Posted on 12/23/2025 8:16:31 PM PST by ebb tide
Still They Come
From Saul of Tarsus in the 1st century to China’s Xi Jinping in our 21st century, Our Dear Lord’s True Church and His Holy Mass have endured one near-constant threat throughout all of Her history. That constant is Suppression; “to put down by authority or force.”
Think of it. From the Jews to the Romans, from the Islamists to the Protestants, from the Nazis to the Communists, with a few pagan suppressors sprinkled in-between, -- some entity or another, in some part of the world or another, has almost-continually tried to suppress Holy Mother Church and especially, Her Holy Sacrifice.
These acts of suppression do not come from Heaven. Oh no, they comes from a place considerably south of there; a place where Christ, His Church and His Mass are both loathed – and feared.
The truth is, in spite of millions of Catholics over the centuries losing their freedoms, their earthly possessions—and in the end, their very lives—at the hands of suppressors, this unholy activity has never worked particularly well against the Church and Her Holy Mass; at least not in the long run. “. . . And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
“It’s The Mass That Matters”
Last year, Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin, of the Diocese of Yongjia in China was arrested and fined the equivalent of $27,880 for celebrating a Holy Mass “in public.” This was a rare and dangerous public devotion in this brutal, surveillance-laden country. Yet, news reports recorded that it was attended by “hundreds of worshipers.” Bishop Shao remains in custody.
Even so, after 76 years of deadly Communist suppression, after decades of practicing their Catholic faith underground, after thousands of their countrymen being imprisoned or martyred, these faithful Chinese Catholics risked everything they have, including their own lives, to assist at the Holy Mass in public. In spite of it all, still they came.
Just this autumn in Nigeria, there was an act of abominable suppression. More than 300 Catholic school children and 12 of their teachers from St. Mary’s School were kidnapped by Boko Haram, according to the Christian Association of Nigeria. Nigeria has become a place where simply assisting at Sunday Mass is indeed, a heroic act.
Boko Haram and 21 other jihadist groups, have a combined goal to “eliminate” the 100 million Christians in Nigeria within 50 years.
Since 2009, more than 125,000 Christians have already been killed, more than 19,000 churches destroyed and more than 600 clerics kidnapped – majority Catholic, according to the International Society for Civil Liberty and the Rule of Law. The Nigerian suppression is vicious and barbaric. In spite of the cost to these heroic, beaten-down Nigerian Catholics, they continue to assist at the Holy Sacrifice, still they come.
The Church recognized the effects of suppression way back in the 2nd century with Tertullian’s timeless words, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”
Catholic history is replete with such true tales of courage in the face of suppression. But, what if a European country had suppressed the Catholic Church and Her Holy Mass relentlessly, non-stop for 300 years – a time period longer than the United States has even been in existence? Generation after generation being born into and dying out of ruthless state-run Catholic suppression. How could that nation possibly remain Catholic? Well, just ask the Irish!
Irish Catholics Suppressed For Three Centuries
Few suppressors can “hold a candle” to the breadth and brutality of Protestant England who persecuted thousands and ultimately martyred hundreds of their own Catholic citizens, priests, religious and lay persons alike. Protestant England did the same in Catholic Ireland from the 16th to the 19th centuries; only with more contempt ferocity and with a higher body count.
The genesis of the suppression of Irish Catholics actually began with the suppression of English Catholics in 1534 when the British Parliament, rejecting the sovereignty of the pope, declared King Henry VIII to be supreme head of the church in England.
British subjects who did not accept this monumental heresy were guilty of treason. Hence, one year later in 1535, both St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher were both martyred by beheading. The suppression of British Catholics had begun.
Henry VIII and his financial advisor Thomas Cromwell began confiscating British Church funds, lands, buildings, revenues and treasures. At the time, the Church was one of the largest landowner in all of England. In just a short time, the “business” of suppression had become such a lucrative money-making proposition that Cromwell wanted to “take the show on the road” (so to speak) and fleece Irish Catholics, as well. And that he did.
