The last Primate of England to be in Full Communion with the See of S Peter, Archbishop Heath, said in the House of Lords: "[Paul IV had been] a very austere stern father unto us, ever since his first entraunce into Peter's chayre ... by our leaping out of Peter's shippe, we must nedes be overwhelmed by the waters of schism, sects and divisions."
Papa Caraffa, in terms of international politics, had a great dislike of the Spanish Interest. I believe Cardinal Pole, when he died, had been stripped of his legatine powers and summoned to Rome to be tried for heresy; and that Caraffa, indeed, used to refer to Pole's associates as his "Lutheran Household".
How much was English Catholicism weakened by Caraffa's delays in filling empty bishoprics and his hostility to this Kingdom?
I wonder how much guilt that pope bears for Elizabeth Tudor and the long Protestant centuries; for the rope and the rack.
Amicus Platon, magis amica veritas.
ReplyDeleteYes, you are spot on Father. Carafa was a sort of ultra Traddie , rigid and fixated oninessentials. The mystery is why the Holy Spirit chose such a man to fulfill the Petrine Office at such a time.
ReplyDeleteSt. Paul criticized a very holy pope, when any such criticism was necessary. They are often remembered together, as we all know.
ReplyDeletePaul IV certainly was hostile to anyone Spanish or a Spanish connection like Mary I and her England. Perhaps it how Papa Caraffa was Neapolitan and we must bear in mind his passionate patriotism and hatred of how the Two Sicilies and the Italian Peninsula was the plaything of Spanish, German (Geulf and Ghibelline in an earlier age) and sometimes French interests. Spain had authority of its Church that probably surpassed that Henry had over the Church of English when he wasn't in lawless or mass execution mode (over 60,000 executions in his age). Yet hostility to Spain meant excluding what was then Europe's foremost land and naval power. When The O'Neill and the Irish lords were fighting alongside the small Spanish expeditionary force, bloody Bess was well ensconced and spending most of her entire income to ensure the Nine Years War was won. Earlier action from a Pope like Paul IV would have eased things a bit for the Catholic interest in these islands. So many might have beens.
ReplyDeleteMariology Trevor covers this “ blip” quite brilliantly in her biog of our great Saint Philip Neri.
ReplyDeleteDear Father. “On Divine Tradition,” by John Baptist Cardinal Franzelin, S.J. illustrates truths directly attacked by Pope Francis in his Synodal Way and his repeated attempts to try and convince Catholics that The God of Surprises and The Holy Ghost (Which he claims is the impetus underlying the Synodal Way) are leading us to new and deeper truths of The Faith.
ReplyDeleteBut those claims are clearly lies which sit in stark contrast to the truths established by Cardinal Franzelin in his indispensable and great text.
The Apostles were given great authority by Jesus, to the extent that they could be the organs of new revelation, but that was a power and authority that could not be passed on; it ended with the death of the Last Apostle, Saint John.
What could be passed on, and what was passed on, was a Magisterium of the Episcopacy that would preserve and teach the Faith once delivered (2 Timothy 3:10,14; cf 1 Tim 4:5, 2 Tim 1:13) but excluded any charism, authority or ability to teach new revelation.
Our Bishops not only have the authority to teach the Faith once delivered (They have the Duties to Teach, Rule and Sanctify) but they will be judged for their failure to stop Francis from trying to impose his personal progressive political program and his perverted proclivities upon the Church.
Us Catholics alive are living through the most dangerous period of Faith ever because we have never had a Pope like Francis whose will is to supplant the Faith once delivered with his own personal will.
I have written to my Bishop to follow the steps outlined in “Defending the Faith Against Present Heresies," to charge him with the delict of heresy and to declare him outside of the Church if he does not repent and repudiate his heresies but I received no response, which is what I expected.
I will never leave the Catholic Church because of what Francis is doing because it is Jesus who established His Church, it is Jesus who remains head of His Church, and it is Jesus who will remain head of His Church until the end of days.
I will keep the Faith, pray for Francis to be converted and wait on The Lord. There is nothing else I can do.
I honestly think Paul IV's politics had little effect on England at the time.
ReplyDeleteMary had very few years as Queen to roll back the Henrician schism and Edwardian Reformation, and had such strong headwinds within the country that she made little progress by the time of her death. No Pope's favour or disfavour made a ha'porth of difference to that. Elizabeth I, brought up to be a convinced Protestant, was determined (also for personal reactionary reasons) to re-impose a nationalist Protestantism on the country: her initial pretence of 'tolerance' was a feint to stifle opposition, while her commissioners and appointed enforcers carried out her real policies.
Like the previous Tudors, she became paranoid about threats to her rule, and even if Pius V had not excommunicated her, she, Burghley and Walsingham would have carried on with their blood-soaked anti-Catholic campaign just the same.
According to Prof. Roberto de Mattei, Paul IV wasn't the only one who thought Pole a heretic; St. Pius V agreed, and de Mattei seems to think they were correct. Is he wrong, Father?
ReplyDeleteDr. John Rao has suggested we might need another Paul IV today , basically on the grounds that there's no reasoning with these scoundrels, we need a pope who will just smash their heads (spiritually speaking, of course). An interesting thought ...
John Vasc wrote:
ReplyDelete"... had such strong headwinds within the country that she made little progress by the time of her death ..."
Rather, the work of historians such as Eamon Duffy - especially in his *Fires of Faith: Catholic England under Mary Tudor* (2009) - and Christopher Haigh demonstrate the amazingly rapid progress of the restoration of Catholic practice during the reign of Good Queen Mary, as well as the degree of popular enthusiasm in most parts of the realm (portions of Kent and Essex apart) for that restoration. As long ago as 1971, the late Conrad Russell (Earl Russell), in his *The Crisis of Parliaments: English History, 1509-1660,* opined to the effect that if Queen Mary had lived ten years longer England would most likely have has one of the most outstanding bench of (Catholic) bishops of any European realm, and that her counter-reformation would have been irreversible.