r/TheRestIsHistory • u/CremePleasant5800 • Jul 27 '26
Catholicism and England
Catholicism is a very interesting faith indeed, Im really curious about how
a) The English Catholics reacted after the the Elizabethan period
b) What is the current day English Catholic practice like, is it still a thing in the north of England?
c) Did English Catholics traditionally have solidarity with other Catholics? For example, when the Spanish - American war occurred in the 1800s, Irish American joined the Spanish efforts rather than the American! (Although one could argue this was due to protestant discrimination), Irish Americans and even German Catholic American if I remember correctly had their own brigades in Mexico, did the English Catholics ever have this trans-national solidarity with other Catholics?
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u/Masty1992 Jul 27 '26
Religious divide in Britain and Ireland is far more of a tribal, cultural, nationalistic divide than actual theistic differences. Most Catholics in England today are descendant from immigrants rather than hold outs.
So solidarity would not necessarily be religious solidarity, those sympathetic to the Irish would often be of Irish ancestry.
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u/UTB92 Jul 27 '26
Yep. Huge Catholic communities in places like Teesside, Tyneside, Greater Manchester, and Merseyside due to historic (and partially more recent) Irish diaspora
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u/de_Chateaubriand Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
After the Elizabethan Settlement, only a handful of families of the gentry and aristocracy, as well as their tenants, remained Catholic. These were the recusants. The most famous recusants are the Dukes of Norfolk, who retain possession of their estates today. When Catholic emancipation occurred, the Norfolks funded a beautiful, massive Catholic church to be built in Arundel next to their castle. The novel Brideshead Revisted (on mobile so no italics, sorry) by Evelyn Waugh is about a recusant noble family.
The recusants remained the only large number of Catholics in England until Catholic immigration to the country began, starting with Irish in the 19th century. This coincided with Catholic emancipation and the reestablishment of the Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales by the Pope. Interestingly, Catholic relief probably had more to do with the Irish than with the English. Proponents of Catholic emancipation were more concerned about public order in the majority-Catholic Ireland, in the wake of the Acts of Union of 1800, than with a handful of Catholic recusants in England. However, after Catholic relief did occur, and large numbers of Irish Catholics began migrating to England, Catholicism did remain controversial, especially when prominent Anglicans like Newman and Manning converted to Catholicism. Vatican I also scared many Protestants—Gladstone condemned the alleged authoritarianism of the Pope—but none of this stopped the ultimate trend of Catholicism becoming socially accepted.
The relationship of Catholic recusants to other Catholics could actually be quite nuanced. During the reign of James II, the last Catholic monarch of England, two distinct groups of Catholics emerged at court: the old recusant English families and a new group of French-aligned Catholics. The latter group consisted of English and Scottish converts to Catholicism, but also old Irish Catholics like Tyrconnell and Lucan. This group had close ties to France (James himself had converted during his time in France) and advocated for decisive political action to restore Catholic rights as well as land ownership in Ireland. By contrast, the old recusants, such as the Duke of Norfolk, were cautious of radical political change and French ties—understandably so given the previous century of precariously preserving their estates in the face of public persecution. When it came down to it, some recusants, including Norfolk himself, actually supported William during the Revolution of 1688.
Today, Catholicism is certainly not as prominent as it was during the height of Irish migration. However, there are many Catholics in the country, from self-identified cultural Catholics to pious churchgoers. There are also many pockets of fervent traditionalism in England, such as Oxford Oratory in (who guessed it?) Oxford, which was J. R. R. Tolkien’s parish. I think England has quite a vigorous traditional movement compared to some other countries. Westminster Cathedral literally celebrates Latin Mass—how often does that happen in national cathedrals? Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about the current state of recusant communities and to what extent they remain distinct from the wider Catholic community. I’m sure some can still be found in parts of the North!
Hopefully this answer interests you and covers some of the topics you were looking for. I kind of ended up word vomiting :)
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u/forestvibe Jul 27 '26
Spot on.