Suppression of the Holy Mass in England began in earnest following Henry VIII’s death in 1547. His successor was his 10 year old son, deemed Edward VI. Catholic-hater Cromwell and his cronies were fully unleashed to wage open war against Our Lord’s Mass.
In his 1933 book, Ireland’s Loyalty To The Mass, Father Augustine Heyden, O.F.M. Cap., makes an observation about this juncture in protestant suppression history that is valuable to understanding the 16th century – but also applies to the suppression in our own 21st century Church.
Father writes about 1547 England, “The destruction of the Mass (in England) however, was a dangerous enterprise, and cautious procedure was absolutely necessary.” Later he added, “Mass was associated in the common mind with the Latin language, which represented not only a mysterious sanctity but also a certain universality.”
“So, for those who are bent on the change in religion, the use of vernacular was essential. It would help to destroy the sense of mystery and, in consequence, limit the power of the clergy . . . (It) would break down the general unity of worship, impair the sacred authority of the universal Church, from priest to pope, and ensure—what the innovators most desired—the destruction of the Adorable Sacrifice.”
Just two years after England’s heretical declaration in 1534, Henry VIII also became the supreme head of the church in Ireland 1536, confiscating Church property, appointing his own protestant “bishops,” fining Irishmen for not attending the protestant service and taxing them for attending the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. But still, they came.
Meanwhile across the Irish Sea, Ireland was not spared during Henry’s life. Just two years after England’s heretical declaration in 1534, Henry VIII also became the supreme head of the church in Ireland 1536, confiscating Church property, appointing his own protestant “bishops,” fining Irishmen for not attending the protestant service and taxing them for attending the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. But still, they came.
From there, it became dramatically worse in Ireland.
Cromwell, “This Inhuman Monster”
Catholic Ireland had already endured suppression for decades when in 1649, Oliver Cromwell, a distant relative of Thomas, landed on the Irish shores to wage war against them. Cromwell was truly a contemptible sort. He was a Puritan and they were known to have a special hatred for the True Church. Puritans thought that even the breakaway Church of England was “too Catholic” and had to be purified.
Some 21st century historians actually consider Cromwell a war criminal. Father Heyden describes Cromwell as “this inhuman monster, the living incarnation of triumphant Puritanism.” Cromwell killed thousands of Irish Catholics in Drogheda and Wexford alone; paying special attention to hunt and murder priests and bishops in the most contemptible, hate-filled manner.
Father Heyden writes that, upon arrival in Dublin, Cromwell sacrilegiously stabled his horses within St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Shortly after arriving, he spoke to his troops and told them that the Catholic faith (in Ireland) was to be swept away. “The chief objects of their vengeance should be the churches, the priests and the Mass.” The war had begun.
After a monetary fine for the first “offense,” repeat Mass-attending Catholics in Ireland could be jailed for the second offense, have their homes taken away on the next, and then their land confiscated. If an Irishman still continued to assist at Holy Mass, he could be tortured. Finally, if all else failed, the faithful Irish Catholic could be put to death. And, many were.
The British protestants had determined that fining Irish Catholics to abandon their Holy Mass was woefully ineffective—almost laughable. Therefore, the stakes had to be raised. After a monetary fine for the first “offense,” repeat Mass-attending Catholics in Ireland could be jailed for the second offense, have their homes taken away on the next, and then their land confiscated. If an Irishman still continued to assist at Holy Mass, he could be tortured. Finally, if all else failed, the faithful Irish Catholic could be put to death. And, many were.
Alternatively, many Irish lay people were simply exiled to foreign continental Europe or as far away as Barbados. Meanwhile, Irish Catholic churches and properties continued to be confiscated or destroyed, while priests, religious and bishops were hunted down and either exiled, tortured or killed. Again, many were.
Throughout the suppression, priests and religious became accustomed to disguising themselves as beggars, farmers and laborers; sleeping in abandoned shacks or in the open forests – then traveling from village to village to clandestinely administer the Sacraments. With little to eat and nowhere to sleep, it was a punishing existence.
