walpole + William Freeman + Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel + George Errington +

William Knight + William Gibson + Henry Abbott + William Andleby + Thomas Warcop + Edward Fulthrop + John Britton + Peter Snow + Ralph Gromston + John

Buckley + Christopher Robertson + Richard Horner + John Lion + James Dowdal + Christopher Wharton + Thomas Sprott + Thomas Hunt + Robert Nutter + Edward

Thwing + Thomas Palasor + John Norton + John Talbot + John Pibush + Mark Barkworth + Roger Filcock + Anne Linne + Thurstan Hunt + Robert Middleton + Nicholas

Tichborne + Thomas Hackshot + James Harrison + Anthony Battie or Bates + James Duckett + Thomas Tichborne + Robert Watkinson + Francis Page + William Richardson

+ John Sugar + Robert Grissold + Lawrence Bailey + Thomas Welborne + John Fulthering + William Brown + Nicholas Owen + Edward Oldcorne + Robert Ashley +

Robert Drury + Matthew Flathers + George Gervase + Thomas Garnet + Roger Cadwallador + George Napper + Thomas Somers + John Roberts + William Scot + Richard 48 | Page Newport + John Almond + Thomas Atkinson + John Thouless + Roger Wrenno + Thomas Maxfield + Thomas Tunstall + William Southerne + Edmund Arrowsmith +

Richard Herst + William Ward + Edward Barlow + Thomas Reynold + Bartholomew Roe + ; John Lockwood + Edmund Catherick + Edward Morgan + Hugh Green +

Thomas Bullaker + Thomas Holland + Henry Heath + Brian Cansfield + Arthur Bell + Richard Price + John Duckett + Ralph Corbin +Henry Morse + John Goodman +

Philip Powell + John Woodcock + Edward Bamber + Thomas Whitaker Peter Wright + John Southworth + Edward Coleman + Edward Mico + Thomas Beddingfeld +

William Ireland + John Grove + Thomas Pickering + Thomas Whitbread + William Harcourt + John Fenwick + John Gavin or Green + Anthony Turner + Francis Nevil +

Richard Langhorne + William Plessington + Philip Evans + John Lloyd + Nicholas Postgate + Charles Mahoney + John Wall + Francis Levinson + John Kemble + David

Lewis + Thomas Thwing + William Howard + Oliver Plunkett + Elizabeth Barton + John Dering + Edward Bocking + Hugh Rich + Richard Masters + Henry Gold +

Matthew Mackerel + John Tenent + William Cole + John Francis + William Cowper + Richard Laynton + Hugh Londale + William Wood + William Thyrsk + James Cockerel

+ Adam Sedbar + George Asleby + Richard Harrison + Richard Wade + William Swale + Henry Jenkinson + Nicholas Heath + William Gylham + William Trafford +

Richard Eastgate + John Paslew + John Eastgate + William Haydock + Robert Hobbes + Ralph Barnes + Laurence Blonham + John Pickering + George ab Alba Rose +

William Burraby + Thomas Kendale + John Henmarsh + James Mallet + John Pickering + Thomas Redforth + Lord Darcy + Lord Hussey + Francis Bigod + Stephen

Hammerton + Thomas Percy + Robert Aske + Robert Constable + Bernard Fletcher + George Hudswell + Robert Lecche + Roger Neeve + George Lomley + Thomas

Moyne + Robert Sotheby + Nicholas Tempest + Philip Trotter + Henry Courtney, + Henry Pole, Lord Montague + Sir Edward Nevell + Sir Nicholas Carew + George Croft

+ John Collins + Hugh Holland + Lawrence Cook + Thomas Empson + Robert Bird + William Peterson + William Richardson + Giles Heron + Martin de Courdres + Paul of St. William + Darby Genning + Thomas Bishop + Simon Digby + John Fulthrope + John Hall + Christopher Norton + Thomas Norton + Robert Pennyman + Oswald

Wilkinson + Thomas Percy + Thomas Gabyt + William Hambleton + Roger Martin + Christopher Dixon + James Laburne + Edward Arden + Richard Creagh + Thomas

Watson + Austin Abbott + Richard Adams + Thomas Belser + John Boxall + James Brushford + Edmund Cannon + William Chedsey + Henry Cole + Anthony Draycott

+ Andrew Fryer + — Gretus + Richard Hatton + Nicholas Harpsfield + — Harrison + Francis Quashet + Thomas Slythurst + William Wood + John Young + Alexander

