Catholic Vestiges

In a recent visit to the cathedrals of England we encountered the traces of the prior occupant: the Catholic Church. Here and there the memory – and sometimes the tombs – of the medieval saints are preserved. For the devotion to the saints was and still is characteristic of the Catholic Church in England. Many of the great cathedrals owe their architectural splendor to the medieval pilgrims who thronged to the graves of the saints revered there.

Of course, the most famous saint was Thomas Becket. His shrine in Canterbury Cathedral was the main pilgrimage destination of England – as immortalized by Geoffrey Chaucer.

(Above and below) The place in Canterbury Cathedral where St. Thomas Becket’s magnificent shrine once stood. The Church of England seems to have no difficulty in commemorating “St. Thomas of Canterbury” – whose cult in England was extirpated by that denomination’s founder.

(Above and below) Where St. Thomas was martyred.

Saints often had been outstanding bishops of their diocese and leaders both in Church and state. (Above) The (former) tomb of St. Osmund in Salisbury Cathedral: pilgrims could see or touch the relics of the saint through the openings. The famous reliquary was destroyed in the Reformation. (Below) The tomb of St. William, the patron saint of York. (York Cathedral)

Durham Cathedral still contains the tombs of two early English (Anglo-Saxon) saints. (Above) Saint Cuthbert (ca. 634 – 687) (Below) The tomb of Venerable Bede (672/3 – 735) in the “Galilee” chapel. They both were instrumental in the founding and consolidation of the Catholic Church in England. The relics of both had been translated (moved) to Durham early in the Middle Ages.

Such was the faith of Catholics in medieval England. But what of the age of the Reformation and beyond?

Canterbury Cathedral still houses the grave of another more recent Catholic archbishop. Cardinal Reginald Pole, the last Roman Catholic archbishop of Canterbury, was one of the most outstanding prelates of Europe and even was considered for the papacy. He was archbishop under Queen Mary I and supported her in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to restore Catholicism as the official faith of England. The extent to which he was involved in her campaign against heretics is disputed. But scholars like Eamon Duffy think that despite this “failure” of a Catholic restoration, Mary and Pole planted the seeds fof the recusant resistance of the next 270 years. Tragically, Pole died in 1558 while under bitter attack by the possibly crazy Pope Paul IV.

(Above) The tomb of Cardinal Pole in Canterbury Cathedral.

(Above) The tomb of the repudiated Queen Catherine of Aragon in Peterborough Cathedral (up to the time of Henry VIII, an abbey). She was buried here in 1536. Her tomb was subsequently destroyed by the Puritans – the existing decorative slab is a contribution of the late 19th century. We should reflect on her life and its lessons for the Church of Amoris Laetitia. A second tragic Catholic queen, Mary Queen of Scots, was once also buried in Peterborough. But her son, King James I, eventually had her body moved to Westminster Abbey after he ascended the English throne in 1603.

(Above) A list of the martyrs of York displayed in the York Oratory (Roman Catholic!)

The English Catholic Church especially reveres the martyrs of the Reformation period onward. Their relics, of course, are not found in Anglican cathedrals! One of the chief of these was Margeret Clitherow of York. She was put to death in a particularly gruesome manner in 1586 (she was pressed or crushed to death). A relic of her survives in the Bar Convent ( a clandestine convent and school established in the 17th century by the Mary Ward sisters)

(Above ) A chapel of St. Margeret Clitherow in the picturesque “Shambles” of York. This was thought to have been her house – but a subsequent renumbering of the houses on the street had been ignored. Her real house still exists, across the street from the chapel. Note the arrangement of the altar….. (Below) The relic of St. Margertet Clitherow – her hand – in the chapel of the Bar Convent.

Finally, not a tomb, but, like the Bar Convent, an ancient reminder of the penal times. The former chapel of the Bavarian embassy – now known as the Church of Our Lady of the Assumptionn and St. Gregory – dates to the period when London Catholics could only worship in chapels of embassies of Catholic countries. The Bavarian chapel, after having been destroyed by the mobs of the anti-Catholic Gordon riots of 1780, was rebuilt around 1790. It is thus one of the oldest Catholic churches built after the Reformation in England. It was, however, extensively redecorated in the 19th century. After a number of recent vicissitudes, it has been entrusted to the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. As in the case of the chapel of St. Margeret Clitherow, please note the arrangement of the altar.

These mementos of the English martyrs and the sufferings of the penal times are especially relevent to traditionalists. For we are still officially persecuted – this time by the establishment of our own church. Reflection on the history of the Catholic Church in England helps put our situation in perspective. Consider the surrender of almost the entire English hierarchy under Henry VIII – except for one bishop, St. John Fisher of Rochester. The persecution of Catholics that began then lasted, with a few reprieves, almost 300 years! And if physical violence had (mostly) died down after the 17th century, at all times in these years English Catholics were denounced, segregated, and excluded from most aspects of public life. Yet they persevered and in the 19th century a Catholic renaissance did indeed take place. One of the main spiritual leaders of that recovery, St. John Henry Newman, is about to be made a doctor of the Church. But this renewal was only possible by virtue of previous generations of Catholics who had kept the faith through seeemingly hopeless times. And also by the sacrifice of so many who paid the ultimate price for that faith.