Catholics persecuted during the reformation?

[jemfinch]

I’m having trouble coming up with specific examples of Catholics being persecuted by Protestants during the Reformation. Anyone have any examples?

Thanks,
Jeremy

 

[Ghosty]

I’m having trouble coming up with specific examples of Catholics being persecuted by Protestants during the Reformation. Anyone have any examples?

Thanks,
Jeremy

One example that immediately comes to mind is St. Thomas More, martyr in England. There are countless others, as well as laws against Catholics in Protestant countries, including the U.S., but that’s the one that pops into my head.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Unitas]

You can check this site out. I can’t gaurantee the accuracy of the info though.

 

[LilyM]

One example that immediately comes to mind is St. Thomas More, martyr in England. There are countless others, as well as laws against Catholics in Protestant countries, including the U.S., but that’s the one that pops into my head.

Peace and God bless!

Does the Thirty Years’ War (between Catholics and Protestants in Germany) count? It might be a little later than the Reformation.

 

[Rye-Guy]

Well, after watching the movie Luther, I found out that many of Luther’s followers massacred Catholics. And according to my art history professor in the reformed countries, like Holland, many Catholics faced difficulty because of their religious beliefs. Also, there are many instances in English history. After the establishment of the Anglican church (at least according to my history professor), Catholics were forced to convert or leave the country (at which point a few wealthy Catholic noblemen moved to the Americas and established Maryland where they eventually persecuted by the Protestant serf majority). But I guess the last two examples were after the Reformation…

 

[puzzleannie]

there is movie on the life of Queen Elizabeth I currently showing on cable, Helen Miren I believe is the name of the actress, which in brutal reality of detail shows the horrible methods of torture and execution perpetrated on Catholic priests and those who harbored and sheltered them in England during her reign. A good standard history of Tudor and Stuart England and the Puritan revolution would be a good starting point.

next move to Scotland, Netherlands, Switzerland, parts of Germany, anywhere the Covenant Reformed religion took hold (Calvinist, Presbyterian, Covenanters, Dutch Reformed etc.) for brutal treatment of Catholics, forced conversion, alienation of property, denial of civil rights, persecution and death.

Next treat the history of Germany–which was not a unified nationalist state at the time of the Lutheran reformation, but a collection of duchies and other minor principalities, the ruler of which decided the religion of its subjects, and imposed his will with all the brutality including capital punishment of the State. The history of the peasant’s revolt is a good case in point, and Luther’s savage calls for reprisals on them, many of whom rose up in defense of their religion, will shed light on the matter.

 

[I_Leatherman]

Laws In Ireland For The Suppression Of Popery - The Penal Laws

Sample …
8.01
7 Will III c.14 (1695):
An Act declaring which days in the year shall be observed as holy-days
Sec. 1. Whereas many idle persons refuse to work at their lawful calling on several days in the year, on pretence that the same is dedicated to some saint, or pretended saint, for whom they have or pretend to have reverence, and chuse to spend such days in idleness, drunkenness, and vice, to the scandal of religion, no other day except those days listed herein, or some other day set apart by order of his Majesty, shall be kept holy. Any common labourer or servant who shall refuse to work for the usual and accustomed wages on any other day, shall forfeit two shillings on conviction. If such offender fail to pay the fine, he shall be publickly whipped.

 

[FightingFat]

Edmund Campion is one of my favourite Saints. He wrote an fantastic appologia “Campion’s Brag” which ended: -

If these my offers be refused, and my endeavours can take no place, and I, having run thousands of miles to do you good, shall be rewarded with rigour. I have no more to say but to recommend your case and mine to Almighty God, the Searcher of Hearts, who send us his grace, and see us at accord before the day of payment, to the end we may at last be friends in heaven, when all injuries shall be forgotten.

He was hung drawn and quartered! :bigyikes:

 

[I_Leatherman]

And just one more since lots of debate happens here on these same topics - this is how that same prejudice can look when translated into an historical reality.

