Saturday, April 4, 2009
Henry the Catholic
A newly discovered prayer roll reveals the young Henry VIII as a firm believer in aspects of the Roman Catholic faith the Reformation he unleashed would later oppose. One wonders though why this is treated as "news"; Henry VIII has been known for centuries to have been fervently religious; hence his "Defense of the Seven Sacraments" for which he was awarded the title "Defender of the Faith."
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2 comments:
I have no doubt that the CoE was originally Catholic, just in schism. To the best of my knowledge, the only change Henry made was making himself head of the church. Still valid, but illicit orders and sacraments, up until Cromwell, I think.
Thomas or Oliver? Either way I'm not sure what you mean.
I believe Leo XIII's 1896 ruling rested on the alleged deficiencies of the Edwardine ordinal of 1549, under Cranmer, two years after Henry's death. Anglicans would counter that those problems, whatever they were, were in any case remedied by the Caroline ordinal of 1662, in which I believe a Spanish RC bishop participated, and if not then certainly by the "Dutch Touch" (Old Catholics) from the 1930s onward.
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