Bales + Richard Bolbet + Sandra Cubley + Thomas Cosen + Mrs. Cosen + Hugh Dutton + Edward Ellis + Gabriel Empringham + John Fitzherbert + Sir Thomas Fitzherbert

+ John Fryer + Anthony Fugatio + — Glynne, + David Gwynne + John Hammond (alias Jackson) + Richard Hart + Robert Holland + John Lander + Anne Lander + Peter

Lawson + Widow Lingon + Phillipe Lowe + — May + John Molineaux + Henry Percy + Richard Reynolds + Edmund Sexton + Robert Shelly + Thomas Sommerset +

Francis Spencer + John Thomas + Peter Tichborne + William Travers + Sir Edward Waldegrave + Richard Weston + John Ackridge + William Baldwin + William Bannersly

+ Thomas Bedal + Richard Bowes + Henry Comberford + James Gerard + Nicholas Grene + Thomas Harwood + John Pearson + Thomas Ridall + James Swarbrick +

Anthony Ash + Thomas Blinkensop + Stephen Branton + Lucy Budge + John Chalmer + Isabel Chalmer + John Constable + Ralph Cowling + John Eldersha + Isabel Foster

+ — Foster + Agnes Fuister + Thomas Horsley + Stephen Hemsworth + Mary Hutton + Agnes Johnson + Thomas Layne + Thomas Luke + Alice Oldcorne + — Reynold

+ — Robinson + John Stable + Mrs. Margaret Stable + Geoffrey Stephenson + Thomas Vavasour + Mrs. Dorothy Vavasour + Margaret Webster + Frances Webster +

Christopher Watson + Hercules Welborn + Alice Williamson + James Brown + Richard Coppinger + Robert Edmonds + John Feckinham + Lawrence Mabbs + William

Middleton + Placid Peto + Thomas Preston + Boniface Wilford + Thomas Rede + Sister Isabel Whitehead + Thomas Brownel + John Almond + Thomas Mudde + David

Joseph Kemys + Thomas Ackridge + Paul Atkinson + Laurence Collier + Walter Coleman + Germane Holmes + Matthew Brazier (alias Grimes) + Humphrey Browne +

Thomas Foster + William Harcourt + John Hudd + Cuthbert Prescott + Ignatius Price + Charles Pritchard + Francis Simeon + Nicholas Tempest + John Thompson +

Charles Thursley + William Baldwin + James Gerard + John Pearson + James Swarbick + Thurstam Arrowsmith + Humphrey Beresford + William Bredstock + James

Clayton + William Deeg + Ursula Foster + — Green+ William Griffith+ William Heath + Richard Hocknell + John Jessop + Richard Kitchin + William Knowles + Thomas

Lynch + William Maxfield + — Morecock + Alice Paulin + Edmund Rookwood + Richard Spencer + — Tremaine + Edmund Vyse + Jane Vyse + Cuthbert Turnstall + Ralph

Bayle + Owen Oglethorpe + John White + Richard Pate + David Poole + Edward Bonner + Gilbert Bourne + Thomas Thurlby + James Thurberville + Nicholas Heath +

49 | Page The Art of the English Recusants Upper Class and Underground

“The sun had sunk now to the line of woodland beyond the valley; all the opposing slope was already in twilight, but lakes below us were aflame; the light grew in strength and splendour as it neared death, drawing long shadows across the pasture, falling full on the rich stone spaces of the house, firing the panes in the windows, glowing on cornices and colonnade and dome, spreading out all the stacked merchandise of colour and scent from earth and stone and leaf, glorifying the head and golden shoulders of the woman beside me.”

“Brideshead Revisited” by the redoubtable Evelyn Waugh, is a 20th century tale about an English family descended from the recusants of Elizabethan times.

