Anglican Vs Catholic
The Anglican and the Catholic Church have a long and rough history. Understanding the history will make you better appreciate why Anglican priests who decide to return to the Catholic Church are received and why just last month, one of such priests was made a Bishop which raised a lot of questions among Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
Let us use this post to understand that history first.
In 1534 when King Henry VIII broke out from the Catholic Church because the Pope (Pope Clement VII) refused to grant an annulment for his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, that same year, King Henry VIII enacted what he called the Act of Supremacy in England.
The Act of Supremacy declared that the King was the Head of the Church in England.
This Act of Supremacy effectively made all Catholics who refused to accept him as Supreme Head of the Church in England, liable to the charge of treason.
The seriousness of it was seen the following year in 1535 when Thomas More (who had been Henry’s Chancellor) and Bishop John Fisher, both Catholics, were executed for refusing to swear the Oath of Supremacy, accepting the act. So, refusal to swear the oath was punished by death.
The following year gave birth to something even more bloodier. You may have heard of the Pilgrimage of Grace. You can read it up. Monasteries in England were dissolved. Properties of the Catholic Church were confiscated. In 1536, Robert Aske led the Pilgrimage of Grace. It did not end well, many people were hanged and executed, and a lot of them were monks. The overall aim was the suppression of the Catholic Church in England.
In 1547, King Henry VIII died and his son Edward VI took over and continued from where his father stopped. A significant shift happened only when in 1553, Edward died and Henry’s daughter Mary I replaced Edward. Mary I was regarded as the "bloody Mary." She was Catholic, the daughter of Catherine of Aragon. She sought to restore Catholicism and reverse the English reformation her father and brother already started. She was largely unsuccessful, but she had over 280 dissenters (protestants) burned at the stake.
When Mary died, Henry’s other daughter, Elizabeth I took the throne. That was in 1558. Elizabeth’s parliament passed the Act of Supremacy of 1559, which re-established the Church of England and the Church of Ireland’s independence from Rome and Papal authority. In 1570, the Pope, (Pope Pius V) then issued a bull called 'Regnans In Excelsis' referring to her (Elizabeth I) as a pretended Queen of England and a heretic. The bull mandated that no one should obey her, and obedience to her will incur ex-communication.
In 1581, Elizabeth responded by making it illegal to celebrate mass. It became difficult and almost impossible to be a practising Catholic in England without breaking the law - and the laws got stricter to the point where people could be executed for sheltering Catholic priests. You cannot shelter a priest, you cannot hide a priest to say mass, you can’t celebrate mass, you can’t be a catholic. Lots of Catholics died for their faith. Many others died in prison. They are in the hundreds.
It became a capital offence to train a priest, or for a priest to enter England and Wales. It became a capital offence to celebrate mass, go to confession, maintain fidelity to the Pope, or even possess any Papal document.
Catholics were excluded from any public office, from law, the army, Parliament, etc. They were unable to inherit land. They were subject to arrest, imprisonment and confiscation of property if they refused to attend the State Anglican Church. From 1588 until 1888, failure to participate in Anglican services was officially a crime.
It was only in 1791 (The Second Relief Act) that Catholics were allowed to once again worship legally, and it was not until 1829 (The Catholic Emancipation Act) that Catholic men could hold a seat in Parliament. To this day, it is unconstitutional for the monarch of the United Kingdom to be a Catholic.
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