If Henry the VIII were alive today, would he be Catholic?

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JustaServant said:
What say you?
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Henry the VIII was Catholic when he was alive. And indeed considered himself so until he died. So I suspect yes.

Just a question, you’ve been asking this question a lot regarding historical figures. May I ask to what end?
 
Padres1969 said:
Henry the VIII was Catholic when he was alive. And indeed considered himself so until he died. So I suspect yes.

Just a question, you’ve been asking this question a lot regarding historical figures. May I ask to what end?
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He broke w/ the Pope’s sovereignty over
the Church and declared HIMSELF to be
the head of the Church in England, how
can he be considered ROMAN Catholic?
 
GLam8833 said:
He broke w/ the Pope’s sovereignty over
the Church and declared HIMSELF to be
the head of the Church in England, how
can he be considered ROMAN Catholic?
Click to expand...
More-so, how can the universal, i.e., Catholic church, just exist in England?
 
Since all his wives would have died by now, the mess up with the annulments would be gone so I think he would be Catholic today.
 
GLam8833 said:
He broke w/ the Pope’s sovereignty over
the Church and declared HIMSELF to be
the head of the Church in England, how
can he be considered ROMAN Catholic?
Click to expand...
The question wasn’t if he would have been Roman Catholic.

Plus, Henry by all accounts didn’t consider the Church in England that he was head of as being a distinct church from the Catholic church as a whole.
 
JustaServant said:
What say you?
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Well, if Henry VIII were alive today, there probably wouldn’t be a Henry VIII, just a Henry Tudor, exploring a career in the Roman Catholic Church while his brother, Arthur, reigned as King Arthur I ( medicine and physical hygiene has much advanced since the early 1500s). He might well be a famous churchman, in point of fact.
 
adamhovey1988 said:
Well, I wouldn’t think too much about it. It’s not worth losing your head over.
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:rotfl:

(get it? rolling detached head)

As I am sure many of us are aware, Henry VIII was pretty darn Catholic (nominally I think most of us would also agree). He had a profound love and commitment to the old Church - he just needed an heir / divorce / decree of nullity. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Henry really took on Luther on more than one occasion.

That said, there were obviously many English who were genuinely sympathetic to the ideals of the Reformation - going back to the days of John Wycliffe (14th-15th century):
In 1401 England’s parliament instituted death by fire for heresy, and in 1407 English language Bibles were banned. Followers of Wycliffe were arrested and imprisoned, especially those followers who had been associated with Oxford University. Pope Alexander V issued a papal edict that moved the Church against the threat to Church authority by scripture not in Latin – the language special to the priesthood. The works of Wycliffe were burned.
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I think Anglicanism caught fire (no pun intended) simply because it was in the right place at the right time. Nothing to do with Henry VIII, who I would actually see as more Catholic. He just rode the wave to his advantage.
 
Probably only if he could have kept on marrying and divorcing his wives whenever he wanted. Other than that, no, he would remain estranged from the Roman Catholic Church.
 
I surely don’t think he would. Always seemed to me, he was into religion because he could use it in a political way. He never made a sincere impression to me. Loads of royalty who don’t strike me as particular devout, the most of them could probably have been muslim, Lutheran, atheist or Eastern Orthodox if that would’ve had great benefits for them. So no, I really don’t think he would be a catholic if he was alive today.
 
That’s a good question. I wonder if many of the controversial or downright evil Popes of yesteryear would be Catholic today. Or how about some of the Anti-popes?
 
He would not be Catholic. He was too stubborn and selfish. That is why he rejected the Church in the first place.
 
Adonia said:
Probably only if he could have kept on marrying and divorcing his wives whenever he wanted. Other than that, no, he would remain estranged from the Roman Catholic Church.
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Though Hank has been a hobby of mine for lo these 20 years (give or take a fortnight), I don’t think this game is worth playing. Too many undefined circumstances, too many assumptions, too many variables, too many dubious analogies to the then/now relationships between the secular and religious power structures required. Or the criticality of the problem of dynastic succession at the time, etc and so on. History is complicated. Too complicated to try this sort of thing on, with a straight face. But let all players who are having fun carry on, to be sure.

Decree of nullity.
 
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