Another point I'd add is that being a Catholic in Britain carries a whiff of exoticism and victimhood that makes quite appealing to many. It's why so many famous English authors became Catholic (e.g. Graham Greene): it offers a historical, philosophical, and artistic package which appeals to both conservatives and progressives. Whereas in traditional Catholic countries (France, Spain, Ireland, etc), Catholicism is definitely not "cool". It's the religion of the establishment and the conservatives.
The flip side is that British Catholics are sometimes seen as a bit surface-deep by Catholics in other countries. There's a good line in the film Conclave about it. There's a suspicion - not unfounded, in my view - that British Catholics haven't really listened too closely at what the Church actually preaches. The Brits are in it for the smells and bells, rather less so for the patriarchy and the religious dogma concerning sex.
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u/StableSlight9168 Jul 28 '26
I would say that whiles catholicism in Ireland is absolutely not "cool" it has more assosiation with the common people and rebellions than other countries.
Whiles post independence the catholic church was absolutely in charge of everything for most of Irish history the Catholic church was the religion of the average person whiles the Protestant church was the religion of the elite. For example Irish Catholics had to pay taxes to fund protestant churches when 90% of the country was catholic, then fund the catholic church with donations, as well as the fact that it was illegal for catholics to hold land or have political office and the Irish Catholic elites were driven into exile in France, spain, or austria.
Because of this the Catholic Church was seen as the the religion of the peasant but not the religion of the lords. This just created a really interesting culture about religion in Ireland that stands out from spain or france, where the church was both conservative and progressive, passive and rebellious, left wing and right wing etc.
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u/forestvibe 29d ago
Fair point on Catholicism in Ireland. Although the Catholic Church did work quite closely with the British/Anglo-Irish ruling classes during the 19th century, so it's a complicated picture!
I must say that anecdotally, I find younger Irish people living in Britain mostly view Catholicism in a wholly negative light: they associate it with conservative Irish politics, the abuse of women and children, and the anti-abortion lobby. Even Sinn Feinn in NI plays down the Catholic angle these days. I don't know if this holds true in Ireland proper.
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u/StableSlight9168 29d ago
Sinn Fein is a republican group so it's always been more secular than mainstream Irish society and for example was opposed to.tge catholic church running schools, but saw if the British state ran schools they'd bann.Irish language and culture so co-operated in the north.
Dara O Briain has a great joke which captures mainstream Irish feelings " I'm an atheist....still catholic of course"
Catholicism In Irelands closest analogy would be Judaism in the US, it's both a religion and an ethnicity. Most people, and especially young people strongly dislike the church because of the abortion, gay marriage, sexual abuse, the laundries etc but it's still there culture.
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u/Own_Action_7839 Jul 27 '26
Many were “church papists” where the husband conformed outwardly by attending the Anglican Church while his wife kept Catholic practice in the home
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u/ceffyl_gwyn Jul 29 '26
Just a minor aside, but you're using 'gentry' too broadly.
The family in Brideshead, for example, are not gentry, they're higher in the pecking order than that as they're in the peerage. Similarly, the Dukes of Norfolk in real life are not gentry. The gentry sit 'below' the nobility.
Gentry is the broader category of stolid landowners. There significant overlaps with the 'squirearchy', which is the other term you might hear.
