Has the Catholic Church ever received compensation from the Church of England?

[GKMotley]

I salute a fellow bookman.

My interest in the Tudor era grew out of a much milder, wider interest in English history and took on a focus around the rotund figure of Hank, the Fascinating Train Wreck. But that mania has been waning of late, and the shelves dedicated to immediate Tudor/pre-Tudor/post Tudor (a few decades each way), maybe 175 titles not in storage, are shrinking, and yielding place to the massive WWII hordes of titles. Bernard’s THE KING’S REFORMATION and Guy’s TUDOR ENGLAND sit atop the reading stack, untouched. Maybe their day will come.

 

[Krisdun]

Exactly there were Catholic dioceses (together with their churches and assets) in England which were ‘taken over’ by the Church of England. But did the CoE or State offer any help to the Catholic Church to re-establish its own dioceses and churches afterwards?

 

[LilyM]

I salute a fellow bookman.

My interest in the Tudor era grew out of a much milder, wider interest in English history and took on a focus around the rotund figure of Hank, the Fascinating Train Wreck. But that mania has been waning of late, and the shelves dedicated to immediate Tudor/pre-Tudor/post Tudor (a few decades each way), maybe 175 titles not in storage, are shrinking, and yielding place to the massive WWII hordes of titles. Bernard’s THE KING’S REFORMATION and Guy’s TUDOR ENGLAND sit atop the reading stack, untouched. Maybe their day will come.

Trainwreck? Absolutely. Fascinating? The man was massively ego-driven, insecure, childish, selfish and cruel, did away with pretty much anyone around him who was worth anything in terms of brains or talent, and in the end a miserable hypochondriac paranoiac.

Missed anything?

I don’t find him fascinating, as I’m sure you can tell.

 

[Jbrady]

Ah, much of my youth was misspent in Deptford, and it positively reeks with (a) history and (b) Deptford Creek.

My student was living on Trundley’s Road near Bestwood, and has just moved to Greenwich. His building is right on the shore of Deptford Creek, right by the swinging bridge and that odd statue of Peter the Great.

I really enjoyed visiting Deptford, and, knowing the history made me feel right at home.

 

[PickyPicky]

But did the CoE or State offer any help to the Catholic Church to re-establish its own dioceses and churches afterwards?

Certainly not. When Queen Mary succeeded to the throne and took the English Church back into Catholicism, did she offer any help to the Anglicans to re-establish their own churches and dioceses afterwards?

We’re talking about the 16th Century. Ecumenism was not all the rage in those days. There was no love lost.

 

[GKMotley]

Yep. Fascinating.

You pick your interests, I’ll pick mine. I get to do that. I pay for the books.

 

[LilyM]

Yep. Fascinating.

You pick your interests, I’ll pick mine. I get to do that. I pay for the books.

Fair enough

 

[Krisdun]

When Queen Mary succeeded to the throne and took the English Church back into Catholicism, did she offer any help to the Anglicans to re-establish their own churches and dioceses afterwards?

We have to take into consideration that the Anglicans were the ones who decided to split from the Catholic Church. Instead of taking over Catholic dioceses/churches they could have built their own churches.

 

[PickyPicky]

We have to take into consideration that the Anglicans were the ones who decided to split from the Catholic Church. Instead of taking over Catholic dioceses/churches they could have built their own churches

We have to take into consideration the fact that they believed that what they were taking over was their own church.

 

[PickyPicky]

My student was living on Trundley’s Road near Bestwood, and has just moved to Greenwich. His building is right on the shore of Deptford Creek, right by the swinging bridge and that odd statue of Peter the Great

Ah, moved upmarket, then. Actually I see Deptford is now gentrifying fast.

 

[Krisdun]

We have to take into consideration the fact that they believed that what they were taking over was their own church.

Unfortunately it was not their ‘own’ church that they were taking over but one which belonged under the guidance of the Pope.

