The Catholic missions

Where was a college founded in 1568 and why?

Douai, in the Spanish Netherlands, in order to train Catholic priests to be sent to England and to keep Catholicism alive and win new converts

What happened by 1575?

11 of these ‘seminary priests’ had arrived in England

What happened between 1580-1585?

In 1580, there was about 100 seminary priests and 179 arrived in England between 1580-85

Why was this dangerous work?

They had to operate, in secretive circumstances, from the country houses of Catholic gentry and aristocracy

What was sufficient from 1585 to incur the death penalty?

Being a Catholic priest

What was the Society of Jesus?

A religious order, formally recognised in 1540, which looked actively to reconvert places which had become Protestant during the Reformation

What did the Society of Jesus began sending?

Jesuit priests to England in 1580

What did the Jesuits combine to try to succeed?

High intelligence and organisational skills with a dedication to the cause of the restoration of Catholicism to England

Who were the first Jesuits to become involved in attempting re-Catholicise England?

Robert Parsons and Edmund Campion

What happened to Campion?

Captured and executed in 1581

How was the success of the missions limited?

While the Catholic gentry were enabled to retain their faith, humbler Catholics were often ignored

Who did educated priests associate with?

With their protectors over the ‘ordinary people’, becoming more like household chaplains

What did Catholicism thus became more of?

A ‘country-house’ religion than the popular faith it had been in the 1560s

Why did priests themselves became divided?

As a result of a bitter dispute over leadership of the missionary movement, thereby weakening the Catholic mission

Where did most Catholic priests operate and why?

South-east England because of the proximity to the Channel ports

What was the proportion of Catholics in population in the SE?

Smallest of all

Where were nearly half of the priests serving in 1580?

The relatively small population of Catholics in London, Essex, and the Thames Valley

Where was there far fewer priests?

In the North, where the proportion of Catholics in the population was much higher