English Statute 3 & 4 Will and Mary c.2 (1691):
An Act for the Abrogating the Oath of Supremacy in Ireland and Appointing other Oaths
Sec. 4. Every person that shall become a barrister at law, attorney, clerk, or other officer of the court in Ireland shall take the oaths of allegiance and abhorrence, and make the declaration against transubstantiation in open court between nine and twelve in the forenoon, and said fact shall be recorded, before he shall be admitted to practice.
And all persons that shall be admitted into any office or employment, ecclesiastical or civil, who should have taken the oaths required by 1 Eliz. c. 1, shall take the said oaths and make said declaration.
Source:

English Statute 3 Will & Mary c.2 (1691):
An Act for the Abrogating the Oath of Supremacy in Ireland and Appointing other Oaths
Sec. 5-6. And for as much as great disquiet and many dangerous attempts have been made to deprive their Majesties of the said Realme of Ireland by the liberty which the Popish Recusants there have had to sit and vote in Parliament, no peer of that realm shall vote in the house of peers, nor shall any member of the house of commons vote or sit during any debate until he take said oaths and make the following declaration against transubstantiation.
Source:

English Statute 3 Will & Mary, c.2 (1691)
An Act for the Abrogating the Oath of Supremacy in Ireland and Appointing other Oaths
DECLARATION AGAINST TRANSUBSTANTIATION
Sec. 5-6 cont.
I, A.B., do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare, that I do believe that in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper there is not any transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever, and that the invocation or adoration of the virgin Mary or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the mass, as they are now used in the church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous.

 

[Al_Masetti]

I’m having trouble coming up with specific examples of Catholics being persecuted by Protestants during the Reformation. Anyone have any examples?

Thanks,
Jeremy

Although I’m sure there is some historical documentation, I can’t lay my hands on it at the moment. However, what I have read is that the notion of “haunted houses” arose from the “ghosts” of priests who were captured and killed in houses where they had been hiding.

Supposedly, people built hiding places into their homes with secret panels, bookcases that moved, and hidden staircases … all to allow priests to hide.

The civil authorities hunted down the priests and there were terrible consequences for the priests and those who supported them.

I’m sure there are books about this particular terrible persecution.

 

[VociMike]

You might try “The Stripping of the Altars” by Duffy. But I don’t know of any single work that discusses the subject across national boundries.

And then there is the situation of 400 years of anti-Catholic persecution here in America, starting with the earliest English colonies. Read up, for example, on what made Maryland so unique among the colonies in its tolerance of Catholicism.

newadvent.org/cathen/09755b.htm

And of course, one of the KKKs main targets was Catholicism. This is not Reformation-era history, but the bigotry and prejudice that caused the behavior stem directly from the Reformation.

 

[Contarini]

Well, after watching the movie Luther, I found out that many of Luther’s followers massacred Catholics.

I’d like to hear the specific evidence for this. I have not heard of such incidents, though there were certainly cases of sacrilege and violence (deplored by Luther, though of course his rhetoric was a contributing factor). But “massacres”? Not that I’ve heard of.

Catholics were executed as traitors in England, and some Carmelite friars were murdered in the Netherlands. And of course there were battles and riots in which both sides killed each other. I know that there was at least one instance of a Catholic being killed in a Protestant attack on a Eucharistic procession in France.

I am not saying that these are the only instances, but on the whole Catholics were not executed by Protestant governments on the Continent. And in England they were executed as traitors, not heretics (this is still persecution, of course).

“Milder” forms of persecution were far more common, however. Generally governments on either side did not allow freedom of worship to the other side unless forced to do so by political circumstances (the Protestant Netherlands and Catholic Poland were two major exceptions, though in the former instance Catholic churches had to be inconspicuous; there were many other places where tolerance was reached as a political deal, though it was always fragile and dependent on the balance of power in those cases). People typically would go out of the walls to worship in a nearby village or adjoining territory, and there were often rules requiring them to do so as individuals or in small groups. In many cases German cities or territories expelled members of the “other religion” wholesale, forcing them to move to the nearest friendly territory (remember that Germany was a patchwork of tiny territories at this point).

As a general rule, it’s fair to say that Protestants were more likely to direct violence and intolerance toward Catholic worship and sacred objects (including the persons of clergy and religious!!!), while Catholics were more likely to be affronted by the mere existence of Protestants within their territories. Protestants did not generally apply the category of “heresy” to Catholics, because it was understood that heresy was a rejection of the established, traditional faith and Protestants would have looked silly trying to persecute Catholics for heresy. Protestants did, however, regard Catholic worship as idolatrous and blasphemous, and when possible they forbade it. And of course in England Catholicism came to be equated with treason.

