Will There Be ‘Priest Holes’ in the U.S.A.?

National Catholic Register ^ | 7/7/2013 | ROBERT MORRISON

[markomalley]

It was my first encounter with a "priest hole." I had read about that architectural feature of some great English manor houses in history, but I had never seen one.

Recently, my wife and I toured Agecroft Hall in Richmond, Va. It is not a reproduction of an English manor house. It is the very thing.

(snip)

That’s where the priest holes come in. Our guide, a young, bearded and most knowledgeable Falstaff of a fellow, noted that it was a capital crime to celebrate Mass in Elizabethan England. Priests were publicly hanged for doing it. Nobles and higher gentry could find their lands and estates confiscated by the Crown for the "crime" of worshipping as Roman Catholics.

So many of the great houses of England, especially in the North Country, were built with hiding places cleverly concealed from searchers. There, they could quickly pack away their clerics and rosaries, vestments, Douay Bibles and even the prie dieus on which devout Catholics knelt and prayed.

(snip)

All of this is in grave danger today. Under this administration and under the threat of militant atheizers, our liberty is endangered as it has not been since 1786. President Obama’s HHS mandate would force Catholic institutions to violate their consciences and discard the pro-life tenets of their religion.

So, will there be priest holes in America?

Will we see again the kind of religious persecution so many of our forebears came to America to escape?

It was England’s King James I, ostensibly a Protestant, who threatened religious dissenters of his day with the heaviest penalties. "They will conform, or I will harry them out of the land."

Is that what Christians in America today are being told?

[markomalley]

NB: the author of this piece is a Lutheran...

[LanaTurnerOverdrive]

Priest holes?

[Graybeard58]

Religious persecution is as old as religion.

The revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove my ancestors to England and shortly thereafter to the United States, yet I’m thankful that they suffered persecution or I’d be French.

[mosesdapoet]

Obamacare Ruling: Religious Employers MUST Provide Birth Control Coverage
Saturday, June 29, 2013 9:21:10 AM · 22 of 24
mosesdapoet to shalom aleichem
Obama: ‘If Catholics (and Protestants) Have Their Schools ... That Encourages Division’
Wednesday, June 19, 2013 5:29:13 PM · 46 of 51
mosesdapoet to Zakeet
WHAT DID YOU EXPECT ?
This address to the Irish accompanied by his usual entourage of hundreds made during his stay in europe for the June 2013 Summit 8 conference might make it to the national scene but our media will sit on it.

The democrat party after taking complete control of both the House and Senate in 2008. Lost the House in 2010 thanks to the opposition by loosely organized groups known as the tea party later characterized by members of the administration as “terrorists” and ignored or distained by the GOPES in the subsequent 2012 election..

But despite that loss the democrats decided any word and reference to GOD was to be removed at their 2012 national convention. A fact that went un-noticed, un-touched, un-mentioned, and un-used by the RINOS and GOPES (GOP elite snobs) during that presidential 2012 election and now who are still running todays Republican party.

Even after reconsideration the decision was derided by the demo- majority because it was re-installed over a majority voice vote supporting the removal.

If this were a political party in a parlimentary system it would be hyphenated and would (and should despite the difference) be refered to as the Demo-Com party. But the RINOS and GOPES can’t even call them “socialist”.

Any Catholic or Christian claiming to belong to this party is a hyprocrite and should be confronted and isolated with disgust and distain. It’s time to understand and face the facts that everything that has been edicted and ruled since that time including discarding the traditional concept of marriage has come out of the closet. They must be refuted.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

Persecution always backfires, but it wouldn’t be surprising. Cooption seems to be the modern strategy, and it is much more insidious and successful.

[kitkat]

Good post.

[RFEngineer]

“Religious persecution is as old as religion.”

In the US some individual states had state religion established by law.

this was not unusual - Catholicism was a “state religion” for much of it’s existence in the world, Henry VIII duplicated it when he established the COE, and that was duplicated in places in the New World until our founders realized that state religions was its own form of tyranny.

The concept of separation of church and state was not the same then - as it is now. Then the church held great political sway in Rome and in England (with the COE). This was not compatible with the newly independent US, The elimination of state religion in virginia was a precursor to freedom of religion as it is enshrined in the constitution.

[Campion]

Yep, priest holes

[RFEngineer]

“Persecution always backfires, but it wouldn’t be surprising”

Federal government dispensed with the 10th Amendment post Civil War to a large extent. It grew in scope and size ever since. Expanding on that model, it has been to the federal governments advantage to increasingly usurp every Constitutional limit imposed upon it.

Every American will need to have some refuge from an all-powerful government that increasingly wishes to tax, confiscate, redistribute, punish or destroy.

You may need it for religious purposes - to hide a priest as they did then, or to hide yourselves, as was necessary in the Diary of Anne Frank, or to hide your guns when they come knocking, or your gold when that becomes illegal, or to hide texts and data....there are so many ways that government is expanding in scope and size - and there are so many people waiting to be on the receiving end of that which is “redistributed” that everyone has to think about it these days if they are reasoned individuals.

