Last night, the Vox and Fox watched "It's a Wonderful Life" as we did not get to see it over the holidays of Christmas, (yes, the tree is still up until Candlemas). The story is well known and George Bailey is given a gift to see what the world of Bedford Falls and further - a warship in the Pacific - would have been like without him.
It brings to mind another life, that of King Richard III and Henry VII of the House of Tudor, King of England father of Henry VIII.
Father Z has a post on King Richard III's upcoming "Anglican" funeral. A sad thing to be sure considering he was a Catholic. The funeral should be in the Sarum Rite without question. The column which he includes in the story has a quote from a British historian that a Catholic funeral would be the most appropriate and that had Richard not been murdered, the Anglican Church probably would not have happened.
I left the following comment:
Richard III was of the House of Plantagenet; the Anglican Church would not have happened, not probably. In fact, the murder changed the course of world history. Think about it. If England had continued as a Catholic land one presumes it would have still engaged in world exploration as did the Spanish, French and Portuguese but what would have been the result? What would it have meant for Canada? If the French were still defeated at the Plains of Abraham would not all of Canada have been Catholic? What about Australia? More importantly, what of the United States? There would have been no pilgrims. Would the native peoples have been treated differently, more akin to how the French did in Canada? One would presume that the War of Independence would not have happened as it did, the Colonies may have developed more as Canada did, and the United States would have been Catholic. What would have been the impact on the rest of the world? On Islam? Would Luther’s heresies died out or been reduced t0 a sect of parts of Europe? Would the French Revolution occurred in the manner that it did? What lives were wiped out in England in its own Catholic persecution? What would the continuation of the Plantagenet line at the War of the Roses meant today for evangelisation of the world?
It is incredible to think of the possibilities.
2 comments:
Fascinating, Vox. One begins to see how different the world would have been, thanks to your post.
Read this for the first time. The is increasingly good evidence that William Shakespeare, undoubtedly one of the greatest dramatists the world has ever known, was a militant Catholic. I her work, Shadowplay, Clare Asquith, wife of the former British Ambassador to Russia in the 1970s, dissects all of his plays and lays out a comprehensive case that WS was bewailing the loss of the One True Faith in England. She was at the theatre in Moscow when she was aware that the audience were responding not to the actual words but to the coded words in the text. She applied this to the most traumatic time in English history; the English Reformation. It is fascinating reading. The state spies were in attendance at all the theatres in London, hence the coded words.
We know that Shakespeare owned a house in Blackfriars, London, which was frequented by Catholic priests. It is said by an Anglican priest of the Stratford-upon-Avon area one hundred years later that he died a Catholic.
Let;s claim this great man, this great Catholic, and salute him. Let's reclaim him from the Whig/Protestant hegemony who saw him as one of their own. Serious study now needs to show that this great man was a true and faithful Catholic keeping the flame alive.
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