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English Roman Catholics

The Roman Catholic Church in England is descended from those who in the reign of Elizabeth refused to accept the Reformation and remained in communion with the see of Rome. Nearly all the English bishops were included in this number, and were deprived of their sees, and stringent laws were made with a view to enforcing conformity with the established religion. Notwithstanding these, however, and the fact that they were frequently put into execution, the number of those who adhered to the Roman Catholic faith was, for a time, very considerable.

No form of ecclesiastical government was instituted at first, as hopes were entertained of a national reunion with Rome ; but in the meantime, in order to perpetuate a succession of clergy, several colleges were established on the Continent, in which also the laity obtained their education. Chief among these was the college at Douay, in Flanders, founded by Cardinal Allen in 1568. Others were in Rome, Paris, Saint Omer, Seville, Valladolid, Lisbon, etc., several owing their origin to the well known Jesuit, Father Parsons. Most of these still exist, some on their original sites, while others, having come to an end during the French Revolution were re-founded in England, for the laws against Catholic schools had then been relaxed. It was undoubtedly due to the English colleges abroad that the Roman Catholics in England were saved from extinction.

Early in the 17th century, when the hopes of reunion had become remote, an attempt was made to form a proper ecclesiastical government for the Roman Catholics; but it was not until the reign of James II that affairs were put on a permanent footing. England was then divided into four "districts" - the Northern, Western, Midland and London - each under the government of a bishop called a "Vicar Apostolic." This meant that he was, by a kind of legal fiction, bishop of an Asiatic see "in partibus Infidelium? and he ruled his actual "district" with authority delegated directly by the Pope. Thus the first "Vicar Apostolic" was nominally Bishop of Chalcedon. A similar arrangement was made a little later in Scotland. And all the colonies having no ecclesiastical government of their own, were considered as belonging to the "London District," so that in early days, the Roman Catholics of North America were under the London "Vicar Apostolic."

The beginnings of the present American Roman Catholic hierarchy date from the time of the War of Independence. In England the government by "Vicars Apostolic" continued until the establishment of the hierarchy in 1850; in Scotland it lasted until 1878. After the brief reign of James II, new penal laws were enacted against Catholics, and the time which followed may be considered the low water mark of Roman Catholicism in England. The hopes they had placed in the Stuarts had failed, and the outlook seemed dark and dreary. There were numerous defections about that time, and hardly any converts were made to replace them. The only centres where the Catholic religion could be regularly practiced were the country seats of the old Catholic families, and in London the chapels of the various Roman Catholic ambassadors.

Towards the end of the 18th century, however, there were signs of better times for them. The penal laws were mitigated by Parliament in 1778, and practically abolished by a second Act in 1791, after which Catholic chapels began to spring up in many of the larger towns, and a certain number of conversions were made. Roman Catholics were still, however, disqualified from sitting in either house of Parliament, and were under many other civil disabilities. These were not formally removed until the Act of 'Catholic Emancipation," obtained by the agitation of O'Connell and the Irish in 1829.

The Bill of Emancipation, it is true, put an end to the outrageous slavery of upwards of five millions of Catholics under four archbishops and twenty-two bishops in Ireland, but it by no means fulfilled all the demands they were justified in making. The Anglicans, who scarcely numbered one tenth of the population, were yet in possession of the Church property donated by Catholics for Catholic purposes; and all, even the clergy, were compelled to pay tithes in support of the Anglican service. The bitter grievance of paying in this way the Protestant preachers was after lengthened negotiations ended by the Tithe Bill of 1838.

Three events of later time must be briefly alluded to, as having had a permanent effect on the state of English Catholics. One was the French Revolution, which had a double effect. In the first place, it drove back to England the numerous communities of English monks and nuns, who had settled abroad during penal times, and by accustoming the people in England to their presence amongst them, prepared the way for the rapid multiplication of such institutions in later times. In the second place, it caused some thousands of French priests to take refuge in England, where they were received with marked hospitality, and considerable sums both of private and public money were apportioned to their relief. Most of them indeed returned to France on the signature of the concordat between Napoleon and the Pope in 1801; but a certain number remained in England, and founded missions or other Catholic works, some of which still continue. The second event to be alluded to was the great immigration of the Irish after the potato famine in 1845-9, which was the chief cause of the rapid increase of the Catholic congregations at that time and later.

The third was the Oxford Movement, which though it did not have such a great effect numerically speaking, nevertheless brought over men of standing and influence who left a lasting mark on the Church. John Henry Newman, from 1846 was within the pale of the Roman Church. He had been the chosen and beloved leader of the early movement; now he was its determined enemy. He knew all the secret plans and tendencies of his former associates, and now betrayed them to the foe. He had studied all the weak places in their theological citadel from within, and now was ready to use his knowledge to overthrow it. It was he who had been wont to state their positions more strongly than any other of their advocates, and throw about them the glamor of his wonderful imagination, and all the wealth of his unrivalled style.

But this could not overcome the unreasoning antagonism of the average Englishman toward everything that savored of popery. The impression of Gunpowder Plots and popish scares seemed to be a lasting one on the English character. It was just this blind hatred of Rome that saved most of the Tractarians from following their leader and accepting the logic of their convictions. The English country squire has two articles always prominent in his creed, hatred of the Pope and of foreigners; and ritualistic practices would be regarded by him with suspicion and disgust. Many of the bishops and other higher prelates were naturally of this class. They were in league with the Tory party in politics, and held more or less strongly Erastian doctrines of the relation of church and state.

In recognition of the promising success of Catholicity in England, Pope Pius IX., on Sept. 29,1850, by the bull " Universalis ecclesiae," * restored the Catholic hierarchy in England, with twelve bishoprics 4 under the Archbishop of Westminster. The act of the Pope respecting the hierarchy called forth the utmost wrath of Protestant fanatics; numberless speeches were made, pamphlets were distributed, and mobs organized with the magic cry of " No popery !" In 1851 Parliament passed the Ecclesiastical Titles Assumption Bill, forbidding Catholics to assume or use the episcopal titles of cities in the United Kingdom; and the Class and Convent Bill, by which priests and religious were prohibited from appearing in public in the dress of their order, etc. Yet the storm subsided without serious consequences: the hierarchy, when once established, quietly continued to exist; twenty years later the bill was recalled.

The Roman Catholic laity of the late 19th Century belonged to three very heterogeneous groups: (i) The hereditary English Catholics, consisting of a number of county families, and in some few districts, such as Lancashire and parts of Yorkshire, and elsewhere, some of the working classes; (2) Converts, or children of converts, of whom there are usually a certain number in most town missions; and (3) those who are Irish, or partly Irish, by descent, who form the majority of the congregations, many of them belonging to the poorer classes of the population.