Progressively, Holy Mass was driven from churches to priests' homes. When suppressors prevented Mass in those locations, the Holy Sacrifice was moved to lay Catholics’ cabins, then to hidden mud and stick huts constructed by Catholics in the forests, and finally to the remote outdoors; to the famous “Mass Rocks” of Ireland in the distant hills (many are preserved to this day).
In addition, to avoid detection, Holy Mass was eventually relegated to being celebrated in the middle of the night in all weather conditions, with the young and old alike secretly walking miles under the cover of darkness. Even with all the misery and danger, still, they came.
During those long, dark centuries, the Irish Catholics picked up their crosses and followed their Savior. As Our Lord instructed us in St. John’s Gospel, “The servant is not greater than the Master. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.”
Many Irish Catholics lived their entire lives under the heavy mantle of unbearable suppression. With the implementation of the punishing Penal Laws in 1700, those who were not killed or exiled lost not only their money, their homes and their lands, but also their rights: to vote, to own property, to own a firearm, to hold public office, to serve in the military and more. In the end, nearly all Irish Catholic land was “transferred” to the protestants. By the late-1800’s, only 16% of all land in Ireland was owned by Irish Catholics.
Mercifully, in 1869, the diabolical English protestant edict finally came to a quiet end. The British House of Commons officially “disestablished” the cruel Irish suppression, admitting publicly that it had failed egregiously. Father Heyden deemed it “as vile a persecution as ever disgraced the annals of religion.”
What About Today’s Suppression?
Regrettably, the suppression/persecution of Catholics and the Holy Mass seems to be expanding. In his book, The Catholic Martyrs of the 20th Century, Robert Royal writes, “In the 20th century, more Catholics were persecuted, tortured and martyred than in any previous century.” North Korea, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and Sudan are regarded as the most severe state-sponsored suppressors.
If Mr. Royal’s research be accurate, a curious question inevitably arises among Faithful Catholics:
If there is so much worldwide suppression of the Church and Her Mass, why is it that some Catholic Bishops have decided to suppress the Holy Sacrifice in their own Diocese by eliminating (or drastically impeding) the Traditional Latin Mass? By any rational measurement, this is a manifestation of internal suppression of the Holy Mass; suppression of TLM priests and laity.
In the USA, the Dioceses of Arlington, Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit, Monterey, CA. and San Angelo, TX. are such examples. Yet it seems, no matter how much the TLM is suppressed in a Diocese, still they come.
Should not our 21st century focus be the same as 16rh century Irish Catholics? That is, the “Adorable Sacrifice” of the Mass?
In the aftermath of the centuries-long Irish suppression, after the dust had settled, after the spilled blood had dried, the insight of a British protestant politician who became Chief Secretary of Ireland may be instructive. When Augustine Birrell arrived in Ireland in 1907 he witnessed, with great remorse, the devastation the Irish Catholic suppression had wrought on the Emerald Isle. He did much to the help Irish Catholics rebuild.
Of his experience he wrote, “It is the Mass that matters; it is the Mass that makes the difference; so hard to define, so subtle it is, yet so perceptible, between a Catholic country and a Protestant one, between Dublin and Edinburgh, between Havre and Cromer. Here, I believe, is one of the battlefields of the future.”
And to this battlefield, still they come!
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If there is so much worldwide suppression of the Church and Her Mass, why is it that some Catholic Bishops have decided to suppress the Holy Sacrifice in their own Diocese by eliminating (or drastically impeding) the Traditional Latin Mass? By any rational measurement, this is a manifestation of internal suppression of the Holy Mass; suppression of TLM priests and laity.
In the USA, the Dioceses of Arlington, Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit, Monterey, CA. and San Angelo, TX. are such examples. Yet it seems, no matter how much the TLM is suppressed in a Diocese, still they come.
Ping
Instead of suppressing Mass, we should be banning mooselimbs and ISlime from planet earth.
Foxes Book Of Martyrs is an easy Read.
So are Grimm's Fairy Tales; and they're more believable.
And it would have more to do with the subject of the article than that Protestant fairy tale.
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