I sent out an e-mail recently promoting Dena Hunt’s excellent new novel, Treason, about the plight of Catholics in Elizabethan England. I’ve received several positive responses. The most recent is this polite but perhaps barbed response or riposte from a Protestant. My response follows.
Sounds fascinating! I agree that Elizabeth (along with most of the Tudors) were pretty nasty towards Roman Catholics.
Perhaps to balance out the historical picture, you could release a novelization of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs? Or the life of Jan Hus? Or William Tyndale? Or the Lollards? Or the plight of evangelicals in modern-day Chiapas?
I agree with you about the oppression perpetrated on a number of religions by modern secular states during the twentieth century, and I am (like yourself, I’m sure) frequently annoyed at the secularist propaganda that nevertheless persists, and often claims that religion is the casus belli. Perhaps, in light of this particular zeitgeist, Christians could learn something from the Elizabethans’ poor example and stop accusing one another?
And here’s my reply:
I see Elizabethan England as the progenitor of the modern secular fundamentalist state. I don’t see the English Reformation as being Catholic versus Protestant but as Catholic versus Machiavellian humanism. Burghley and his henchmen were first and foremost ruthless secular pragmatists.
The Anglican church was not founded on the principles of Luther or Calvin but on the loins of Henry VIII. It had nothing to do with theology and everything to do with the usurpation of power by the state.
I’ve thought a good deal about the reasons this particular period so absorbed me. There were several; you cite one of them. But the consequences of what happened then are still reverberating down through the centuries, affecting all people who speak English as their native tongue, in ways very few of us can even imagine. Blessed Cardinal Newman, paraphrased, To be deep into history is to cease to be a Protestant. It has nothing to do with petulant blaming ….
Joseph —
I made a similarly earthy, but I think likewise appropriate, observation re Henry VIII to a couple of my many offspring a few years back when the state of Anglicanism arose in conversation: “Any thinking person who belongs to a religion which originated in the scrotum of Henry VIII is bound to have identity problems.” The remark has become a source of enduring amusement among them. I reiterate a remark I made on this site some time back: Nobody thinks well of Henry VIII, but no matter how bad you think he was, he was worse!
As an Anglo-Catholic, I am very pleased with the positive relations that Pope Francis has with Anglicans.
The Bishop of Argentina and former primate of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, the Most Rev. Gregory Venables, has praised the election of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio saying the Argentine Archbishop is a devout Christian and friend to Anglicans.
The following is a quote from the Most Rev. Gregory Venables who gave episcopal oversight to the ACNA as it separated from the Episcopal Church:
“Many are asking me what Jorge Bergoglio is really like. He is much more of a Christian, Christ centered and Spirit filled, than a mere churchman. He believes the Bible as it is written. I have been with him on many occasions and he always makes me sit next to him and invariably makes me take part and often do what he as Cardinal should have done. He is consistently humble and wise, outstandingly gifted yet a common man. He is no fool and speaks out very quietly yet clearly when necessary. He called me to have breakfast with him one morning and told me very clearly that the Ordinariate was quite unnecessary and that the church needs us as Anglicans. I consider this to be an inspired appointment not because he is a close and personal friend but because of who he is In Christ. Pray for him.”
Dear Mr. Umlauf,
It’s impossible that any member of the Catholic hierarchy could have been more conciliatory and cordial toward the Anglican Church than Pope Benedict XVI, so I’d be hard-pressed to believe that Pope Francis might in any way have surpassed our Pope Emeritus in graciousness in that–or any other–area.
What I find utter impossible to to believe, however, is that Pope Francis would have declared the Ordinariate established under Benedict XVI as “quite unnecessary” or that “we” (who is “we” under these auspices?) “need Anglicans to remain Anglicans.”
Not only would the Cardinal have NEVER so undermined the Church’s authority, but I can see no apparent purpose in the remark.
Dear Dena,
I do not know bishop Gregory Venables personally, but I do know that he has been an outspoken critic of the Culture of Death and apostate christianity. I know from many mainline religious news sources that he has worked side by side with and is a close friend of now, Pope Francis. This which I posted was reported on a major conservative Anglican news source ( virtueonline.org ) and I have found them faithful and full of integrity. I do not doubt Gregory’s word, but I do understand that what one can as a say as a cardinal in a conversation to friend, one cannot necessarily say officially and publicly as the Holy Father. I believe Bishop Venables , you do not, that ok. We will see how things progress but I see good things on the horizon with Pope Benedict, whom I love, laying some important ground work.
Blessings,
Rodd
Ok just bought if for my Kindle. Always fun to have some connection (strickly exchanges to her blog in this case) with the writer of a work one reads. Not sure when I’ll get to it, since my reading list is way backlogged.
As to Henry VIII, I have wondered how history would have been different if he had not done that egotistical act. What a deplorable man.
I don’t disbelieve your bishop, Rodd, but if he is indeed a “close personal friend” of Pope Francis, I think it’s a bit odd that he’d report those remarks from a “private conversation” in an online Anglican news source.
In any case, it’s impossible to determine their meaning out of context. (E.g., the reported remark that the Ordinariate is “quite necessary”: to whom? unnecessary for what? Etc.)
Well, I hope you enjoy it, Manny, when you get around to reading it. Meanwhile, thanks for purchasing it. Rather, charity thanks you. (I’m not a professional writer–I don’t write for profit.)