By Rev. Fr. Kelvin Ugwu
This is the part of the history of the Anglican Church that they often won’t present. I am presenting this because I don’t like when people distort facts.
In 1534, when King Henry VIII broke away 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, Henry enacted what he called the Act of Supremacy (1534).
The Act of Supremacy declared that the King was the Head of the Church in England. This Act 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 John Fisher, were executed for refusing to swear the Oath of Supremacy. So, refusal to swear the oath could be punished by death.
The following year gave birth to something even bloodier. You may have heard of the Pilgrimage of Grace. Monasteries in England were dissolved and properties of the Church were confiscated. In 1536, Robert Aske led that uprising. It did not end well. Many people were hanged and executed, including monks. The primary aim at this stage was to assert royal control over the Church and seize its wealth, though it led to the suppression of many Catholic institutions.
In 1547, Henry died and his son, Edward VI, took over and continued from where his father stopped, pushing England further in a Protestant direction.
A significant shift happened in 1553 when Edward died and Henry’s daughter, Mary I of England, replaced him. Mary, the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, sought to restore Catholicism and reconcile England with Rome. She succeeded in doing this for a time, but her efforts did not survive her death. During her reign, over 280 Protestants were burned at the stake, which earned her the name “Bloody Mary.”
When Mary died, Henry’s other daughter, Elizabeth I, took the throne in 1558. Elizabeth’s parliament passed the Act of Supremacy (1559), which re-established the Church of England’s independence from Rome and papal authority.
In 1570, the Pope, Pope Pius V, issued a bull called Regnans in Excelsis, referring to Elizabeth as a pretended Queen and a heretic. The bull declared that no one should obey her, and that obedience to her would incur excommunication.
In 1581, Elizabeth responded with stricter laws that made participation in Catholic practices punishable and made conversion to Catholicism a serious offence. It became extremely difficult to practise Catholicism openly without breaking the law. The laws became stricter to the point where people could be executed for sheltering Catholic priests.
You could not shelter a priest, you could not hide a priest to say Mass, you could not freely celebrate Mass. Being openly Catholic became dangerous. Many Catholics died for their faith, and many others died in prison. They were in their hundreds.
It became a capital offence to train a priest, or for a priest to enter England and Wales. Catholic priests were seen as threats to the state. Catholics also faced severe restrictions in public life. They could not hold public office, and they were largely excluded from law, the army, and Parliament. They also faced serious limitations regarding property ownership and inheritance.
For a long time, especially from the late sixteenth century, those who refused to attend Anglican services were punished with fines and other penalties, although the enforcement of these laws reduced over time.
It was only in 1791, with the Catholic Relief Act, that Catholics were allowed once again to worship legally, and it was not until the Catholic Emancipation Act 1829 that Catholic men could hold a seat in Parliament.
To this day, it remains unconstitutional for the monarch of the United Kingdom to be a Catholic.
As I said, the name “Roman” Catholic is not an official name of the Catholic Church. It was Anglicans that gave the church such name. Regardless of what they are trying to say today, the name was intended as an insult.
Many of the great Anglican cathedrals we see today, like Canterbury Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, York Minster, and Durham Cathedral, were not originally Anglican. They were Catholic institutions that were taken over during the break with Rome.
Fact-check all I have written. I numbered them for a reason. If there is any lies here, point it out.
...Reverend Father Kelvin Ugwu is a Catholic Priest and Public Affairs Commentor. NNL.
