Today in the Catholic Church in England we celebrated a Feast, the Beatified Martyrs of England and Wales. Curiously, in Wales this is only an Optional Memoria. There are problems about celebrating Martyrs. Clearly we would not think anyone who sought martyrdom in killing others was a martyr; the use of the word therefore in Islam cheapens and debases the whole notion of Martyrdom.
A fairly grim engraving of FoxeFor Christians, dying a Martyr is to bear witness to one's faith to the very end. Yet still there are problems for us. There used to be, in many English Parish Churches, a copy of Foxe's Book of Martyrs. These were not Catholic Martyrs. Rather they were those who died at the hands of the Catholic Monarch, Mary Tudor. The book had huge influence; indeed the continuing subliminal suspicion of the very name "catholic" in England is perhaps due to that book.
When the Martyrs of Uganda were proclaimed by the Catholic Church, the Holy Father also made approving mention of others who had died with them, who were Anglicans. Is it too much to expect that the Church will one day give some sort of recognition to those who died for their faith in Jesus Christ — albeit not identical with the faith of the Catholic Church? I am not much into the idea of atoning for the sins of one's forefathers — very Tony Blair, that, bewailing the errors of Imperialism while engaging in an illegal war himself. Yet somehow all the Churches need to admit that we have done terrible things at times, and those things have hurt our fellow Christians.
Lilleshall PrioryOh, by the way: there are forty-two canonized English and Welsh martyrs. They are not the ones remembered today; those men and women are in the second list, a hundred and sixty who have been declared "blessed". But as the Office Book reminds us "innumerable men and women … suffered persecution for the ancient faith". One of them was a predecessor of mine in the office of Vicar of Hessle. He was a Canon of Guisborough, of which Hessle was a dependency. He fell foul of Henry VIII during the Pilgrimage of Grace, by which time he was Prior of Lilleshall (the ruined Priory pictured). Prior James Cockerell is not numbered among the forty two, nor in the hundred and sixty. It is said he had some financial motives in opposing the Monarch. But then, if our motives had to be impeccable, which of us could ever hope to be numbered among the blessed?
Related posts:
Ordinariates and Business CombinationsUgandan Martyrs: Catholics and Anglicans Together for ChristEdmund Campion, English Priest and Martyr: A New BookKing Charles the MartyrA Priest in Every Parish
Bishop Barnes read theology for three years at Oxford before finishing his studies at Cuddesdon College (at the time a theological college with a rather monastic character). He subsequently served two urban curacies in Portsmouth and Woking. During his first curacy, and after the statutory three years of celibacy, he married his wife Jane (with whom he has two children, Nicola and Matthew). In 1967, Bishop Barnes received his first incumbency as Rector of Farncombe in the Diocese of Guildford. After eleven years, the family moved to Hessle, in the Diocese of York, for another nine years as vicar. In 1987, he became Principal of St Stephen’s House, Oxford. In 1995, he was asked by then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, to become the second PEV for the Province. He was based in St. Alban’s and charged with ministering to faithful Anglo-Catholics spread over the length of Southern England, from the Humber Estuary to the Channel Islands. After six years of service as a PEV, Bishop Barnes retired to Lymington on the south coast where he holds the Bishop of Winchester’s license as an honorary assistant bishop. On the retirement of the late and much lamented Bishop Eric Kemp, he was honored to be asked to succeed him as President of the Church Union, which office he still holds. 
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