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PERT$ WEDNESDAY,DECEMBER 6, 19".
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SEVENTYFIRST YEAR.
Was Shakespeare a Catholic? Distinguishing Between the Religion of the IV-an and His flays .. . He Stood at the End of 1,000 Years of Undivided i"hristian Culture Tragic Heroes Who Sin and Repent, Pray for the Dead and Venerate Mary By J. P. DE FONSEKA. April 23, the feast day of St. George, Patron of England,is also the birth(lay of Shakespeare, Poet of England. There is no certainty ,however, about the 23rd .of April as Shakespeare's birthday . W hat is known for certain is the day of his baptism, which occurred on the 26th . Englishmen' spatriotism has accustomed us to regarding the two occasions, the saint' s feast and the poet' s birth, as belonging to the same ' day. But the day of Shakespeare' s death is known with certainty. That occur• red also on a 23rd ,of April . - So the Patron of England is one with the Poet on a further count . A final question therefore is: Were the two united in the Faith? Was Shakespeare a Catho• lic? The answer is: Yes and No. Or as the medievals put it: Sic et non, Or as the French put it :Mais, oui, But yes! Or as the local idiom puts it: Yes, but.. , . There is a distinction , and a most important one, to make . There is the question :What was the religion of the man Shakespeare ? And there is the other question, different from the earlies: What is the religion of the plays of Shakespeare? There is no ground for saying that the religion of Shakespeare the person was specifically Catholic, as there is no ground for saying that it was specifically Protestant. But on the side of the Protestant thesis there is the baptism of the infant William Shakespeare and the burial of the fiftytwo year old poet in the old Catholicbuilt Stratford Church now taken over by the established religion . To add there is also his application for license for.marriage with Anne Hathaway from the Bishop of Worcester,a Lord Spiritual of the Establishment. John Shakespeare ,the father of the poet, had gone over to the new reli. gion, to judge from the circumstances of the baptism of William. But of
Shakespeare ' s grandfather nothing can he said for certain . He would be on the borderline of the cleavage of the Reformation. However this be, Shakespeare's mother' s people ,the Ardens ,were certainly Catholic and paid the penalties of their Catholic allegiance. One of these Ardens, Edward by name, was found guilty of complicity by the Protestant Gestapo of the day in a Catholic plot, and was executed and his head was displayed on London Bridge. Of the personal religion of the poet much written work is available, but to repeat,there can be no certainty. But one of his earliest chroniclers, a Rev. John Ward ,Vicar of Stratford Church in the days of Charles II, finished a brief biography with the categorical statement that he died a " Papist" The official tradition of Shakesper• can biography hoes not accepted this Anglican parson ' s assurance. At the other end of the sequence, the latest Shakesperesn biographer, Mr. Hesketh Pearson, in his " Penguin" Life of Shakespeare,tells us that "Shakespeare could not have shared the religious convictions of his wife and father ." Mr. Pearson adds: "As an artist the pageantry and historical significance of the Roman Church would have appealed to him," There, more or less,we have to leave the matter. The religion of the plays ,the religion in the plays, is a different matter. It can be known for certain because the documentary evidence of the Shakesperean canon is all there and the purport of this evidence is only too clear. The religion of the plays is the Catholic religion. It is the old Faith of all Europe, the potent mother of all the good things of Europe, directly so for a thousand years, indirectly so to this hour. By reason of this unfailing background, this implicit common culture and civilisation, the drama of Shakespeare is a part of the fruition of Christendom. The plays of Shakespeare, for this reason, are at the end of the old undivided Europe of a thousand years.
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They are not at the beginning of that new world which begins with a Shipwreck and the isolation of the Protestant and sectarian Robinson Crusoes. Of the romance of Catholic Christendom Shakespeare was the full flowering. His favourite European country was Italy. He had never seen Italy. It did not matter. The secret of Christendom was deep down in his con• sciousness ;in his bones and in his marrow. So he wrote by instinct :and h,,was right. Shakespeare's world wa< Catholic. Shakespeare land was a Ca+io ! i.c country; the Shakespeeans are a Catholic people. Some of the plays embrace pre-Christian or pagan times, but the dramatist cannot help projecting Catholic things into those times. Critics call these instances anachronisms ;but the dramatist did not care. Contrariwise ,pagan institutions, sup• erstitions and usages also intrude into the Catholic practice, Ile let them; Catholic people are sometimes like that. His tragic heroes rray sin like the devil; but they are Catholic. Thee are blackguards in Shakespeareland; but no depth of infamy makes them deny Catholic fundamentals, while denying much else. The sinners ackimwledge sin; they hope to get abso lution ( their word is " shrift"). The Reformers cut out auricular con• fession: but the Shakespereans have' not heard of it. The Reformers declared that " the Romish doctrine of Purgatory,Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration as well as of Reliques and also invocation of Saints is a fond thing vainly invented and repugnant to the Word of God"; but the Shakespereans turn a deaf ear. They pray for the souls in Purgatory, they venerate relics; they invoke saints. The Reformers were aware of Mariolatry : the Shakespereans are bound to the Mother of God. It was profane of them, but they swore by her. " Marry" was their way of toning down the oath "By Mary."
Poor Hamlet's father's ghost be. wailed that he had been dispatched in his sins . Hi's words were "unhousel d, disappointed ,unaneled ." " Unhousel'd" meant without receiving the Viaticum; "disappointed" meant without chance of preparation for a good death; "unaneled" meant without being fortified by Extreme Unction, The Sacrament of the Lord's Body was Transubstantiation ,not the . Reformer ' s figure or metaphor or symile. The Shakesperean central worship was the Mass. They may cut Mass or keep away from the Sacraments,but they held on to the Mass and the S tacraments. One of them mentioned an "Evening Mass"—a curious anticipation of a concession in the World War of our day . " By the Mass"—that was also a way of swearing with them. They married before a priest and it was a sacrament they professed to receive Tbev were married but never divorced . iie contrast was indissoluble. Their clergy -app - c;;bates. There were unsatisfactory sU:.imens of priestly persons in their world, but that was no reason for them to renounce we institution of the priesthoor;, they laughed at hedge-priests beear,se C-ey knew of sacerdotal holiness. They were aware of escetic living, so there are hermits and anchorites and monks. There are friars and vicars and curates ;nuns and abbesses. There are churches and chapels and shrines. They may flout the taxation of the Pope, but deny not the Supreme Pontificate. Their lives have the Catholic colour and flavour, large or small measure. When they die they are buried with the rites of the Church. And they ask for the suffrages of their survivors for the repose of their souls. Again Pre-War Quality Roof Paint, 28/• gaL DM White,1/• tin. Hassell's, 669 Wellington Street,
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