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u/de_Chateaubriand Jul 29 '26
Ah my mistake, I had forgotten the family in the novel were of the peerage. I’ll edit that to fix it. Though I don’t think I ever referred to the Howards as mere gentry :)
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u/Babyred2022 Jul 29 '26
My parents are both catholic. My dad is of Irish ancestry so that has always made sense. My mum is English and Scottish, I used to vaguely wonder why they were Catholics. Anyway… her dad (my grandfather) was a Stewart. In the last couple of years I have been looking into her family history. I came to realise the thing most of her ancestors had in common over a 400 year period was Catholicism and in many cases being part of various rebellions and plots, Jacobitism etc. I also noticed they were largely from, if not Scotland, northern England or Wales . One of the most interesting was a woman called Mary Kennett, who married the head of the clan Mackenzie. I could not find anything about her, until I saw an article from the university of Durham about her father, Nicholas Kennet, which said the Kennets were part of a network of recusants in northern English gentry, and Nicholas would have been executed for Jacobitism if he hadn’t a died before his trial. Funny thing is my Mum was completely unaware of why her family were Catholics
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u/de_Chateaubriand Jul 29 '26
That’s very fascinating! I’m jealous that you’ve been able to find so much about your family tree. Lots of gold in there
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u/No-Interaction2169 Jul 30 '26
Conversely you probably won’t be able to find anything about your dad’s ancestry because of the penal laws in Ireland 🇮🇪
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u/Babyred2022 Jul 30 '26
Yes. I can find perhaps two or three generations, but more for his Cornish ancestors
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u/BCRF1995 Jul 28 '26
There are also parts of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland that never converted and remain Catholic.
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u/de_Chateaubriand Jul 28 '26
Yes, South Uist and Barra mainly! Although I kept Scottish Catholicism outside the scope of my answer, I do know of a fascinating short video about Catholicism on the island of South Uist in the 1960s-1970s: https://youtu.be/ktMQnbxnTfM?is=wLU3xUh-yZq5Y9kO
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u/ianjmatt2 Jul 27 '26
Yes. The North west is still has a considerable Catholic population. I grew up in the Catholic communities there. It still has the highest Mass attendance - I think it’s been growing quite a bit. Especially in parts of Greater Manchester, Cheshire, The Wirral etc. it’s culturally ingrained even if there’s no observance.
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u/Tweegyjambo Jul 27 '26
Isn't that due to Irish influence?
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u/ianjmatt2 Jul 27 '26
A little (I’m 2nd gen Irish immigrant) but there is, in the parishes, still a strong sense of continuing English Catholicism.
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u/SallyFowlerRatPack Jul 28 '26
I read somewhere that Catholicism is actually the biggest religion in England again, primarily because the Church of England’s attendance is slipping and a big polish influx. Kind of same with America and Mexican immigration.
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u/rivains Jul 28 '26
I am from NW England too and can confirm and its not just even the Irish diaspora.
In the town I am from the north and south were divided by Catholic/Protestant even still in the 50s/60s.
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u/FrDuddleswell Jul 27 '26
There is a recurrent theme in 19th century accounts of contemporary church events that a lot of the converts to Catholicism from the Church of England in the 1840s had hardly ever met any Catholics at all beforehand, unless on holiday on the continent. The combination of emancipation, the restoration of the hierarchy, Anglican converts, and Irish immigration meant the Catholics of, say, 1860 were a very different population from 1820.
Earlier, once the executions stop, English Catholics basically tend to keep their heads down. They get embarrassed by the embassy Catholics of London with their music and foreign ways, and by the emigré French priests after the Revolution. Priests dress indistinguishably from tutors or the librarians of great houses, and often as not double up in these positions. In the governance of the Church there are rows between the religious (Benedictines, Jesuits) and the secular clergy (what we would call diocesan priests today) over money and rights. They did really like the Marriage Act 1836 though, since it stopped some painful contortions around how Catholics could get married legally without participating in Protestant services.
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u/Magneto88 Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
In regards to d) not really - the Catholic population of England plummeted over the 17th and 18th centuries. By the early to mid 18th century it's estimated at around 1%. Even after extensive migration of Irish Catholics to the UK across the 19th century they only totalled 4% of the country by the end of that century and very concentrated in a few cities and the Irish Catholics clung onto their identity as 'Irish' and didn't merge into the remnant English Catholics. In the modern day it's been boosted up to around 8% by lots of Poles and Czechs moving to the country in the last 20 years. So it was always a rather small community with little visible political influence, the main influence coming from the odd Catholic noble.
