November 3, 2024
Last time we went over some of the early effects of the apostasy of Henry VIII and this week we will continue down that road. Some of those effects were felt rather early on and carried for centuries that followed. Being a faithful Catholic in England at that time meant literally risking your home and life. To be at a Mass or service was considered a form of treason. While during Henry’s time the ball was just getting rolling, the major persecutions began during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. She began to wage an all-out war against the Church and any Catholics left in England. There began the passing of laws that forbade Catholics from holding any political office or voting, which was in effect until 1829 – it is still forbidden to this day for a monarch to become Catholic or marry a Catholic. They were subjected to unwarranted searches of their homes and the seizure of any arms and ammunition and anything that seemed suspicious. They were forbidden from teaching the Faith or sending their children abroad for studies. They were forbidden from being lawyers, doctors or pharmacists. They were not allowed to bring forward civil suits against someone else or defend themselves against them. There was a special tax levied on them and they were charged twice the property tax. There even came a point where they had to register with the government, not only their names and addresses, but lists of all their possessions. Catholics were prohibited from inheriting or purchasing land or having a military commission – which lasted until 1778 - but then it was allowed only if they disavowed the temporal authority of the pope and took the vow against a belief in transubstantiation – which was an oath that was used up until 1871 with the universities. It was not until 1791 that Catholics were allowed freedom of worship, albeit not to hold public religious displays though, or to live in London, which up until then they had to live at least 10 miles from. In that year they were also to be allowed to travel more than 5 miles from their place of residence without a special permit, which also had been forbidden. They were forbidden from attending the universities of Oxford, Cambridge or Durham until 1871. The majority of these laws were in force until 1778, besides the few that were in force until 1871.
During the reign of Elizabeth I the celebration of Mass was outlawed and priests where hunted down as they were considered to be traitors and guilty of treason. The punishments began with horrible tortures and ended usually by either hanging or being hanged, drawn and quartered. The hatred of priests in general was so bad, that there even existed an official job called a “priest hunter”, whose entire task was to hunt down any priests that they could find. During this time, the priests would travel in disguises as workmen or peddlers, or some such thing, and they would carry portable altars and vestments hidden in secret compartments of their baggage. Many of the houses of Catholics contained hidden compartments called “priest holes” – often no larger than a small closet – where the priest could hide if the priest hunters came. Sometimes there would be numerous priests crammed together for several days in spaces so small that they could not sit or even hardly move.
In reaction to this widespread persecution, there were a few attempts made on the queen’s life by some Catholics, which only intensified the crackdown on Catholics. Those who refused to attend the protestant services were levied fines and could eventually lose their possessions and be thrown in jail. It was forbidden to possess things blessed by priests and any who aided them in their missions to celebrate the sacraments would be arrested and also accused of treason. If you were a priest, you were a traitor. It was forbidden to pray the rosary. If you in any way assisted a priest, you were a felon. There were a number of Catholic uprisings which ended in the deaths of a large portion of those Catholics who took part in them. All told, we do not know exactly how many Catholics lost their lives during this time in England, we know the Church has beatified around 300 by this point, all of whom died between the years 1534-1680. Besides those, we can easily assume the number of those who actually were martyred for their faith in that time frame to be in the thousands, either directly or through poverty and starvation after all their goods were repossessed. A large portion of those were pious poor folk whose names were never recorded.
As with all breaks from the Church Christ founded, we quickly see the division setting in to the new church of England. Henry had still some attachment to Catholic looking ceremonies, so there is what we call the high Anglican Church, which later was attacked by those who felt it resembled the Catholic Church too much and demanded a more protestantized church, so we have the low Anglican church. There are physical attacks and even murders going on between the two factions. From those two we have a number of different breaks such as: the Methodists, the Episcopalians, many of the Congregationalist churches, the Quakers, the Puritans the other side of the Baptists, the Adventists and so on.
Next time we are going to look at the profound implications this persecution - that began by trying to destroy the Catholic Church - ended up having on the entire world and its history. In particular on our own country.
God love you, Fr. Anthony
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