o be sure, to be Catholic, powerful, Rushton Triangular Lodge in Northamptonshire, had to be distinct. Byrd popularized the English landed, wealthy and talented during this England. A tribute to Catholicism’s Tridentine madrigal, which was distinctly Elizabethan court Tperiod of English history was dangerous. Creed and a monument to the Tresham family’s and banquet music. Some of this music was Nevertheless, the Catholic Recusant families valor, the Lodge is also a testament to the times, written to honor the Virgin Queen; some were in Elizabethan England refused to publicly full of religious symbolism. even her own texts set to music. renounce their allegiance to Rome and to attend She must have been so thrilled not Anglican services. For centuries, these families Tresham built the Lodge only to have songs in her honor but had been the minority, a wealthy few at the apex on the grounds of his own for her Church to impress upon on- of English society. Their households consisted estate, uniting the idea of lookers that it was a ‘high church’ in of immediate family, servants and tenants, all the Trinity with ‘tres’ or their own Anglican way. Catholic -- a propertied and titled class who the number ‘three’ in his could afford to pay protection money to the family name. In this way, Byrd made himself a Crown so they could practice the Catholicism The Rushton Triangular treasure for the Anglican Church, woven into the rhythm of their lives. Lodge is a three floor so that any act of possible treason building with three walls, implicating him could well be each thirty-three feet overlooked. It is said that Elizabeth long, and each with three intervened many times to keep him triangular windows with out of jail. three gargoyles. Three Latin texts, each thirty- For Byrd lived a double life, as three letters long, wrap most recusants did. His spiritual around the building. (One life was nurtured by the Jesuits’ text reads: ‘Who shall separate us from the love service; Byrd’s choice of themes for his music of Christ?’) The Lodge is replete with religious was influenced by Jesuit engagements. Some symbolism in the figures of pelicans, hens and corresponded with specific Jesuit published chickens, doves and serpents. works, often using language that would resonate only with the Catholic community. Another From the recusants’ perspective, the Crown’s The Double Life of William Byrd source of inspiration for Byrd were ‘gallows determination to deprive them of access to the The man who was hand-picked by Elizabeth I to texts’- which happen to be verses from Psalms Sacred was a stronger threat than any potential ‘set the tone’ for Anglican worship services was uttered as last words by certain English Jesuits depletion of family finances. So, while the considered to be a national treasure. William just before martyrdom. Reformation raged around them, many felt that Byrd was a composer of sacred music and a the only way to practice Catholicism was to have recusant who was selected to be Director of Byrd’s Catholic work not only provided highly their own in-house family chaplain. Hence, the the Queen’s Chapel Royal and to compose “The contextualized liturgical music, but mobilized Elizabethan priest, hidden in a ‘priest’s hole,’ Great Service” for Anglican Worship. Elizabeth a creativity on the margins -- depicting and cleverly concealed in the woodwork of an ancient was willing to overlook the fact that Byrd was perpetuating Catholic courage, something to be stately home. once the composer for Catholic Queen Mary; rallied upon the remaining faithful Catholics. he was someone who could project a cultured, Recusants were vulnerable to informers, who irenic and positive image of her reign. Recusancy produced tangible testaments of sought Crown bribes in return for accusing them faith, evidence to the standing, unceasing of collaborating with priests -- those most likely But while Byrd worked for Elizabeth and made prayers of praise, gratitude and supplication to be executed in gruesome ways. In this era her happy, he was not what “Gloriana” thought and of God’s immanence, particularly on the of fear, intrigue and suspicion, recusants found he was; he secretly composed forbidden Latin margins of Catholic England. Marginalization their own ways to deal with the mortal threat liturgical music. Because he was brilliant and had allowed the recusants to ally with the greater to their lives and property. This article highlights a high degree of diplomatic intelligence, Byrd Catholic community in the Continent and Rome. two Recusant heads of family who used the was able to navigate composing for both the Never mind that many of them had to deal with fine arts as a non-violent form of rebellion – a secular world and for the Anglican Church -- but a series of law suits that depleted their wealth. counter-reformation in a context where being at the same time retaining the Catholic identity It was a daring enterprise for the recusants to Catholic was outlawed. in his Catholic works. Scholars today agree that uphold a fidelity emboldened by deprivations Byrd’s Catholic musicR. embodied his deepest besides threats to life and property, and to An Architecture of Defiance and truest beliefs. He made it a conscious effort embody a passion to reach and touch the holy Sir Thomas Tresham was a Catholic recusant who to compose far more excellent works for his with facts-on-the-ground and in the open, that was imprisoned fifteen times, and whose son was Catholic audience - the ‘highest art’ he said. symbolize Catholic steadfastness, and perhaps a convicted conspirator in the Gun Powder Plot. even Christian unity. In the late 16th century, Tresham built one of But Byrd did not sacrifice quality when he R. the most astonishing structures in England -- the worked with other genres; he knew each one 50 | Page Jerusalem

And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England’s mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark Satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold: Bring me my arrows of desire: Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire.

I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand Till we have built Jerusalem In England’s green and pleasant land. --William Blake, 1757 – 1827

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