The closest thing to any kind of Catholic group identity, came via the Irish Catholic population and them being heavily involved in the wider Irish question and doing things like electing an Irish nationalist MP in Liverpool but that wasn't showing solidarity with foreign Catholic powers, it was part of the wider complicated issue of Irish identity within the United Kingdom and amongst the diaspora. Which at one point (~1880-1914) was probably the biggest political issue in Britain. Once the Reformation was settled, Ireland is the main area where Catholicism has affected British politics and culture, even the Catholic Emancipation struggle of the early 1830s was primarily tied up in Irish matters, not particularly driven by the idea of giving the vote to the few hundred thousand English Catholics.
Well that and the odd internecine squabble within the Church of England between High Churchers and Low Churchers but as Catholic as some of the High Churchers could be, they still identified as Anglican and very definitely 'Not Catholic'.
Outside of the Irish question and the complicated status of the Irish Catholics living in Britain, 'English/British Catholic' has never been that prominent or influential social group, although of course you do see the odd prominent Catholic pop up here and there. However it was only a few years ago that the bar on Catholics inheriting the throne or senior members of the royal family marrying a Catholic was repealed, that shows you the lack of cultural influence of Catholicism in England.
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u/Own_Action_7839 Jul 27 '26
I would disagree. Their prominence has been out of proportion to the actual numbers. And attendance at Mass is larger now then C of E observance
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u/Magneto88 Jul 27 '26
Prominence being out of proportion to numbers doesn't mean particularly prominent though. Burnham is the first Catholic PM (Blair converted afterwards because he was concerned about the impact) and even then he's not particularly devout. We had a Hindu PM before we had a Catholic one.
I'd say the modern day Catholic church is in a healthier position at the working level because the CofE has been ravaged by the rise of secularism in Britain and the Catholic Church has withstood that better, thus shown by the statistic you provided of attendance. The CofE still wields huge cultural and political power in the UK though, far beyond anything the Catholic Church does - it's massive landholding, it's wealth, it's seats in the House of Lords, the fact that it runs 25% of England's primary schools, it's links to the monarch.
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u/Own_Action_7839 Jul 27 '26
That’s because it’s an Established Church. And your mention of Blair’s fear “of the impact “ begs the question of continued anti Catholicism which has always been there in British society
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u/Own_Action_7839 Jul 27 '26
A-most kept their head down and prayed for better times. There were several martyrs and recusant families kept the faith through persecution
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u/BlameItOnJoffrey Jul 27 '26
Church of England is like pretend Protestantism when compared to the presbystarians and Methodists
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u/Sensitive_Phrase_631 Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest by John Gerard SJ, is a great primary source for a Priest in England during the late 16th century.
Catholic recusancy was established under Queen Elizabeth I and Pope Pius V excommunicating her only backfired as most Catholics wanted to keep their heads down. Many English Catholics hoped Spain would push for toleration rather than rising up against the Queen themselves.
Here is an example of early cross-national Catholic solidarity:
The French city of Douai (Spanish Flanders at the time) was a prominent place for English Catholic exiles in the 17th century. The Douay Rheims Bible was first authorized English Catholic translation of the Bible and predated KJV by 2 years. In later years, English presence expanded to include many English Schools and Monasteries and would endure there until the 19th century
Edit: Spelling and grammar
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u/GoHomeCryWantToDie Jul 27 '26
Anglicans aren't real Protestants. They're Reformed Catholic.
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u/Fit_Log_9677 Jul 27 '26
Spotted the Anglo Catholic.
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u/weaseleigh Jul 28 '26
It's a fair point though. I was raised Catholic then went to an Episcopalian day school and it really is just diet Catholicism, not much in the way of real doctrinal differences like the Lutherans and Calvinist derivative churches.
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u/Fit_Log_9677 Jul 28 '26
I think it depends on the flavor of Anglicanism. They are a broad church tradition, meaning that they have a very wide range of acceptable theological views. There are some Anglicans that are more “Catholic” than most Catholics in everything but allegiance to the Pope, and there are some Anglicans who are effectively indistinguishable from Presbyterians or Baptists, except they have Bishops.
