After all, the "Church of England" was started by a chap named King Henry VIII of the House of Tudor who wanted to be rid of his wife, Catherine of Aragon, and sought a decree of nullity from the Pope so that he could marry his mistress, Anne Boleyn. The rest, as they say, is history, and very bad history at that. Henry VIII took England out of the Catholic Faith, starting a fierce persecution of Catholics who remained steadfast in their loyalty to Rome and to the Mass of Tradition in 1534 that saw over 72,000 Catholics, nearly three percent of the population of England at the time, slaughtered by the brute force of the State by the time that Henry died of a certain contagious disease in 1547. Monastery and convent lands were seized, under cover of law, you understand, and the properties re-distributed to both reward Henry's political collaborators and to bribe others to be beholden to the Crown at all costs. The poor who had lived good lives as perpetual tenants on these lands were eventually thrown off, creating the conditions for economic injustice and misery that blighted England for centuries thereafter. Only one bishop, the Bishop of Rochester, Saint John Fisher, opposed King Henry VIII's re-marriage and his declaration to be the supreme head of the Church in England ("as far as was possible). He lost his head in 1535 for his brave defense of Catholic Truth and the primacy of the Successor of Saint Peter. So did the prominent layman, the former Chancellor of the Realm, Saint Thomas More. However, Saint John Fisher was the only bishop out of about one hundred who remained faithful to the point of death. True, about thirty or so remained faithful when Elizabeth I took England out of the Faith for a second time thirty years later. John Fisher, though, was the only bishop who resisted King Henry VIII and who would not let the exigencies of personal expediency nor exaggerated nationalism get in the way of doing his Catholic duty. Cardinals Murphy-O'Connor and O'Brien have followed the easy path of Saint John Fisher's cowardly colleagues, including the infamous Thomas Cranmer.
Free Republic story
Did Thomas Cranmer, patron saint of unhappy husbands, mind the killing of tens of thousands of Catholics so that Henry VIII could get rid of his wife and marry his mistress?
"Did Thomas Cranmer, patron saint of unhappy husbands, mind the killing of tens of thousands of Catholics so that Henry VIII could get rid of his wife and marry his mistress?"
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Why is it that RC's feel so compelled to interject their view of events? I can't help but notice that the RC's never will admit to their church's participation in atrocities.