Breaking with the Past; Or, Catholic Principles Abandoned at the Reformation

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

With Queen Mary's premature death religious difficulties revived. At first it was not generally known whether her successor, Elizabeth, would remain staunch to the old religion or favour the new, although there were suspicions that she was inclined to the latter. She was welcomed as sovereign by all parties, Catholic as well as Protestant, and no one now I believe credits the silly story that she was forced into the arms of the Reformers by the refusal of the Pope to recognise her as lawful Queen.

Almost from the first it was easy to conjecture which way lay her inclination. By the advice of Cecil, her chief adviser, she formed a secret cabinet within a cabinet, which occupied itself with a project for "the alteration of religion," as it is called in the document still extant. Those "now in the Pope's religion" were to be got rid of, and by process of law all were to be made to "abjure the Pope of Rome and conform themselves to the new alterations." What these "alterations" in the form of religion signified is not doubtful. They meant the reintroduction of the liturgical reforms of Edward's reign, including the abolition of the Catholic missal and Ordinal.

One of the first measures proposed to Parliament at the beginning of the new reign was the Act of Royal Supremacy. Its object was of course to do away with the Spiritual Supremacy of the Pope and substitute that of the Crown, and a stringent oath admitting this was to be required of all holding any office in the State. By this, every adherent of the old faith was deliberately excluded from any and every position in the Church or State.

At this time ten of the English Sees were vacant and the brunt of the battle for the preservation of the old religion fell upon the diminished number of Bishops in the House of Lords. Their hands were, however, strengthened greatly by a solemn pronouncement made by the clergy in Convocation, wherein they declared their entire belief in the Catholic, as opposed to the Reformed teaching of the existence of the "natural body of Christ" under the "species of bread and wine" in "the Sacrament of the Altar, by virtue of the word of Christ, spoken by the priest." They declared also their belief in the doctrine of Transubstantiation and in the Sacrifice of the Mass, and at the same time affirmed "that to Blessed Peter and to his lawful successors in the Apostolic See, as Vicars of Christ, has been given the supreme power of feeding and ruling the Church of Christ upon Earth and of confirming their brethren." The English universities at this time also made the same declaration. Thus, when change of religion and the readoption of the principles of the Reformed Churches of Germany which had ruled in the days of Edward VI. was in the air, the unfettered Church in England, the bishops, clergy and the teaching bodies boldly declared for the old catholic faith of the Holy Eucharist, the Mass and the Supremacy of the Pope.

But, the power was again in the hands of those who desired the "alteration of religion," as it was called, and this was effected mainly by three acts of Parliament. By the first, the tenths on Ecclesiastical property were given over to the crown; by the second, the Supremacy of the sovereign in matters ecclesiastical was reaffirmed; and the third, the Act of Uniformity authorised and imposed under serious penalties the Reformed Prayer Book of Edward VI. in place of the ancient Catholic Missal and Pontifical. The Bishops in the House of Lords fought these measures step by step and unanimously voted against them. With a few unimportant modifications the new Eucharist office was that of the second Book of Common Prayer of 1552—the Book, from which every vestige of the mass in its essential parts had been removed. After a struggle, in which by some means the defenders of the old religion delayed the passage of the measure, it was passed by a majority of only three votes, and without the support of one single spiritual peer. To a man the Bishops of the Church opposed the Bill. The famous speeches of Bishop Scot and of Abbot Feckenham, in which they challenged history to produce a single instance where the bishops of any church were not consulted and listened to in so momentous a change, were the last constitutional efforts of the Church of England to prevent the innovations in matters of religion being imposed by Parliament upon the consciences of those who regarded them as heretical. The very narrow majority, which carried this religious revolution, makes it more than likely that their arguments had weight. There can be no reasonable doubt that had ten episcopal sees not been vacant at this time the intentions of the Government would have been defeated, at least for a time, and the new Liturgy would not then have been imposed upon all by an act of Parliament. As it was, the Elizabethan settlement of religion—as it is called—rested obviously on the infallibility of the odd three votes of the majority.

