Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Vortex—Stolen Property
churchmilitant.com ^ | May 6, 2015 | Michael Voris

Posted on 07/09/2015 8:03:43 PM PDT by Morgana

I’m Michael Voris coming to you from London, England.

This country is planted thick with churches and convents and monasteries and practically all of them are stolen property. Buildings that originally were built by Catholic religious orders and everyday Catholics over the course of centuries were ripped off from the Catholic Church in a handful of years because Henry VIII couldn’t control his sexual desires.

So part of the fabric of English Catholicism is this undercurrent of having been victimized by the Protestant, usurping monarchy and greedy noblemen. It’s woven into the very life and language of some faithful English Catholics — even so far as questioning the legitimacy of the royal family because the monarchy was also a victim of theft during the religious battles of England.

But how did all this come to pass almost 500 years ago? How did a country, a nation so faithful to the Church that it was called “Mary’s Dowry,” simply flip so easily to the state-run Protestant entity known as Anglicanism, or the Church of England?

This much is certain: because of the cowardice and political machinations of the Catholic bishops of the time. Those bishops simply miscalculated. They thought that Henry’s threat to the Church would pass soon enough and things would go back to life as usual. What they failed to include in their calculus was all the other characters waiting in the wings to devour the Church — people like Lutheran-in-spirit Thomas Cranmer and the large number of English who had much to profit from a financially weakened Church and so forth. There were many Englishmen just waiting for the moment when they could tear the Church apart and seize Her lands, holdings, properties, buildings, etc. Those bishops, just like many today, failed to see the larger, much broader agenda at work just beneath the surface.

The Church has all kinds of enemies, all types that have an interest in seeing Her be destroyed. Some hate the teachings. Others have a guilty conscience and take it out on the Chuch. Others still are indifferent and simply see the Church as standing in the way of cultural "progress." Others see the Church as an artifact of the Middle Ages whose time has passed, and who should be relegated to history. Many have a specific agenda, such as sodomite marriage, and want the Church out of the debate.

Despite the intentions, they are all motivated by evil, and when people are motivated by evil (and it doesn’t matter if it’s conscious or not), they are capable of anything when put in the right circumstances.

Consider what happened here in this very country: the gruesome martyrdom of Catholics, the outlawing of the Faith, the overrunning of hundreds of monasteries and schools and parishes.

This was a Catholic country through and through, and it was a lustful desire of the Catholic king that brought it all tumbling down.

The son of King Henry VIII, Edward VI, is the one who essentially bulldozed the Church over the cliff here, while after a brief Catholic respite under half-sister Mary, Elizabeth I came to the throne and finished the job. But that coy old witch was very clever indeed.

In order to bring an end to the sectarian revolts, she advanced a hybrid religion, one that looked Catholic on the outside, to win the favor of all the stupid, largely Catholic populace, too uneducated to really notice that underneath the Catholic veneer was a decidedly anti-Catholic religion.

Things appeared rather normal to most people, who went about their business as usual as England was slowly transformed into the non-Catholic nation that it is today, stripped of nearly all its former Catholic glory.

When smart Catholics caught on and began a quiet seditionist movement to keep the Faith alive by sneakily importing English priests from a secret seminary established in France, Elizabeth showed her true colors by capturing and killing many of them. More than 200 years before France’s Reign of Terror against the Faith, Satan had a warm-up act in the Elizabethan terror campaign on these shores.

It would not be long after "Good Queen Bess," as protestant history references her, that Englishmen in search of public office would have to renounce belief in the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Our Blessed Lord.

That this happened under the reign of King Charles II of the Stuarts is one of those historical ironies. As King of England he was also head of the Anglican church (small c), which historians note he roundly despised. But he played the game, even looking the other way when notable English martyr and archbishop of Armaugh Oliver Plunkett was hanged, drawn and quartered at the infamous Tyburn, which Elizabeth had put to good use.

As Charles lay dying, a priest, John Huddlestone, who had saved his life in battle during his youth, was now smuggled in to save his soul. Protestant King Charles II converted to the Catholic faith his last full day on earth, and following absolution and anointing, the Blessed Sacrament was held over him and he made a profession of faith, breaking English law.

