Persecutions

[luciasclay]

In the case of the protestant reformation I’ve read many stories about violence against protestants by catholics in an attempt to put down heresey. Foxes book of martyrs being the most familiar one to me.

But I know that equally true was the fact that it was the backing of the German princes and the King of England that allowed the reformation to succeed. And I have on occasion read of things the protestants did against catholics.

The protestants, my extended family most noteably, portray the protestants as pure as the wind driven snow and suffering endlessly at the hands of “those evil catholics”.

Are the violent persecutions against catholics by protestants documented anywhere ?

 

[Sir_Anthony]

well, there are a bunch of English martyrs from the Elizabethan period (and back to her father Henry VIII who had beheaded Thomas More and John Fisher). Also, I am sure many of those witches in the witch burnings in Protestant countries were probably Catholics too (don’t hold it against me if wrong). In England, they passed numerous laws restricting property and the livelihood of Irish Catholics. In fact to this day, a Catholic cannot inherit the English throne. And there were widespread persecutions after Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot which was inspired by James I persecution of Catholics and Catholic Anglicans (a lot of peasantry was probably doing Catholic devotional that inherited). In America, the Catholics fleeing persecution settled in Maryland (guess who is it named after), however the toleration was shortlived as the congregationalists eventually moved to Maryland as well and imposed their own restriction on Catholics living there. I am sure in Calvin’s Geneva and Luther’s “Germany” probably had persecutions too, but I mostly know English side of history as oppose to the Germans. In addition almost all monasteries and convents were suppressed, destroyed, and confiscated by Protestant princes (usually this was by popular demand as the Church held some of the richest lands in Europe), destroying their libraries, architecture and so much more. I wish I could get that DeLorean to reach 88mph to just go back then and look at the Abbey of Glastonberry and perhaps see the fabled tomb of King Arthur, and visit the monastery at Jarrow were the Venerable Bede once sat.

 

[santodomingo]

Hello,
Being British, I automatically think of the XVI century under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. I assume you know about the martyrdom of Saint Thomas More. Here´s an interesting article;

newadvent.org/cathen/14689c.htm

For a general overview of religious persecution of catholics in England during this period read;

newadvent.org/cathen/05445a.htm

Catholics since then, until at least the end of the XIX century, were considered and treated as second-class citizens. The irony of life is that, according to the latest statistics, in England there are now more practising catholics than Church of England christians.

 

[luciasclay]

Good stuff, frankly I’m not aware of much of it. Though my extended family look at the Anglicans and Church of England as being “pretty much the same thing as Catholics”. The Great Reformers for them largely come from Germany etc. In England they only look to those like the Puritans etc. But ironically they also view Lutherans as “being pretty close to Catholics too”

Maryland I’ll look into. As goofy as it sounds I never connected its name with Mary.

Are there any RC publications that document these things in a nice easy to reference compendium ?

I am enjoying a book “Characthers of the Reformation”.

 

[cthulhubryan]

Catholics in Bavaria fell under great persecution after unification with Germany, especially during the cultural struggle of Otto Von Bismark in the 1880’s.

To this day Bavaria remains strongly Catholic including a certain former Cardinal you may have heard of.

 

[FCEGM]

In the case of the protestant reformation I’ve read many stories about violence against protestants by catholics in an attempt to put down heresey. Foxes book of martyrs being the most familiar one to me.

But I know that equally true was the fact that it was the backing of the German princes and the King of England that allowed the reformation to succeed. And I have on occasion read of things the protestants did against catholics.

The protestants, my extended family most noteably, portray the protestants as pure as the wind driven snow and suffering endlessly at the hands of “those evil catholics”.

Are the violent persecutions against catholics by protestants documented anywhere ?

These two books by Eamon Duffy might be of interest: The Stripping of the Altars, and The Voices of Morebath, and also have a look at Evelyn Waugh’s classic, Edmund Campion.

 

[luciasclay]

I am continuing researching in this area. I have found this work relating to the English side of things to be most useful. The book of the Roman-Catholic Church: in letters addressed to R. Southey on his ‘Book of the Church’. By Charles Butler, Robert Southey

books.google.com/books?id=ss0GAAAAQAAJ

Still hunting a good work on the German side of things though. German abuses against the Church and protestant on protestant persecutions.

In a related but separate topic I found it surprising that in the unabridged copies of Foxes he argues in support of Constantine and that the ecclesiastical people were always beholden to their magistrate rulers for things temporal and ecclesiastical. By this he is of course arguing against Rome and showing why its fully correct for the British crown to now be in charge of the Church. That part was never included in the copies of his work that I grew up with. Modern protestants don’t subscribe to that idea any more but still like to refer to Foxes. Funny how editing always removes the parts that are the most troublesome