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A Cult from Above: The Cause for Canonisation of John Fisher and Thomas More

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

John Davies
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Extract

But of late years a knowledge and love of our very own English martyrs has not permeated the rank-and-file of the Catholic church in this country… the majority of our people neither revere them nor know them.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , May 2007 , pp. 458 - 474
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 2007

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References

Notes

1 The Tablet, 29 December 1934, p. 837.

2 The Times, 17 February 1934.

3 Ibidem., 29 January 1934.

4 The Tablet, 17 March 1934, p. 342.

5 Ibidem., 28 April 1934, p. 530.

6 Ibidem., 28 April 1934. p. 538.

7 Ibidem., 2 June 1934, 704.

8 Ibidem., 21 July 1934, p. 83. Rochester and Chatham were in Amigo's Southwark diocese.

9 Ibidem., 20 October 1934, p. 500.

10 Ibidem., 17 November 1934, p. 683. Letter from Hallett.

11 Ibidem., 19 January [?] 1935, p. 73.

12 The Times, 11 January 1935.

13 Ibidem., 19 January 1935.

14 The Tablet, 26 January 1935, p. 115.

15 The Times, 31 January and 1 February 1935.

16 Ibidem., 11 February 1935, The Tablet, 16 February 1935, p. 209.

17 Ibidem., 4 March 1935, The Tablet, 9 March 1925, p. 293.

18 Ibidem., 2 April 1935.

19 The Tablet, 27 April 1935, p. 525.

20 Ibidem., 4 May 1935, p. 565. Hinsley asked the British Minister to the Holy See, Sir Charles Wingfield whether it would be possible for the king to send a special mission to the canonisation ceremony to highlight the special patriotic loyalty of the English and Welsh Catholic community. Moloney, Thomas, Westminster, Whitehall and the Vatican: the Role of Cardinal Hinsley 1938–1943, (London, 1985), p. 41.Google Scholar

21 Ibidem., 9 March 1935, p. 300.

22 Ibidem., 16 March 1935, p. 352.

23 Ibidem., 16 March, 1935, p. 334.

24 Ibidem., 30 March 1935, p. 409.

25 Ibidem., 13 April, 1935, p. 469.

26 Downside Review, vol. LIII (155) July 1935, p. 31.

27 The Times, 2 February 1935.

28 The Tablet, 26 January 1935, p. 110.

29 Ibidem., 16 February 1935, p. 202, p. 207.

30 Ibidem., 9 February 1935, p. 163 [?].

31 Ibidem., 11 May 1935, pp. 587–88.

32 The Times, 22 May 1935.

33 Ibidem., 8 April 1935.

34 The Tablet, 11 May 1935, p. 587. Catholics were still barred from the office of Lord Chancellor after the Catholic Relief Act of 1926. Davies, J., ‘The Catholic Relief Act of 1926’, North West Catholic History, XXIX (2002), pp. 109–32.Google Scholar

35 The Tablet, 11 May 1935, p. 606, The Times, 6 May 1935.

36 The Times, 20 May 1935.

37 Ibidem., 21 May 1935.

38 Ibidem., 3 August 1935.

39 Ibidem., 8 July 1935.

40 Ibidem., 28 June 1935.

41 Ibidem., 6 July 1935.

42 Ibidem., 8 July 1935.

43 Brothers, Joan, Church and School: A Study of the Impact of Education on Religion (Liverpool, 1964), p. 7.Google Scholar

44 Cathedral Record, passim; Davies, John, ‘Traditional Religion, Popular Piety, or Base Superstition? The Cause for the Beatification of Teresa Higginson’, Recusant History, May 1998, 24 (1), pp. 123–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 Cathedral Record, IV, March 1934, pp. 1156–57.

46 Ibidem., IV, April 1934, pp. 1187–88.

47 Ibidem., IV, April 1934, pp. 1189–92, June 1934, pp. 1290–94 and 1302, August 1934, pp. 1315–19, September 1934, pp. 1351–52 and 1356, October 1934, pp. 1386–88.

48 Ibidem., IV, May 1934, pp. 1218–20 and 1225, June 1934, pp. 1262–65, September 1934, pp. 1349–50.

49 Ibidem., IV, May 1934, p. 1236.

50 Ibidem., IV, pp. 1443 and 1446.

51 Ibidem., V, February 1935, p. 1509.

52 Theresa (Tetta) Victoria Ward, the second daughter of Wilfrid Ward, married Francis Nicholas Blundell of Crosby Hall in July 1918. As well as the articles in the Cathedral Record Theresa Blundell also wrote a pamphlet, St Thomas More, for the Catholic Truth Society in 1935. To commemorate the canonisation of Fisher and More Francis Blundell arranged for the side chapel in the church at Little Crosby to be redecorated with frescoes commemorating the English Martyrs. Blundell, Margaret, Francis Nicholas Blundell: A memoir. Introduction and additional material, Brian Whitlock Blundell (London, 2004), pp. 13, 199, 201.Google Scholar

53 Cathedral Record, V, March 1935, pp. 1543 and 1553, April 1935, pp. 1885–88, May 1935, pp. 1611–12, June 1935, p. 1652, July 1935, pp 1678–79, August 1935, pp. 1711–12, September 1935, pp. 1747–48, October 1935, p. 1777, November 1935, pp. 1808–9 and 1812.

54 Ibidem., V, April 1935, p. 1569.

55 Ibidem., V, May 1938, p. 1601.

56 Ibidem., V, April 1935, p. 1570.

57 Ibidem., V, May 1935, p. 1623. The usually stated capacity for this hall, part of the Central Library complex in William Brown St. Liverpool was 1,000.

58 Ibidem., V, April 1935, pp. 1573–78.

59 Ibidem., V, April 1935, pp. 1581–84.

60 Ibidem., V, June 1935, p. 1633.

61 Ibidem., V, August 1935, pp. 1700–3.

62 Ibidem., V, July 1935, p. 1665.

63 ‘Popular Catholicism’ is Michael Hornsby-Smith's coinage. Among the ‘manifestations’ of ‘popular Catholicism’ he lists ‘the wearing of “miraculous medals”, or the fixing of a St Christopher medallion in the car, the making of pilgrimages, the saying of prayers of indulgence and the wide variety of almost magical insurance policies employed by Catholics to “save our souls” and guarantee salvation.’ Hornsby-Smith, M., Roman Catholic Belief in England: Customary Catholicism and Formations of Religious Authority (Cambridge, 1991), p. 112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

64 In 1935 immediately after the canonisation the names of Fisher and More appeared in the Thanksgiving notices in July, August, September, October and December. Cathedral Record, V, pp. 1694, 1726, 1758, 1790, 1853. But by 1946 the one reference to Fisher and More, referred to them as ‘St Thomas Fisher and St John Moore’. Cathedral Record, XVI, May 1946, p. 90. The most popular of the English martyrs in the Thanksgiving notices of 1946 was Blessed Edmund Arrowsmith possibly due to the vigorous propagation of his cult by the clergy and people of Ashton in Makerfield where Arrowsmith's hand was venerated.

65 Catholic Directory (London, 2005). In contrast in the diocese of Southwark there are five churchesdedicated to St John Fisher, three to St Thomas More and one joint dedication, and in the Archdiocese of Westminster there are five dedications to Fisher, six to More and one joint dedication.