[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Of course Shakespeare was Catholic! And Abraham Lincoln was gay and Jewish, too.

[vladimir998]

Have you read any of the books out there about Shakespeare being Catholic? There are a number of them. Rather than just dismiss them, why not read one of them.

As Stephen Greenblatt wrote in his biography of Shakespeare, called Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare:

Shakespeare’s religious beliefs have excited heated debate among scholars. What is in little dispute is that some of Shakespeare’s family and acquaintances — including his schoolmasters — had connections to English Catholicism and to the missionaries sent secretly to England by the Catholic Church to bring that country back to the fold. Many of these missionaries, including the Jesuit scholar Edmund Campion, were arrested and executed by the authorities. There is also evidence — in the form of a Catholic religious testament found in the 18th century in a house that once belonged to the Shakespeare family — that Shakespeare’s father remained a Catholic during Shakespeare’s youth.

Claire Asquith, Shadowplay:

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:PuTR8WG9NN0J:www.godspy.com/reviews/Cracking-Shakespeares-Code-An-interview-with-Claire-Asquith-author-of-Shadowplay.cfm+bibliography+shakespeare+catholic&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us

[Petronski]

You’ve been getting your history from too many teflon-suited Rev. Billies.

[JimC214]

I doubt the gay part. but I do know he was Jewish. After all he got shot in the Temple. Bada Bing! Thank you I’ll be appearing at Schmucky Schmucksteins on Tues. no cover 2 drink minimum.

[irishjuggler]

Of course Shakespeare was Catholic! And Abraham Lincoln was gay and Jewish, too.

Your flippant comment suggests an ignorance of the religious and political climate of Elizabethan England. The idea that Shakespeare and/or his family members could have been Catholic isn't an absurdity comparable to Abe Lincoln being gay and Jewish. Catholicism was illegal in England during Shakespeare's time, but it was still widely practiced as an underground religion. Indeed, just a decade prior to Shakespeare's birth, Queen Mary (Tudor) had attempted to reinstitute the Catholic Church. Hundreds of thousands of Catholics in the country weren't about to simply abandon a faith that had again been legal just a few years earlier. As such, they practiced their religion surreptitiously.