Martyrs in Training

Extract

Behind the more dramatic features of the history of the Church in England during Elizabeth's reign—threatened military intervention by Phillip of Spain, the excommunication of Elizabeth, the rise and fall of her many suitors and the rather spectral presence of Mary Stuart beyond the northern border—lies the unfailing influence of the missionary priests. It is probably no exaggeration to say that the fact that Catholicism in England did not suffer the fate it has met in the Scandinavian countries is to be attributed to them more than to any other elernent of the Counter-Reformation movement. At a time when the ranks of the old Marian clergy were thinned by death, life imprisonment or banishment and the strength of the Elizabethan administration was concentrated with a particular violence against the priesthood, the Mass and the sacraments, Fr William Allen conceived the idea of founding a seminary at Douai.