Saturday, May 21, 2016

A Champion of the Vicar of Christ: Blessed John Felton

"As a cruel persecutor of the faith she had sworn to defend, Elizabeth was excommunicated and deposed by St. Pius V, February 24, 1570, and the Bull  of excommunication was found on May 25, the Feast of Corpus Christi, on the gates of the Bishop of London's palace, where it had been placed by John Felton, a brave ands zealous Catholic gentleman.  After this act he refused by fly, trusting, he said, to God's grace for whatever might happen, and when teh escort arrived for his arrest, he voluntarily surrendered himself.  Both at his apprehension and his trial, he openly acknowledged having posted up the Bull, and said that, as he held the Pope to be the Vicar of Christ, what came from him ought to be duly venerated.  Notwishstanding this public confession, he was three times racked in the vain hope of extracting from him admission, compromising others.  In his sation doublet, on the day of his martyrdom, as he faced the crowd, calm and unmoved, he looked indeed a royal champion, and he told the people that he died for the Catholic faith.  His last words on being disembowelled were "Jesus, Jesus."  He sent the Queen, from the scaffold, a ring worth 400, showing he bore her personally no ill-will.  He suffered, St. Paul's Churchyard, London, August 8, 1570."


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Felton_%28martyr%29

No comments:

Post a Comment