Today, Protestant anti-Catholicism has been overthrown by secular anti-Catholicism. A widely acclaimed novel — “Wolf Hall” by author Hillary Mantel — has been turned into a spectacular TV production by the BBC and has now begun airing on PBS back in the States as of Easter Sunday. The novel seeks to deliberately turn history on its ear and depict St. Thomas More as a villainous, rotten man and Thomas Cromwell as an effective administrator having to contest the evil More at every turn. It is very important to note that author Hillary Mantel has said publicly that the Catholic Church is not a place for respectable people.

There is a lesson for Catholics in the West everywhere outside of England to learn from English Catholics: the tide is turning swiftly and strongly against Catholics. Just as happened here almost 500 years ago, the power of the state was used to extinguish Catholic life, and it all began because of King Henry’s lust.

America doesn’t have a king — at least officially, Mr. Obama — but the culture sets patterns and views like a king. Whether those powers are assumed into a single lust-crazed, murderous monarch, or spread out over a society that kills for love of sex, matters little in the end. The powers that be — whether king or culture — cannot let Catholic truth remain, because Catholic truth is an affront to them.

Catholics in America, unlike here in England, can’t easily relate to the reality of having your churches stolen from you and your property ripped from you. But the lesson to be learned from Merry Olde England is this: When the scales tip far enough (and they are tipping most decidedly), anything can happen.

Catholics in the West need to be preparing spiritually for persecution. The forces gathering against the Church from every side may be multi-dimensional, but they are totally united in their goal because of who it is that commands them.


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; Worship
KEYWORDS: catholic; henryvii; stolenproperty
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-71 next last
Comment #21 Removed by Moderator

To: Alex Murphy; Morgana; Salvation; ConservativeMind

Unless the Lord builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the Lord guards the city,
The watchman stays awake in vain.

Ps.127:1


22 posted on 07/09/2015 9:13:19 PM PDT by Sontagged (Woe to you when all men shall speak well of you...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Talisker

It was nice, wasn’t it? Back when we actually had to pass to be promoted, study to pass. It was a different world then. We had clarity. Right was right and wrong was wrong.


23 posted on 07/09/2015 9:14:06 PM PDT by LouAvul (Venal and evil people are destroying the world you live in.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Salvation; Alex Murphy
I went to and read the link. One quote near the end stood out as helping to make the entire exercise (of equating bad by Protestants in England to bad by the Catholic church in Spain) somewhat moot:

Protestants cannot make this claim against Catholics without having it backfire on themselves.

You see, I married into a family that was previously Jewish, but is now Protestant. As Jews, they were prohibited by Spain's Catholics from entering the major cities, so they worked and bought land in their towns.

24 posted on 07/09/2015 9:17:18 PM PDT by ConservativeMind ("Humane" = "Don't pen up pets or eat meat, but allow infanticide, abortion, and euthanasia.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: ConservativeMind

Interesting tidbit of history there. I have German relatives and they also have a different take on the Catholic Church in Germany.


25 posted on 07/09/2015 9:24:43 PM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Morgana

The law made you a Catholic, but I assume that the wealth the government church was using to build it’s buildings, was supplied by the British people.


26 posted on 07/09/2015 9:31:54 PM PDT by ansel12 (libertarians have always been for gay marriage and polygamy, gay Scout leaders, gay military.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Morgana

They “cannot let Catholic truth remain, because Catholic truth is an affront to them.”

True. Citizens in every country should love the Lord and His Church every day. Why is it that some people do not love the Lord and do not study and obey the Magisterium? It is a mystery. I tend to ignore the Lord and downplay the Ten Commandments when I wish to lollygag. Laziness leads to a lack of defense of His Church which has the potential to improve every country.


27 posted on 07/09/2015 9:32:55 PM PDT by Falconspeed ("Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others." Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Salvation

To further clarify, they were prohibited from entering Central American cities—I don’t know if that had been the case in Spain.

One side of her family was on the last boat to head out of Spain for Central America before the Spanish killings went “full bore crazy.”


28 posted on 07/09/2015 9:33:24 PM PDT by ConservativeMind ("Humane" = "Don't pen up pets or eat meat, but allow infanticide, abortion, and euthanasia.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: Harmless Teddy Bear

That’s a nice theory... how did it work out for Anne Boleyn?