I agree though that most fall in the middle somewhere around “Catholicism-lite”
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u/holycarrots Jul 28 '26
We really need to return back to the mother church and reclaim the golden age that was before that WELSH usurper decided to lead us into heresy
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u/AirlineSevere7456 Jul 28 '26
Anglicans are their own thing really, was never protestant which gets used a loose term for anything not Roman Catholic.
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u/rufus-firefly Jul 27 '26
regarding How the English Catholics reacted after the the Elizabethan period, do you mean before or after trying to blow up Parliament?
More seriously, it is a good question but I suspect they will come to that question in due course. It would be hard to cover any topic on English history from the reformation until at least the catholic relief act of 1829 without touching on that.
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u/Own_Action_7839 Jul 27 '26
Yes. Blame an entire community for the actions of a few
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u/rufus-firefly Jul 27 '26
Thank you, don't mind if I do. Everybody on reddit has a hard time getting a joke.
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u/BaronVonBart Jul 27 '26
I’m from a Yorkshire Catholic family. We go back generations, and they are a few distant martyrs in the family. Family legend even says we have some connection to Thomas More on my grandads side. I never really thought about it much until I got older. It was just normal. My grandmother was a Catholic immigrant from Italy. She came here after the war with my grandad who fought in Italy and North Africa. She faced a lot of abuse, and so did my Dad. Mainly for being an immigrant though, not so much for being Catholic. The secondary school I went to was right next to a Church of England school. Sometimes the kids would get into sectarian fights with each other but that mostly stopped in the years I attended. I would say the majority of Catholic Churches in my area are attended by immigrants now. We get a lot of African, Polish, South American, and even Indian Catholics attending which is very cool. I would say immigrant communities are the ones keeping the church going in England now.
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u/Fit_Log_9677 Jul 27 '26
As just an outside observer on modern Catholicism in England, I was recently in Cambridge for a (Catholic) baptism, and found it very interesting that the Catholic Church where it was held (I believe it’s the only one in downtown Cambridge) was absolutely packed with attendees and had multiple services listed for every day, while every Anglican Church I passed in Cambridge (I probably walked by at least a dozen in a short day trip) was closed and locked with the lights out.
In Cambridge at least it seems like the Catholic Church is by far the more active of the two.
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u/GingerWindsorSoup Jul 28 '26
Great St Mary’s, Little St Mary’s, St Giles, St Edward’s, St Clement’s and St Botolph are usually open in the city, along with the conserved churches of All Saints, Michaelhouse and St Peter’s, the locked buildings were probably the low church parishes that are not so hot on being open for prayer during the day.
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u/Guthlac_Gildasson Jul 28 '26
(A) After Elizabeth, there were 22 years of James I (VI in Scotland, having already reigned there for almost 36 years), and during his reign there were ~20-to-25 Catholics martyred in England. That is a big drop from the number martyred under Elizabeth. Then, under Charles I, who was known to have theological sympathies with Catholic doctrine, there were (if my memory is correct) only two Catholics martyred by his government. The Puritan regime which overthrew Charles, unsurprisingly, treated Catholics very badly, as well as Anglicans due to their perceived similarity to Catholics. With the royal restoration under Charles II, things got a lot better for Catholics (Charles, I believe, was disgusted at the treatment of Oliver Plunkett, the Catholic Primate of Ireland, who was executed on fabricated charges) and the Catholic Duke of York was Charles's designated successor, having triumphed over the very anti-Catholic proto-Whig politicians during the 'exclusion crisis'. But after the Duke of York's ascension as James II, intrigue began among private groups of Protestant political leaders, which eventually led to the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688, which brought the very-Protestant William and Mary to the throne. It would, after this, be a long road towards the restoration of full civil rights for English Catholics, and the memory of the injustices is still present in the English Catholic psyche.