 

[PickyPicky]

Unfortunately it was not their ‘own’ church that they were taking over but one which belonged under the guidance of the Pope.

Yes, that would be a Catholic view (at the appropriate level of theological certainty).

Myself I think both views are correct. It was their church, and it was the Pope’s. History is like that.

 

[GKMotley]

Complicated, that is.

 

[Paul_Edwards]

Paul_Edwards:

If today the crown or government started randomly taking people’s land of them and saying “you don’t live here anymore” there would be an uproar, and rightly, and no court of human rights would support the act.

If today, for you, is during the dissolution of the monasteries, you need to stop living in the past.

Ok, so it wouldn’t matter if those homes were take because in 500 years people would have forgotten about it? As a matter of justice it makes no difference.

 

[Paul_Edwards]

We have to take into consideration the fact that they believed that what they were taking over was their own church.

So if today a group of lay people who attend their geographical parish decide they want to join another religion, they should remain there because it’s “their” Church? They can say “this is my church”? That doesn’t hold up. The laity in a parish don’t get to make that claim.

 

[PickyPicky]

So if today a group of lay people who attend their geographical parish decide they want to join another religion, they should remain there because it’s “their” Church? They can say “this is my church”? That doesn’t hold up. The laity in a parish don’t get to make that claim.

But of course the clergy of the English church were not laity.

In any case I am decidedly not laying down the law about how people should follow their faith. I am trying to understand history. The truth about history is important, and warping it to our own point of view is wrong not only because truth is important of itself, but also because warped history is the seedbed for prejudice and conflict.

The history of the English church in the early modern period is complicated, like most history. There were no white hats and no black hats. Pretending otherwise has caused enough trouble, enough bloodshed.

 

[Krisdun]

Out of interest and relevant to this thread I did come across this Catholic church in England which is over 800 years old - it was gifted back to the Catholic Church from the CoE in the 1970s as an ‘ecumenical gesture’;

St Leonard & St Mary Roman Catholic Church

Also some Anglican churches (which were Catholic Churches prior to the reformation) were purchased back by Catholics and have been subsequently converted back into Catholic Parishes. One example is St Etheldreda’s Church in London.

 

[LilyM]

Kaninchen:

Paul_Edwards:

If today the crown or government started randomly taking people’s land of them and saying “you don’t live here anymore” there would be an uproar, and rightly, and no court of human rights would support the act.

If today, for you, is during the dissolution of the monasteries, you need to stop living in the past.

Ok, so it wouldn’t matter if those homes were take because in 500 years people would have forgotten about it? As a matter of justice it makes no difference.

As a matter of justice the land I live on was taken from indigenous Australians 200 years ago. I have put years of time, effort.and money into it. And I work closely with the. local indigenous community in ways that I trust and hope.benefit them.

They are not asking me for compensation for what persons unknown to me did with their ancestors land generations ago. As a matter of justice I do not owe them any.

By the way, the vast majority of crines including theft of property DO have time limits on their prosecutions. Because as a matter of justice one has to draw a line under them, and making someone pay for sins committed by someone else 200 or 500 years ago is unjust.

 

[Padres1969]

I mean when it gets right down to it, is the Catholic Church prepared to give back buildings such as the Pantheon in Rome that it converted into a church from Pagans?

Of course not. We’re centuries removed from what isn’t even necessarily a wrong in either case. This is a borderline interesting thought exercise, but reality is, the CoE is never giving the bulk of its properties back, and the RCC isn’t asking for them. And the above example is a good reason why. The RCC would be opening a can of worms that could lead to it losing thousands of properties world wide that it has acquired over the last 2000 years through what we’d consider today to be morally wrong if not legally wrong.

 

[PickyPicky]

I mean when it gets right down to it, is the Catholic Church prepared to give back buildings such as the Pantheon in Rome that it converted into a church from Pagans

Pope St Gregory famously told St Augustine of Canterbury to convert pagan temples into Christian churches.