Fri, 31 Jan 2014 | Cover | Page 14

A Remnant Book Review…

God’s Secret Agents

by Alice Hogge (2005)

During Elizabeth's reign alone, 124 Catholic priests were executed, most of them in Tyburn's open fields, then a part of London. Amongst the most defiant of "the new religion" were many who were either students or teachers at Oxford University, for which they paid the supreme price: fifty would be executed.

Reviewed by Vincent Chiarello

Remnant Columnist

Aseach year winds down, it is commonplace for newspaper editors and websites to ask their contributors to select the best books they've read over the past twelve months. The lists are usually sprinkled with new publications, as well as the re-reading of old classics, but it would be unusual for an author's first published non-fiction book to make the cut. One should: God’s Secret Agents, by Alice Hogge, the "cat and mouse" story of the Jesuits during the reigns of both Queen Elizabeth I, and, to a lesser extent, King James I, is a rare example of daunting scholarship and literary style that impress a reader in ways not often found in other writings about the period.

For those with a knowledge of, or an interest in, the past history and current state of the Society of Jesus, aka the Jesuits, the election of Pope Francis I, the first Jesuit pope, has focused further attention on the Order. Known earlier as "the Black Robes," or the "Pope’s Army" because of their additional vow of obedience to the pope, the Jesuits were instrumental as missionaries in spreading Catholicism in areas far removed from Rome, or Paris, where the Order was founded by the Basque, St. Ignatius de Loyola, in 1540. To that end, a visitor even today to the Jesuit Gregorian Pontifical College in Rome is greeted upon entry with a sculpture with the saying: Ite incendite mundus: (Go and set the world on fire), St. Ignatius Loyola's words to St. Francis Xavier before his departure to the East.

The history of the Jesuits is replete with heroic tales of priests facing adversity and even death to spread Christ’s Gospel in places like China and Japan, as well as countries of North and South America. In the U.S., the Jesuit influence was notable in the West: Lake De Smet, the largest in Wyoming, is named after the Jesuit Provincial, the Belgian Fr. Pierre de Smet. In Montana, the Italian Jesuit, Fr. Antonio Ravalli, was the first doctor/pharmacist amongst the Indian tribes of the state, and is buried in an Indian cemetery. Today, there is both a city and county in Montana named in his honor. In the East, Georgetown University, founded in 1789 as a Jesuit institution, is the oldest Catholic university in the nation, and includes amongst its graduates, Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia, and the author William Peter Blatty, who dedicated his popular novel, The Exorcist, to the Jesuits, "who taught me how to think." (I exclude the name of ex President Clinton for obvious reasons.) The Jesuit experience in England during the reigns of "Queen Bess" and King James warrants attention, for the history of that period has been largely written by those who saw the Jesuits as treasonous agents sent by the pope to undermine and destroy the Tudor monarchy. In the end, however, this chapter of Jesuit history may be described, paraphrasing the words of an English Protestant, "as their finest hour."

Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) ascended the throne under the shadow of being an illegitimate heir: the Protestant Bishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, had nullified the marriage between Elizabeth's parents, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, a few days before Queen Ann’s execution. Lurking in the wings were the supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots, who claimed a clearer line of ascent than her cousin, Elizabeth. Among Elizabeth's first acts was to maintain a modest enforcement of the strict anti-Catholic laws, but not to criminalize "recusants," those who were fined for not attending the now official Anglican, or Church of England, services. In time, however, convinced that the Catholic Church posed both the greatest threat to her survival and that of England, far harsher laws were passed and enacted, which now included that any Catholic priest, Jesuit or otherwise, found entering the realm would be treated as a traitor.

The major thrust of Hogge’s book is to detail the fate of several of these English Jesuit priests, many of whom had returned from the Continent to which they had fled to escape the expanding anti-Catholic dictates of Elizabeth's government which included a spy network led by Sir Francis Walsingham, the most accomplished, efficient, and successful in all of Europe at that time. During Elizabeth's reign alone, 124 Catholic priests were executed, most of them in Tyburn’s open fields, then a part of London. Amongst the most defiant of "the new religion" were many who were either students or teachers at Oxford University, for which they paid the supreme price: fifty would be executed.

