When I was a child growing up in England during the 1970s, we looked forward every year to Bonfire Night, as we called it, or Guy Fawkes Night, to give it its official name. This involved making an effigy of Guy Fawkes, who had been executed for his role in the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, and burning it on the family bonfire to the accompaniment of the flashes and bangs of fireworks. In the days leading up to Bonfire Night, my friends and I would position ourselves in shopping centres with our effigy of the “papist traitor” begging passers-by for “a penny for the Guy”.

Today (November 5) is Guy Fawkes Night and all over England people will be continuing this ignoble tradition of burning effigies of a Catholic “rebel” and “traitor”. I comment upon this institutionalized anti-Catholicism and the connection between Guy Fawkes and Shakespeare in this article published today by Aleteia: http://www.aleteia.org/en/politics/article/the-most-famous-catholic-terrorist-in-history-10324002