Catholic Martyrs of the Protestant Reformation?

[pnewton]

For the persecutors, I think it is true that politics mattered more for the Protestant side–not as clear on the Catholic side. But for the martyrs on both sides, it very much was about theology.

I wonder if Protestants think that that politics mattered more with the Catholic persecutors? I know every time the Inquisition is brought up, the importance of politics is presented as a defense. I find it hard not to be consistent in this position.

 

[Picky_Picky]

I wonder if Protestants think that that politics mattered more with the Catholic persecutors? I know every time the Inquisition is brought up, the importance of politics is presented as a defense. I find it hard not to be consistent in this position.

Very difficult, this. Speaking as a non-Protestant I would say that the Protestants burned under Henry VIII were executed for religious reasons, although Henry almost certainly did not distinguish religious and political. Those hundreds of Protestants burned under Mary I were executed for religious reasons, I would say, although it has to be recognised that Mary came to the throne by defeating the coup staged on behalf of the Protestant Jane, so again the two things will not have been quite separate in her mind. The executions of Catholics under Elizabeth I were few in number until the papal bull Regnans in Excelsis made Catholicism and treason effectively indistinguishable, so when they came they were as political as they were religious, I think.

 

[Picky_Picky]

I realise I have said “burned” for H8 and Mary1, but “executed” for Eliz. 1. That almost certainly represents a bias. Obviously there were some executed but not burned under H8 and Mary, predominantly for political purposes. These things are difficult to divide. Jane Grey was executed for political reasons, but she thought she stood for Protestanism. Thomas More was executed for political reasons, but he thought he stood for the Church.

 

[HollyDolly]

There was also Blessed Margaret Plantagenet Pole Countess of Salisbury.
She was a cousin of Henry the Eigth and served as a governess to the Princess Mary later
known as Bloody Mary. Her son was Cardinal Reginald Pole. Claims were made that she was sympathetic to the Pilgrimage of Grace which was against Henry’s religious policies etc. So she later was arrested and put in the Tower of London. When it can time for her execution,she told the headsman she was no traitor and that he could try to get her head as best he could. The executioner chased her around the block hacking at her until he finally took her head off.

 

[GKC]

Very difficult, this. Speaking as a non-Protestant I would say that the Protestants burned under Henry VIII were executed for religious reasons, although Henry almost certainly did not distinguish religious and political. Those hundreds of Protestants burned under Mary I were executed for religious reasons, I would say, although it has to be recognised that Mary came to the throne by defeating the coup staged on behalf of the Protestant Jane, so again the two things will not have been quite separate in her mind. The executions of Catholics under Elizabeth I were few in number until the papal bull Regnans in Excelsis made Catholicism and treason effectively indistinguishable, so when they came they were as political as they were religious, I think.

Politics and religion inextricably intertwined, in the day. And for days to come, on both sides.

GKC

 

[Contarini]

I wonder if Protestants think that that politics mattered more with the Catholic persecutors? I know every time the Inquisition is brought up, the importance of politics is presented as a defense. I find it hard not to be consistent in this position.

Well, some Catholics on this forum claim that heresy was simply seen as treason, which isn’t true. (Innocent III said it was treason against Christ, which isn’t the same thing.) They were separate crimes.

The idea that heretics were really punished for their offenses against civil order is an old one. Thomas More (as someone pointed out to me on this forum some time ago) made the argument that if heretics had been quiet and law-abiding they never would have been prosecuted, and Luther and other Protestants gave public order as the reason for their move toward persecuting Anabaptists after having denounced the Catholic Church for persecuting heretics. But I think it’s clear that the Catholic Church (and less frequently Protestants also, as with the burning of Servetus and some executions of radicals in England) did execute people for heresy as a crime in and of itself. Yes, it was disruptive of public order, but not necessarily in ways that modern people would recognize. That is to say, the mere practice of a different form of Christianity was taken to be incompatible with a godly order, and this was in large part because one of the responsibilities of civil rulers was to ensure favorable conditions for the salvation of the souls of their subjects.

Edwin