Here are some specific names, all of them from England:

John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, beheaded as a traitor under Henry VIII
Thomas More, ditto
A number of English Carthusians (I don’t know their names off the top of my head), hung, drawn, and quartered under Henry
Edmund Campion, hung, drawn, and quartered as a traitor under Elizabeth
Robert Southwell, ditto

There are of course a lot more, including one woman who was pressed to death (i.e., squashed by heavy weights) for harboring priests (and presumably refusing to plead either innocent or guilty–this was a way an accused person could avoid the confiscation of their family property). I don’t remember her name but I’m sure folks on this board can fill you in. I believe there were several hundred Catholics in all executed as traitors in England.

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

next move to Scotland, Netherlands, Switzerland, parts of Germany, anywhere the Covenant Reformed religion took hold (Calvinist, Presbyterian, Covenanters, Dutch Reformed etc.) for brutal treatment of Catholics, forced conversion, alienation of property, denial of civil rights, persecution and death.

These are sweeping allegations with no specifics. I do not know of any Catholic executed for religious reasons on the Continent (I don’t remember the details of the Dutch Carmelites, but I think that was a massacre). Of course the Mass was abolished wherever Protestants could manage it. But actual killing (of Catholics) was quite rare on the Protestant side except in England.

Next treat the history of Germany–which was not a unified nationalist state at the time of the Lutheran reformation, but a collection of duchies and other minor principalities, the ruler of which decided the religion of its subjects, and imposed his will with all the brutality including capital punishment of the State. The history of the peasant’s revolt is a good case in point, and Luther’s savage calls for reprisals on them, many of whom rose up in defense of their religion, will shed light on the matter.

The peasants were not killed for being Catholic, and most of them would have identified themselves with the Reformation. Intra-Protestant persecution (mostly of “radicals” by the “Magisterial” Protestants) is a completely different matter. Also, since the peasants were engaged in an armed uprising, their repression (horrible as it was) isn’t exactly a religious persecution, just because they were inspired by religious (not Catholic!) ideas.

“Denial of civil rights” is a questionable concept since universal civil rights wasn’t really a sixteenth-century idea.

Edwin

 

[Malcolm_McLean]

There are of course a lot more, including one woman who was pressed to death (i.e., squashed by heavy weights) for harboring priests (and presumably refusing to plead either innocent or guilty–this was a way an accused person could avoid the confiscation of their family property). I don’t remember her name but I’m sure folks on this board can fill you in. I believe there were several hundred Catholics in all executed as traitors in England.

Margaret Clitheroe. Her house in York is now a shrine. It is in a very old street known as the Shambles.

 

[Contarini]

You might try “The Stripping of the Altars” by Duffy. But I don’t know of any single work that discusses the subject across national boundries.

*Salvation at Stake, *by Brad Gregory (a Catholic), discusses martyrdom and persecution throughout Europe in the sixteenth century (though he focuses on the earlier stuff so doesn’t talk as much as he might about the Elizabethan martyrs, if I remember rightly). He deals with all the confessional groups, so this is the best way to get an overview of who persecuted whom. However, he’s more interested in studying attitudes than in compiling statistics. As far as I know there is no comprehensive, scholarly discussion of the subject. I once dreamed of writing such a work, but I’ve gone in a different direction–and frankly it would be a huge and unpleasant task.

Edwin

 

[Sixtus]

One example that immediately comes to mind is St. Thomas More, martyr in England.

There are the 40 martyrs of England and Wales, these were the most notable ones. But these were only a small number of the total who were executed: St Robert Southwell, St John Fisher, Bl Henry Walpole, Thomas Ford, John Skirt, Thomas Hemerford, John Nutter, John Munden, William Filby, Lawrance Richardson, Robert Johnson, Thomas CottomAlexander Bryant SJ, George Haydock, Bl Robert Fisher-who was still dressed in his vestments for mass when taken, imprisoned and tortured, Blessed Edmond Campion SJ and his companions, Bl Augustinian Eebster, Bl Richared Reynolds, Bl John Hale, Bl John Houghton, Bl Robert Lawrence, layman Robert Rudston. Dr Lawrence Cooke, John Prine,Adam Sedbar, Thomas Fitzgerald- 9th earl of Kildare and his 5 uncles, Bl Philip Howard- Earl of Arundel, Lord Stafford and 25-others, to name but a few.

Most were not arrested in isolation, with them there were often their deacons and members of the laity such as sacristans,

The current Duke of Norfolk and Earl Marshall of England is a notable Catholic his ancestors built the Catholic Cathedral of the diocese of East Anglia. His ancestor was also executed for being a priest

A great many of the priests who suffered were missionaries and had no interest in politics. They were simply Catholics.