29 posted on 07/09/2015 9:39:12 PM PDT by rwilson99 (Please tell me how the words "shall not perish and have everlasting life" would NOT apply to Mary.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Salvation
Sooner or later, any discussion of apologetics with Fundamentalists will address the Inquisition. To non-Catholics it is a scandal; to Catholics, an embarrassment; to both, a confusion. It is a handy stick for Catholic-bashing, simply because most Catholics seem at a loss for a sensible reply. This tract will set the record straight.

You really should have put this in quotes, putting it at the end of a hotlink makes it appear to be your words.

FROM THE TRACT:

"Paul and Christ himself warned us that there would be a few ravenous wolves among Church leaders"(Acts 20:29; Matt. 7:15).

If one claims to 'quote' from the Bible, one shouldn't be modifying the words of an Apostle and the Lord Himself by modifying the quotes by adding 'few'.

'Like Israel, medieval Europe was a society of Christian kingdoms that were formally consecrated to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is therefore quite understandable that these Catholics would read their Bibles and conclude that for the good of their Christian society they, like the Israelites before them, "must purge the evil from the midst of you" '(Deut. 13:5, 17:7, 12).

As Catholics have told FR many times regarding the 'prohibition' on Bible reading by the laity (paraphrasing) 'Most lay people couldn't read.' No doubt some of the work was done by the mere minions of the church.

Paul repeats this principle in 1 Corinthians 5:13.

12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? 13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

Even the DR says put away, nothing about torturing and killing the wicked person. More Catholic 'intepretation', pretty embarrassing.

30 posted on 07/09/2015 9:45:26 PM PDT by xone
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: xone

It’s with the link. I thought people could figure it out if the clicked on the link.

Sorry


31 posted on 07/09/2015 9:50:47 PM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: Morgana

War amongst Christians while islam the ever more quickly sweeps to the fore.


32 posted on 07/09/2015 10:15:14 PM PDT by onedoug
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LouAvul
It was nice, wasn’t it? Back when we actually had to pass to be promoted, study to pass. It was a different world then. We had clarity. Right was right and wrong was wrong.

We also knew that truth was complex and rarely fit on a bumper sticker - especially when it involved international politics and struggles for power among religions.

33 posted on 07/09/2015 10:19:42 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: ConservativeMind

“Delve deeper? The family I married into escaped with their lives from the Catholic church in Spain by fleeing to Central America.”

They did better than my ancestor. He was tortured for his religious beliefs, then tried for treason for them and after being convicted was hanged drawn and quartered in Wexford Ireland.

Of course my for-bearer was Roman Catholic and his torturers/killers were Protestants in the service of Good Queen Bess.

(FWIW I am not Roman Catholic, but most of my ancestors on my dad’s side were.)


34 posted on 07/09/2015 10:44:29 PM PDT by NRx (An unrepentant champion of the old order and determined foe of damnable Whiggery in all its forms.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: onedoug
"War amongst Christians while islam the ever more quickly sweeps to the fore."

There's an odd "hand in glove" relationship between the sort of attacks here in the RF and the media attacks, too.

JMHo

35 posted on 07/09/2015 11:04:22 PM PDT by Rashputin (Jesus Christ doesn't evacuate His troops, He leads them to victory.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: Morgana

What about Pope Alexander VI/Borgia. Yeah glad Im not catholic and follow these idiots.


36 posted on 07/10/2015 2:39:48 AM PDT by MARKUSPRIME
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: tumblindice

Ten Worst Popes of all Time
http://www.oddee.com/item_96537.aspx

Top 10 Worst Popes in History
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-worst-popes-in-history.php


37 posted on 07/10/2015 4:09:35 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Salvation; Alex Murphy; boatbums; bkaycee; caww; CynicalBear; Elsie; Dutchboy88; Gamecock; ...

It’s your history. Own it.

As for Catholic bashing, a non-Catholic did not start this thread.


38 posted on 07/10/2015 4:15:24 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: Rashputin

Look who’s talking.


39 posted on 07/10/2015 4:21:24 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: metmom
A simple search of how many comments a given commentor makes would clear that question right up for you.

Don't forget to count your own for comparison.

40 posted on 07/10/2015 5:15:44 AM PDT by Rashputin (Jesus Christ doesn't evacuate His troops, He leads them to victory.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-71 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson