The Catholic Book Club discussion

6. Did you learn something from the book that you didn't know before about the history of the Catholic Church in England? Or about any other topic?

Yes i must admit that in my case there were things that i did not know the situation of the saxon church with norsemen i thought that it was more positive. The situation of the catholicism in the 18th century for me a big unknown. Perhaps it would like more information of England before the 4th century but before Saint Alban there is not much information. It is strange that he had not played with the christianity of the knight round table for instance Saint Illiud. The wife of Mordred. It is strange the absence of Saint Joseph of Arimathea, or presumed conversion of the relatives of Caractacus. He might have employed this. But every chapter is better than previous. Saint Gildas who appeared in the "Europe and the faith" by Belloc is absent.

Fonch wrote: "It is strange that he had not played with the christianity of the knight round table for instance Saint Illiud. The wife of Mordred. It is strange the absence of Saint Joseph of Arimathea..."

But Fonch, those things you mention are not history, they are legendary. I can't see how they would fit with a purely historical book. Additionally, they were not English originally, but French, even though they were called "the matter of Britain." Most of the Arthurian cycle was written in France in French by Chretien de Troyes, Béroult, and the anonymous authors of "Merlin," "La Queste du Saint Graal" and "La morte d'Arthur."

To find the first English version of the Arthurian myths we must go to Malory, at the end of the 15th century. And even then, the title Malory gave his work was in French ("La morte d'Arthur"), although the text was in English.

But we have to Saint Gildas and i think that we have previous stories of the knights of the round table https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rey_A.... This link says that the story of King Arthur appeared in previous welsh stories and Goddolin and Geoffrey of Monmouth was softly previous to Chretien of Troyes although i admitted the influence Norsemen. The myths also are important when we taught the tartessian stories we taught about Gerion, Norax, Gargoris and Habis presumely kings that probably did not exist the myths are important for the identity of the countries. Other case would be the presence of Saint James it is very difficult that the apostle arrived to Spain in the first century, however his burial was important to the spanish reconquest. There is one thing that i forgot to say as the majority of the books of Joseph Pearce this a history of the catholic faith in England not a history of England there are parts as the war of the hundred years and the war of two roses that hardly are described in this book. I share the links of Saint Illiud an article of Religión en Libertad about the Celtic Church. https://www.religionenlibertad.com/po... This information might be employed by Joseph Pearce. https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illtud https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cwyllog

Fonch wrote: "But we have to Saint Gildas and i think that we have previous stories of the knights of the round table..."

In 2020 I read The History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey Monmouth, and wrote this review for Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Although this book was slightly prior to the work of Chretien de Troyes, its value as history is nil, as I said in my review. And it does not mention the most religious part of the Arthurian legend: the quest of the Holy Grail, which was of French origin.

I insist that there was no need for Joseph Pearce to mention the Arthurian legends in a history of the Catholic Church in England.

The important it is not the Arthurian legend. The most important in my opinion is to prove that the catholic presence in England is most ancient that we can imagine. It is also important to prove that England was catholic not pagan, celtic, or pelagian as some writers and showrunners try that we believe. Besides we have the testimony of Saint Gildas previous to the normand presence. Besides we have the links that i post i suppose that they have some value. I-IV there is not nothing how is posible that at least England had three bishops. I want to know what did it happen in this period of time. The presence of Saint Joseph Arimathea has the same value of Saint James in Spain.

Fonch wrote: "The presence of Saint Joseph Arimathea has the same value of Saint James in Spain."

Really? Where is the supposed tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, which would become the target of pilgrimage? Yeah, there is Glastonbury Tor, but do you really mean that this is comparable to Santiago de Compostela?

The real competition to Santiago, in England, as a place of pilgrimage, is the tomb of St. Thomas Beckett in Canterbury.

This is true indeed the burial of Joseph Arimathea has never found but for this golden rule we would have the same problem with Martha and Mary in France and i want remember one thing the importance of the tradition in the Catholic Church. It is said that the grail nowadays is in the cathedral of Valence/Valencia. However i continue saying that it is necessary to find roots to the catholic in England previous to Saint Augustine of Canterbory.

I want to remember that it was the own Belloc that in "Europe and the Faith" wrote about Saint Gildas and the Celtic Christian. The only that the Celts does not want to help to Saint Augustine to evangelize the saxons for being considered the invaders.

Fonch wrote: "However i continue saying that it is necessary to find roots to the catholic in England previous to Saint Augustine of Canterbury."