Tower records recall the name of the poor unfortunate who was sent there to be racked. The names of the chief interrogator and those sent to assist him by operating the apparatus
There were literally thousands who were arrested and imprisoned. Many were not as fortunate as St Thomas More, they had the ignomy of being racked until their limbs popped out from their sockets, then they were hanged gently so as to cause slow strangulation to prolong the agony and no doubt entertain the spectators as a deterrence.

Then when the poor unfortunate had stopped kicking and was about to become unconcious to pain, they were cut down and given time to recover.

Once fully recovered, they were then stretched out, their stomach ripped open and their intestines kidneys and bowel removed. Then they were dismembered.

There was an elderly Augustinian Friar whose name I no longer recall. As he was frail, he was gently assisted to the scaffold and handled with care before he was disemboweled, so as not to cause him any more trauma than was absolutely necessary!

There was also someone who was roasted alive on a spit in the market place of the town where he lived. Again his name escapes me.

Most were Jesuits but not exclusively, there were Carmelites, Dominicans Augustinians, The Charterhouse, and many more of the minor orders,

 

[thomon16]

For Catholics persecuted in Elizabethan England:

Alice Hogge, GOD’S SECRET AGENTS. Queen Elizabeth’s
Forbidden Priests and the Hatching of the Gunpowder Plot.
NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 2005.

This author does a good job of documenting the anti-(Roman)
Catholicism of the period, but she paints the persecution of
Catholics as an English effort to “defend the state” against
Vatican “secret agents”, especially English Jesuits.

 

[Contarini]

For Catholics persecuted in Elizabethan England:

Alice Hogge, GOD’S SECRET AGENTS. Queen Elizabeth’s
Forbidden Priests and the Hatching of the Gunpowder Plot.
NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 2005.

This author does a good job of documenting the anti-(Roman)
Catholicism of the period, but she paints the persecution of
Catholics as an English effort to “defend the state” against
Vatican “secret agents”, especially English Jesuits.

Of course it was. The modern state is a blasphemous monstrosity and the Gunpowder Plotters would have done well to blow it (but not of course the human beings found in the Houses of Parliament) sky high. . .

Edwin

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

For Catholics persecuted in Elizabethan England:

Alice Hogge, GOD’S SECRET AGENTS. Queen Elizabeth’s
Forbidden Priests and the Hatching of the Gunpowder Plot.
NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 2005.

This author does a good job of documenting the anti-(Roman)
Catholicism of the period, but she paints the persecution of
Catholics as an English effort to “defend the state” against
Vatican “secret agents”, especially English Jesuits.

Many of them - certainly not all - were traitors. Quite rightly, many of these were executed.​

The severe measures taken by Elizabeth I against traitors who pleaded religion as the cause of their crimes - Catholic *or *Protestant - were and are perfectly defensible.

What people appear to forget is that the Papacy is not & was not purely religious, but a Church *and *a state; not just a Church. And

• that Ireland had been a Papal fief for a good while, and was still claimed as one.
• that Ireland was well-placed to be a back door for a Papal army
• that a number of Jesuits had been plotting to bring in Philip II and dethrone the Queen
• that there was a string of disloyal acts by Catholics from 1570 to 1586, from the Rising in the North to the Babington Plot.
• that James VI of Scotland had been regarded by some as a possible alternative to the King of Spain (he managed to keep a lot of people guessing about his beliefs; in view of the unsettled religious (& so, political) conditions in Scotland, this was unsurprising).
• that as long as Mary Queen of Scots was in England, she was a focus for any Catholics tempted to restore Catholicism in England by force.
• that the Pope had deposed Elizabeth I in 1570 and thereby made all English Catholics into potential traitors.
  The equation of credal with political loyalty, however alien it may be to us now, was not alien then: it had a history of 1200 years to go on. And the union of ecclesiastical & political power in the persons of the Popes did nothing to give the impression that Catholics could be loyal to a Protestant ruler. That there was a credibility problem for Catholics in England or Scotland, is largely the fault of the Popes. ##

 

[Liberian]

I’m having trouble coming up with specific examples of Catholics being persecuted by Protestants during the Reformation. Anyone have any examples?

Jeremy,

Here is an excellent article.

catholic.com/thisrock/2006/0607fea1.asp

• Liberian