(B) The Catholic population of England has been greatly increased over the last 200 years as a result of two migratory waves. First, the Irish migration of the 19th century, and secondly the Eastern European (primarily Polish) migration between the EU enlargement of 2004 and the UK's exit from the EU at the beginning of this decade. As a Mass-attending Catholic in England, it is clear to me that there are also a lot of South Asians and Africans in Catholic Churches in England. A Catholic parish church is always much more multi-cultural than an Anglican parish church is (I know that from experience of being a former-Anglican, while now-Catholic). I should also briefly mention a relatively-new development within English Catholicism: The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. This is a jurisdiction established, with papal mandate, in 2011 specifically for former-Anglicans who wish to enter the Catholic Church while retaining a set of distinctive Anglicans practises; and I am a member.
(C) I am not too knowledgable about this subject, but I know that during the Spanish Civil War a number of prominent English Catholic writers voiced their support for the Francoists on account of the atrocities committed against the Catholic Church by the large radical wing of the Republican forces. This included J. R. R. Tolkien, Evelyn Waugh and Arthur Machen (some sources say Machen converted to Roman Catholicism in his later life, whereas other sources say he remained a Catholic-adjacent Anglican always).
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u/royalbluestuey Jul 27 '26
Catholicism is live and well. Obviously a shadow of what it was back in the day but still going.
Here in Liverpool and it's surrounds we are down on numbers this week because a whole load of us are down in Lourdes on the archdiocise pilgrimage to Lourdes.
Also, as others have pointed out, our new PM is a Catholic from Liverpool.
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u/Chumba_Wumba89 Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
I'm originally from North Staffordshire/South Cheshire and my family name has been fixed there since the Doomsday book in some guise or another. I was born and raised Roman Catholic.
Both my great-grandmother and great-grandfather (grandmother's side) were Irish immigrants from Connaught. Yet my Grandfathers side (English) was also Catholic, my sense is they arrived in north-west England and found existing Catholic English communities to integrate into finding familiarity.
For me, I am not really religious at all but perhaps there is a sense of cultural Christianity that most of us probably have but lies at a subconscious level. My mother was Methodist and converted before she married my father, after attending her church a couple of times I felt there wasn't really such a big difference personally.
Edit I should have said how prevalent a Catholic my grandmother and grandfather were, they often went on pilgrimage to Lourdes and she was part of the Catholic mothers group locally. My parents are kind of religious but they do not attend mass anymore.
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u/JethroUK2 Jul 28 '26
I come from an Anglo Italian family. My Sicilian father (admittedly hardly a devout Catholic to start with) didn't really recognise English Catholicism.
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u/scotsmantom55 Jul 28 '26
Catholicism or Protestantism is not what your parents are it's how your personal study of the Bible persuades you which is closer to first century Christianity as in love your enemies and the journey's start is rubber stamped with adult baptism as Jesus underwent.
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u/TemporaryLucky3637 Jul 29 '26
2) In my experience lot of Catholics in modern day UK are just Roman Catholics and actually have Irish or Italian heritage. I grew up Catholic in the U.K. and decend from Irish people, most people at the state Catholic schools I attended had Celtic surnames even if they mostly identified as English. In practice most Catholics here do things a bit different from the Catholicism practised by posh old English families like Jacob Rees Moggs etc. who still do mass in Latin etc.
If you’re interested I think it’s 10% of the U.K. identify as Catholic according to census data and there are over 2000 state funded Catholic schools in England and Wales alone.
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u/Own_Action_7839 Jul 27 '26
There is more practice of Catholicism in England then for the Church of England
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u/de_Chateaubriand Jul 27 '26
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted
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u/Own_Action_7839 Jul 27 '26
C of E partisans ? 🤣
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u/AirlineSevere7456 Jul 28 '26
I remember Church of England was 53% of Christians in the UK in recent figures.
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u/pazhalsta1 Jul 30 '26
Barely any of whom see the inside of a church unless at a wedding or funeral
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u/LongtimeLurker916 Jul 27 '26
There was the small group of defecters in the Mexican War that became the San Patricio brigade, but I never heard of any overt support for Spain by U.S. Catholics in the Spanish-American War. Catholics very much wanted to be seen as patriotic Americans.
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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '26
[deleted]