As mentioned in an earlier post, I am speaking tomorrow, along with Joanna Bogle and Father Dwight Longenecker, at a conference on English Catholicism in Greenville, South Carolina. Providentially the date of the conference coincides with the feast day of two English Martyrs.

Saint Alban Roe was born in 1583 in the Suffolk town of Bury St Edmunds, which, as its name suggests, was the shrine of an earlier English martyr, killed by the pagan Danes. Raised in a conformist Anglican home, he visited the Abbey of St Alban (the first English martyr), which was being used to imprison Catholics. Following a discussion with an unknown prisoner, he was inspired to study the claims of the Church and converted to the Faith of his forefathers. He left for France to study for the priesthood and was accepted into a community of English Benedictines, who had been forced into exile during the reign of Henry VIII. Returning to England, he ministered to Catholic prisoners until his arrest. He was hanged on January 21, 1642, the year in which England was plunged into its fratricidal Civil War.

Blessed Nicholas Woodfen was born at Leominster in Herefordshire in around 1550. He studied for the priesthood at the English College at Rheims in France and was ordained by the Bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne on the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25), 1581. The newly-ordained priest returned to England and ministered to lawyers and law students at the Inns of Court in London. He was captured by the authorities after several years of successful ministry and condemned to death for his priesthood. He was hanged, drawn and quartered on January 21, 1586.

May Saint Alban Roe and Blessed Nicholas Woodfen serve as patrons of tomorrow’s conference and, through their intercession, may those in attendance grow in the Faith for which they laid down their lives. Saint Alban Roe and Blessed Nicholas Woodfen, pray for us.