October 18, 2024
Continuing with the break from the Catholic Church and the formation of the Anglican church by Henry VIII, we now look at the immediate aftereffects of this decision to found a new Church. We might spend a few weeks on this, as it is a very layered problem and does not get half the amount of attention as Luther’s revolution and aftermath do.
Early on Cranmer and Cronwell, who had already basically become protestants and counseled the king into breaking from the Catholic Church, looked for ways to destroy monasticism. We have to look at a very important and often overlooked fact about our Church here. One of the primary goals of monastic life and monasteries was to pray for souls, in particular the souls of the deceased and the souls of their living and deceased benefactors. That is one of the reasons why when we read about church history and such, there is often mention of certain people or saints who helped build monasteries or convents through their work or donating money or land. For those people it was a way of insuring that there would always be someone praying for them, in particular after they died. That way they would never be forgotten souls in purgatory. Another thing about the monastic houses is that there was usually an intense loyalty to the Church and the Pope. As Protestantism declared that there was no purgatory, the monastic houses must be closed and this loyalty to Rome must be rooted out. Cranmer and Cromwell and their agents prowled the countryside to investigate these places. At first the smaller ones were forced to close, unless they could pay a certain amount of money every year to stay open. This was just a ploy to begin the wholesale closure and reposition of the monasteries and their property. Effectively killing two birds with one stone. Eliminating some of the main reminders of the Biblical and Catholic doctrine on purgatory and prayer for the dead and eliminating some of the staunch support for the Roman Catholic Church and its influence on the surrounding common folk. And as an added bonus, guess who gets the property? You guessed it - the government and nobles and aristocrats who are loyal to the government and its policies.
The monks are given the choice to join the diocese or they and the nuns are given the other option to leave the monastery. Neither of which is workable because by joining the diocese they are effectively abandoning their Church because the dioceses are run by the Church of England or by leaving the monastery they are abandoning their vocations. As Henry still held on to vestiges of his abandoned Catholic faith, he would not force them to marry because of their vows of chastity and priestly celibacy. This would change later on.
One of the tools we see being used to facilitate this closure and spread of hatred for the monasteries are deliberate lies and misinformation about the moral level of the monks and nuns and manufactured financial scandals. Made up stories of all sorts of deviant behavior were spread and this made the seizure of the religious houses that much easier. While we know that there were some places were very bad things actually happened, it was no were near the level as purported by these agents. It was the deliberate spread of lies in most cases. We see something similar today, in particular in Canada where since 2021, 112 churches have been burned to the ground, the majority being Catholic churches. They have been burned as hatred for the Church is stoked by the false stories pushed by their government and media about the residential schools and mass burials, of which, there is as of yet, absolutely zero evidence to support. The power of misinformation and the cooperation of the media is of great assistance always in attacking the Church. In many cases in England the common folk rose up to protest and revolt against the destruction of their local monasteries, the destruction of relics and the forbidding of religious pilgrimages – most of these things were closely associated with monastic life. Monasteries and convents were centers of local learning and religious life. The government put down the rebellions with force. Already there had been numerous executions of religious for refusing to denounce their Catholic Faith and loyalty to Rome. There were also many from these revolts that were put to death. It culminated in the year 1540 with the total suppression of monastic houses in England. In that year, all the monasteries and convents were ordered to be closed and the religious orders dissolved effectively ending religious life on the soil of England. On that we will finish for this week, with more to come in the future.
God love you, Fr. Anthony
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