It was now that the "Act of Uniformity in Religion" came to be enforced. By it the Tudor maxim Cujus regio ejus religio—that must be the religion of a kingdom, which is the religion of the ruler—was carried out in practice. The form of religion authorised by the Queen and the Parliamentary majority was the only one allowed. The consciences of individuals were disregarded, and just as in the days of the persecuting pagan Emperors Christians were compelled by force to throw incense on the altars of the pagan gods, so now with equal disregard for freedom of conscience Catholics—those who refused to accept the Elizabethan settlement of religion—were forced by fines, imprisonment and other penalties, to attend the new services in their parish churches. They became known as "Recusants" for refusing to be present at the Communion Service of the English Prayer Book, which had again taken the place of the Holy Mass.

Then, too, began a systematic attempt to stamp out the old religion. The priesthood was proscribed, and priests were hunted down and exiled for offering up the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; and, during the centuries of persecution, which began with the reign of Queen Elizabeth, hundreds of priests and others were put to death for the sole crime of having said or having been present at the Mass. In the well-known phrase of one of the present English cabinet ministers: "It was the Mass that mattered," and the real struggle was for this all along the line. To the Catholic, who realised all that the Mass meant,—how it was the centre of his religion and the sublime Christian Sacrifice, it was a point of honour and conscience to imperil fortune and even life for so sacred a heritage. To the Protestant in those days the Mass was a fable and dangerous deceit, and with Luther he desired above all things to root out this superstition from the land; and so, as there could be no Mass without a Mass-priest, all the efforts of those in power were directed towards extirpating all those who continued in spite of the laws to exercise their ministry, and to prevent others coming from abroad to continue their work, when they either perished on the scaffold, or worn out by the long continued persecution and constant searches for them, passed away in their hiding places. In England and in Ireland the record of this terrible time makes us wonder how it was possible that any remnant of the old religion could have survived.

Cecil, who was the master brain directing the policy of Queen Elizabeth, had counted upon the gradual extinction of the old Marian priesthood and the consequent eradication of the old Faith from the hearts of a people left without priest or teacher or Sacraments. From 1580 the coming of the Jesuits and seminary priests from abroad, to keep the light of the Faith alive if possible, in spite of fines and the rack and gallows, made it clear to the all-powerful minister that he had miscalculated the effect of his repressive policy. From that time the persecution began in earnest.

What contributed no doubt to increase the trials of the English and Irish Catholics was the embarrassing excommunication pronounced by Pope Pius V against Queen Elizabeth. It furnished the government with a weapon they were not slow to seize upon, by making it appear to the popular mind as if a political offence, if not a criminal treason, was connected with the exercise of the Catholic faith. Catholics for being Catholics were henceforth treated as traitors. For the last twenty years of this reign, with one exception, there were numerous executions for religion in England. Most of those who suffered thus were priests—Mass-priests as they were called in derision of their sacerdotal character. Thousands of men and women also were punished under the penal laws for the exercise of the old religion. Fines and imprisonment were the lot of those who refused at any price to accept the religious settlement of the sovereign—to accept the form of religion which their consciences refused. The sad records of this period show that many a Catholic family was impoverished and destroyed by the fines levied upon it. Gradually even great estates had to be sold to meet the demands of penal laws against recusancy—the refusal to attend the Protestant service. Then followed a long period of repression and ostracism. For two centuries the unfortunate papist was shut out of the life of the nation and subject to every insult and baseless accusation. One writer who lived during this period says of this system: "The experience of Elizabeth's reign had shown that the infliction of actual death roused a life-giving enthusiasm among Catholics themselves and sympathy in the witnesses of their sufferings. The penal system now introduced was the preference for gagging a man, binding him hand and foot, bandaging his eyes and imprisoning him for life, rather than killing him outright."

Everywhere throughout England and Ireland there was a stolid and heroic resistance to the imposition of the new form of State church on the part of those who remained true to the old religion. Looking back to those days of darkness and despair it seems impossible to believe that any remnant of those who would not bow their knees to Baal could survive the system by which it was hoped to crush them. And when liberty of conscience was at last accorded it was more in the spirit of compassion than in any expectation that they could revive and live again that it was given. As well might the world think that the worship of Pan or of Jupiter would spring again into life as that the poor, despised, dying Catholics could expand and grow once more into a position of respect and influence, reasserting and publicly upholding the principles of the Catholic Faith, for which their forefathers in England and Ireland had suffered persecution and even death.