Vice-Regal Saint: DEFENDER OF THE FAITH
Although King Henry VIII is credited with co-founding the Protestant Reformation with Martin Luther, we forget that the faith of the Church of England is uniquely considered both Catholic and Reformed. We also forget that Henry VIII was granted the title, Defender of the Faith, by Pope Leo X for writing his masterpiece Defence of the Seven Sacraments, and that the real genesis of the title adopted by English Kings and Queens ever since was Catholically inspired. In a superb relaunch of this forgotten classic, Australia's Raymond de Souza recently dedicated the new millenium edition of the Defence of the Seven Sacraments to Her Majesty the Queen.
To Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth; and to her successors to the throne according to Law, this New Millennium edition of ‘Defence of the Seven Sacraments’ by King Henry VIII is devotedly dedicated.
This edition is a respectful and fraternal reminder of that peaceful unity in ‘One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism’ (Eph. 4:5) which Merry England – the ‘Island of the Saints’ and ‘Dowry of the Virgin Mary’ – and the Apostolic See of Rome shared together for nearly one thousand years, especially in the glorious days of the sweet springtime of our Faith, when the philosophy of the Gospel governed the States in mediaeval Christendom.
May Our Lady of Walsingham prayerfully intercede for Her Majesty, the Royal family and all religious denominations that issued from England; so that, by acknowledging the fullness of the Apostolic teaching on the seven Sacraments - so fiercely defended by King Henry VIII - they may help restore the unity of all the baptised in the Body of Christ, for the greater glory of God, salvation of souls and peace and prosperity for all Christian nations.
Her Majesty's loyal subject,
Raymond Joseph de Souza
Brazilian by birth, Catholic by grace, Australian by choice.
On the second day of June in the year of Our Lord Jesus Christ of two thousand and seven, the fifty-fourth anniversary of Her Majesty’s Coronation.
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8 comments:
Hmm. Emphasis on Reformed *and* Catholic, Catholic *and* Reformed.
The constitution calls upon the Monarch to defend the "Protestant reformed religion" of England, in so many words. The Lady of Walsingham may do what she wishes; we Englishmen take our religion from Wycliffe, Tyndale, Cranmer et al.
Thanks for mentioning Cranmer. You should read more of Archbishop Cranmer, he has a number of times on this theme. There is most definitely an Anglo-Catholic wing to the Church of England, not to mention its very bishopric ecclesiatical form.
Don’t forget Monarchist, the original Cranmer whom you admire so much paid for an army of German/Dutch Lutheran mercenaries to come to England and enforce his vision of reformed catholicity on a very unwilling, English nation. I know this is not the version of history you like to hear unfortunately the facts can be verified very easily. With the approval of Henry VIII and Edward VI, Cranmer and his foreign army cost the lives of over 57,000 Englishmen after they suppressed the West Country, the Pilgrimage Of Grace, the Pilgrimage of the Five Wounds of Christ and the suppression of East Anglia. This was paid for by the proceeds of the very Catholic Churches and Monasteries Cranmer took for his new Protestant religion. This was the first slaughter of Catholics in England that went on for Approx 200 years. And yes bloody Mary did execute 280 Protestants but Elizabeth 1 surpassed that number in short order. So do yourself a favour and try to see outside that blinkered Whig view of History.
As a Jewish monarchist, I must admit that I share the Protestant sense that there is something a bit alien certain aspects of Catholicism.
The Protestant desire to have a rigorous focus on the actual scriptures and an inquiry into the beliefs of the Early Church, in order to establish what Christ and his disciples actually believed and thus junking the superfluous 'traditions' which had accreted round the Church by 1500, strikes me as not only eminently sensible; but also as more conducive to appreciating the shared core values of other Abrahamic religions and of religious thought more generally. A Christianity which is about the ideas and not the institutions is one that everyone can respect.
Our genius as the British people, however, is to have institutionalised the anti-institutionalism of Protestantism in the form of the Anglican Church. The very first sentence of the Book of Common Prayer from 1549, for example, reads as follows:
"There was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so surely established, which (in continuance of time) hath not been corrupted."
Just think about that for a moment. That, surely, is not only amongst the most revolutionary bits of thinking ever (implying, as it does, that man's knowledge is necessarily imperfect and subject to revision and re-interpretation according to new facts and changing attitudes); but also, this empirical assumption about the almost organic evolution of human knowledge is being explicitly written into the very fabric of the Establishment!
Thus, our libertarianism isn't the result of our Protestantism, as the Whigs believed; rather, both flow from the same source - an appreciation of the limitations of human knowledge which has allowed us to tread the middle ground between superstition and atheism in the religious sphere, and between tyranny and anarchy in the political sphere.
What a unique inheritance! Don't let it go under, chaps.
Cato
I have read the comments from Catholic Monarchist and Jewish Monarchist and I thank you for them. We don't always get it right here, because sometimes we don't know what right is. This is one of those times.
What I wonder is how can any self-respecting Catholic support the usurper de jure monarchy that currently occupies the throne of England?
To my mind, the British Monarchy has been dead since (at least) 24 June 1701.
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