[MDLION]

I highly recommend “Mexican Martyrdom” by Rev. Father Wilfrid Parsons, SJ, for information on how the priests got the Eucharist to the people of Mexico in the 1920s and 30s during the persecution. The brave exploits of Blessed Miguel Pro are chronicled early in the book. Also, St. Margaret Clitherow was crushed to death with stones in England in 1586 for harboring priests. I believe she may have been pregnant with her fourth child.

[napscoordinator]

Religious persecution is as old as religion.

So true. I know at one time (I don’t remember exactly when) they almost wiped out the entire priesthood but it came back. I think the Catholic Church and the priesthood is much stronger than any presidency.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

everyone has to think about it these days if they are reasoned individuals.

Reasonable individuals is down to about 35%. Maybe it's more accurate to say, 35% have not sold out.

[Marie]

There is a comment at the link that’s worth repeating here:

“Ok Obama won in 2012 and I will speak bluntly about what Catholics had to do with it. Please
see the following link on the finding of a Pew Forum study on Religion and Politics.

“http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/How-the-Faithful-Voted-2012-Preliminary-Exit-Poll-Analysis.aspx

“The quote that we should focus on states
....But the basic religious contours of the 2012 electorate resemble recent elections – traditionally Republican groups such as white evangelicals and weekly churchgoers strongly backed Romney, while traditionally Democratic groups such as black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics, Jews and the religiously unaffiliated backed Obama by large margins…

“White Catholics gave Obama 40 percent while Hispanics gave Obama a whopping 75% support. I blame all of us but especially priests and bishops who seeing what a skunk Obama was did not have the guts to thunder against him OPENLY from the pulpit. Now allow me to say that Hispanics Catholics should understand why many conservative Catholics are unimpressed with their alleged family values. It seems that if Hispanics have to choose between their Church and their God vs. amnesty and welfare they choose hands down amnesty and welfare. They seem more rice Christians who act and vote emotionally and not using their God given faith and intellect then people of integrity. So you priests, bishops, Hispanics, black and white Catholic Obama voters you owe your Church (and country) an apology. Our heritage of a nation that has religious freedom has gone down the toilet. Dont ask me to apologize for your hurt feelings APOLOGIZE TO US for your morally reprehensible inaction and for by voting for this thoroughly evil man AND DECIDE TO VOTE REPUBLICAN FROM NOW ON AND TO PROCLAIM THE IMPLICATIONS OF CATHOLIC DOCTRINE AS IT PERTAINS TO THE VOTING BOOTH!!!”

~ Bill McIntosh

I have to say that I agree with him. Catholics, especially Hispanic Catholics, did a lot to hand this election over.

Priests, preachers, pastors... OK, you can’t preach politics from the pulpit.

What about meeting your ‘flock’ at a restaurant or a private house and preaching there? Our founders moved thousands of people to their cause with keggers. When are our religious leaders going to grow some stones?

(And when are the ‘sheep’ going to realize that some of these pastors are on the wrong side of G-d and start leaving their churches/shuls/temples ‘en masse?)

Somebody needs to start a new church. It would be 180* from the Unitarians. Same concept as the Unitarians - everybody welcome - but the foundation of the Christian/Judaic ethic would be preached. Worried about preaching from the pulpit? Fine, teach Biblical principles in the church and have classes on the founding of our nation somewhere else. The pastor could ‘volunteer’ in his free time to teach them.

I’d serve beer.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

What about meeting your ‘flock’ at a restaurant or a private house and preaching there?

Most priests are moderates, or social democrats. I attribute this to the Church's tax-exempt status in the West. The leadership has it soft, and has been coopted.

The Church is always vital where it's persecuted, such as in China, or where it hasn't been coopted, such as in Africa.

[Salgak]

Given the predilections of the current Administration and their hangers-on, Gun Holes. And in NYC, BigGulp Holes, Salt Holes, and in a month or so, Twinkie Holes. . .

[Cronos]

this was not unusual - Catholicism was a “state religion” for much of it’s existence in the world, Henry VIII duplicated it when he established the COE, and that was duplicated in places in the New World until our founders realized that state religions was its own form of tyranny.

Depends on where. In some strongly Catholic countries like Poland it wasn't...

[KevinDavis]

Don’t forget about the Puritans.. They did established a theocracy in the New England colonies..

[RFEngineer]

“Depends on where. In some strongly Catholic countries like Poland it wasn’t...”

The Catholic Church, before there were nation states was the center of political and religious power. “State religion” in the context of my post mainly referred to US States, post 1776.

[G Larry]

Revolutions and Civil Wars will prevent the need for any “Priest holes” in America.

[pierrem15]

Poland was a special case because the Roman church had to compete with the Orthodox church-- Polish kings were allowed to appoint bishops and services were held in Polish (or Old Slavonic at the time).

In the 16th century an official edict of toleration for all Abrahamic religions was issued, but it was repealed in the 17th century when Catholics were forbidden to convert to Protestantism (never read that it was actually enforced).

In any case, Poles have always had a strong anti-authoritarian bias.