But we won't find those roots in Joseph of Arimathea or the legend of the Holy Grail. Of course there were Roman Christians in England in the last times of the Roman Empire, but with the Saxon invasions England became again Pagan. St. Augustine of Canterbury introduced Christianity to the Saxons.

However the celt part kept the christian religion indeed Saint Agustine tried to beg assistance to evangelize the saxons but they did not want do it.

Fonch wrote: "However the celt part kept the christian religion indeed Saint Agustine tried to beg assistance to evangelize the saxons but they did not want do it."

Yes, the Celt converted Ireland and the Irish then converted the Pict and the English. But there are very few historic documents until Augustine of Canterbury landed on England at the end of the sixth century.

In fact, the development of Christianity on Ireland was somewhat apart from European Christianity, to the point that Arnold J. Toynbee considers the Irish of that time as one of his aborted civilizations. There were some differences, such as the computation of the date of Easter.

However the article of the digital newspaper Religión en Libertad gives more information the rites can be different but generally there was not conflict. The Synod of Whitby (664) established a uniform doctrine https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%...

I forget saying there was an interesting novel about the celtic Christian written by the Prior of the Valley of Fallen Santiago Cantera Montenegro, besides is a big historian a member of Saint Benedict Order. One of the best minds of our country with the permission of the Professor Manuel Alfonseca https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5... . I forgot to say Joseph Pearce in his foot notes has in his bibliography this book of Charles A. Coulombe "A catholic quest of Holy Grail" https://www.amazon.es/Catholic-Quest-... for this reason it is possible that in my intervention was not too unfortunate.

I apologize i am wrong Pearce wrote about the King Arthur. You can look in the page 27 of the book. I am sorry i read this book one year ago. It is true that he does not write about Saint Illthud the relative of King Arthur and the Mordred's wife but he included the legend to his book about the history of the catholic religion in England. With this is you let we can conclude the discussion about this topic. I was wrong about King Arthur and the Grail but Pearce did not reject the myths and legends i preffer this truly.

I had no idea there was an English Pope (Adrian IV), just assumed Pope John Paul II was the first non-Italian since St. Peter!

Jill exists Hadrian VI that he was from Netherlands and master of the Emperor Charles V. He is the pope next to Leo X.

Here is a list of popes by country. After Italy, the next country with most popes is France.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

Thank you! Fascinating!

The reason because France have a lot of pones was for the move to Avignon a moment where France control the choice also there were germans (Gregory VII for saying somebody), greeks and Syrians there is a beatiful novel of the spanish writer Jesús SánchezAdalid"In times of the syrian pope" . Despite his successful regretably was not translated to english.

Just finished the book. I learned that the Protestant Reformation in England was absolutely awful and imposed tyrannical rule on the faithful Catholics.

I was also amazed that the way in which Catholicism was revived in England was through literature and even poetry, through Chesterton, Tolkien, and my confirmation saint, John Henry Newman.

This was an amazing book. Very well researched.

Ben, we have read in the club a few other books about the Reformation and the persecution of Catholics in England that were also very interesting. Here are the links:

A historical novel by Benson: By What Authority?

The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605

Characters of the Reformation

There are more books unfortunatelly was not translated into spanish there are the books of Hugh Ross Williamson. There is the tetralogy of Benson By what authority? , King's Achievement, The tragedy of Queen, Come Rack come rope. Robert Peckham by Maurice Baring, one novel of Meriol Trevor the Professor Manuel Alfonseca wrote about it. "Chalice" by Nancy Bilyeau, Lucy Becket the author of Postcard from the Volcano has a novel about the Reformation "The time before you die", a writer called Dena Hunt "Treason " was translated to Italian but not into spanish. Elisabetta Sala had several books about Elizabeth "Elisabetta la sanguinaria", Shakespeare "L Enigma di Shakespeare" , and Henry VIII "La ira del re e morte" , Mr. Pearce likes really much Clare Asquith "Shakespeare and the shadowplace", "Shakespeare and the resistence", about the catholicism of Shakespeare "Shakespeare the papist", about Shakespeare has a lot of books. The previous year my favorite novel was "The Shakespeare's censor " by the ex minister Federico Trillo-Figueroa (his brother also writes a good novel about the relationship between Hannah Arendt and Heidegger). However i totally agree with Ben Booth that it is an amazing book and Pearce writes wonderfully every chapter was better than the previous.