L
Londoner
Guest
I tend to think of the UK as a special case. England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland were all Catholic countries until the events of the sixteenth century. Indeed, devotion to Our Lady was so strong in England that we were called Our Lady’s Dowry. Historians have now shown that Catholicism remained popular among the ordinary English people right up until the Reformation imposed from above by Henry VIII for pragmatic reasons. Mary was highly successful in restoring Catholicism after the death of her brother Edward VI. Catholicism of course remained the majority religion in Ireland, and remains the majority religion on the island of Ireland (part of which is claimed as part of the UK) to this day.
It is my view that Henry VIII and his Protestant successors essentially stole the Catholic Church in England and Wales (and to some extent Ireland) and established Protestant kingdoms of questionable legitimacy. When Henry VIII broke with Rome he didn’t have the decency to establish a new, parallel Protestant hierarchy, with Protestant cathedrals, parishes, etc. No, he stole our bishops, our clergy, our episcopal sees, our dioceses, parishes, cathedrals, and churches. He dissolved our monasteries. Do not forget that Westminster Abbey, where the monarch is crowned, was founded as a Catholic monastery. Do not forget that St Augustine was a Catholic bishop sent as a missionary to Britain by our Catholic Pope Gregory the Great. Today, Justin Welby sits in the stolen Chair of St Augustine in the stolen Canterbury Cathedral, where Henry VIII destroyed our Catholic shrine to our Catholic saint Thomas Becket.
I cannot help feeling that England is a historically Catholic nation and that the Church of England and all monarchs after the Act of Settlement (enacted specifically to exclude Catholics from the throne) have usurped our ancient Church and our ancient kingdom. It is one thing recognising a non-Christian ruler, such as the Roman emperor, the president of the United States, or the emperor of Japan, but quite another recognising a monarchy that has usurped the throne of a Catholic kingdom.