To Elizabeth and her Privy Council, a Jesuit in England in particular was, ipso facto, a traitor. Hogge writes: "In showing that a strict adherence to the Catholic faith was now mutually incompatible with loyalty to Elizabeth," the future course of her reign was set in motion. One former Oxford Fellow, now a Jesuit priest, Cuthbert Mayne, was the first to feel the fury of Elizabethan rage: in 1576, he was betrayed, and an Agnus Dei case, comprised of wax discs made from Easter candles, impressed with an image of the paschal lamb and blessed by the pope, was found on his body. Such objects had been banned since 1571, and the penalty for carrying it was death, but a death fit for a traitor: to be drawn and quartered. The ordeal of St. Edmund Campion is described at length. Labeled, "the Seditious Jesuit," Campion, who had been a favorite of Queen Elizabeth, had fled England to join the Jesuits. After his ordination, he was sent to Prague, but then asked by his religious superiors if he would undertake a dangerous mission and return to his native land. Knowing what his future would likely be, he still agreed. Hogge writes: "Campion had always believed he was coming home to England to die." Before his death, he penned his famous, "Brag," which sought to explain his decision to return in these words: The expense is reckoned, the enterprise is begun; it is of God, it cannot be withstood. He would not be the last, but his martyrdom would raise the question of whether the Jesuit mission in England would continue. It did, for under the leadership of Fr. Robert Persons, the Jesuits continued their work; so did the killing machine of the English: the last Jesuit to be executed was Fr. David Lewis, a Welshman, in 1679.

Hogge also relates in some detail the impact of Campion’s execution on one who witnessed it: Henry Walpole. On December 1, 1581, at Tyburn, Walpole, then a young man of twenty-three and a student of law at Gray’s Inn, watched as, "...the hangman hurled Campion’s entrails into the cauldron of boiling water, it was said that a gob of blood spattered Walpole’s white doublet: his fate was sealed." The following year despite a likely successful law career - his parents were wealthy - he fled England, and six years later was ordained a Jesuit priest. He returned to England, and shortly after his arrival was betrayed by someone he considered a friend, and arrested. Walpole was tortured for information, and although he provided names, would not recant. Fourteen years after Henry Walpole had watched the execution of Edmund Campion, he, too, was executed in a similar manner at Tyburn.

The role played by Tudor and Stuart women in "harboring a priest," a capital crime during these years, does not go unmentioned. The actions of the women of, amongst many others, the Vaux, Lenman and Fortescue families in hiding itinerant priests at great personal peril showed that opposition to "the new religion" was strongly felt amongst both men and women. Elizabeth's Privy Council took notice, and in 1593, Parliament enacted a law in which "...the courts were able to sue a husband jointly with his wife for her recusancy..."

For her open defiance, Margaret Clitherow, however, paid the ultimate price, and her grisly execution disgusted even Queen Elizabeth. Clitherow, a convert at 18, arrested several times for "recusancy," did not flinch from hiding priests, sometimes two at a time. When brought before the judges in York to answer for this charge, she declined to declare her guilt or innocence: "Having made no offense, I need no trial." For that act of resistance in not entering a plea, she was sentenced to death by the 14th century penalty of peine forte et dure. This "strong and hard pain" consisted of being pressed to death by stones of considerable weight. Throughout, she could have entered a plea and probably would have faced only a fine or jail, but she chose not to. Writes Hogge: Her stubbornness served to remind both priest and government that the female sex was a force to be reckoned with. Over the years many missionaries would have course to be grateful for this fact."

After Elizabeth's death, James I continued the persecution: a bill in 1610 was introduced into the House of Commons, "to force Catholics to wear a red hat, or multicolored stockings, so that they may be better recognized and ‘hooted at’ in the street," but shortly discarded thereafter. In time, but slowly, the English government's attitude and treatment of English Catholics softened, and by 1829 Catholics were permitted freedom of worship. In 1896, the Jesuits were allowed back into Oxford, and Campion Hall became a recognized part of the university. It still is. In 1970, forty martyrs, including Edmund Campion, Henry Walpole and Cuthbert Mayne were canonized.

This is an extraordinary book, made even more so by it being the first published work of the author. It is both thorough and dedicated to tell the accurate story of large numbers of English men and women who would not accept "the new religion," and the consequences of that decision on their lives and that of their families. My only criticism is that, in the book's Epilogue, Hogge attempts to compare, albeit tenuously, the British government's current efforts at dealing with British Muslims with their former treatment of English Catholics. I will leave to the reader if her judgment in this matter is misplaced.

But Alice Hogge’s book is about the Jesuit past, not its present. In its current form, the Society of Jesus has many detractors, including the author William Blatty, who has been critical of Georgetown University, from which he graduated in 1950. At his own personal expense, Blatty has brought the administrators of the university into canonical court with one purpose: that the word "Catholic" be removed from any description of his Jesuit alma mater. The case has been forwarded to Rome for further deliberation and decision. I believe that Blatty has done a service to the Church, and if I may be allowed some latitude for saying so, so would St. Edmund Campion.