Could We Please Have Better New York Times Columnists?: Historical Lack-of-Literacy Edition
Could we please have better New York Times columnists?
...the stakes are not debatable at all. The Catholic Church was willing to lose the kingdom of England, and by extension the entire English-speaking world, over the principle that when a first marriage is valid a second is adulterous, a position rooted in the specific words of Jesus of Nazareth. To change on that issue, no matter how it was couched, would not be development; it would be contradiction and reversal...
One boggles.
Henry VIII Tudor's "Great Matter" went thus: Henry VIII told the Pope: "My wife Katherine of Aragon was married to my brother before me, and this greatly disturbs me and makes me incapable of a proper marriage relationship with her. Will you recognize this and annul the marriage?" The Pope said: "No. Her nephew Emperor Charles V Habsburg's armies control Italy, and thus Rome. I cannot offend him." Does Ross really think--or anyone really think--that today's Catholic Church would not grant Henry his annulment?
And the sixteenth-century Catholic Church lost England not because Popes condemned Henry VIII Tudor's marriage to Ann Boleyn as adulterous, but because Pope Pius V rejected the legality of the Third Succession Act:
...WHERE in the parliament held at Westminster the eighth day of June in the twenty-eighth year of the reign of our most dread sovereign lord King Henry the Eighth an act was had and made for the establishment of the succession of the imperial crown of this realm of England to the first son [Edward VI] of his body between His Highness and his then lawful wife Queen Jane, now deceased....
His Majesty therefore thinketh convenient afore his departure beyond the seas, that it be enacted by His Highness with the assent of the lords spiritual and temporal and the commons in this present parliament assembled and by authority of the same, and therefore be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that in case it shall happen the king's majesty and the said excellent prince his yet only son Prince Edward and heir apparent, to decease without heir of either of their bodies lawfully begotten (as God defend) so that there be no such heir male or female of any of their two bodies, to have and inherit the said imperial crown and other his dominions, according and in such manner and form as in the aforesaid act and now in this is declared, that then the said imperial crown and all other the premises shall be to the Lady Mary, the king's Highness' daughter, and to the heirs of the body of the same Lady Mary lawfully begotten....
And for default of such issue the said imperial crown and other the premises shall be to the Lady Elizabeth, the king's second daughter, and to the heirs of the body of the said Lady Elizabeth lawfully begotten...
Note that the Third Succession Act of Henry VIII does not--contra Ross Douthat--declare that Queen Elizabeth's mother Ann Boleyn's marriage to Henry VIII was a lawful and valid marriage. It only declares that the Lady Elizabeth is in the line of succession, with her lawfully begotten heirs to follow her. Unless I am mistaken, the Third Succession Act contains nothing contrary to any Catholic theology about what is and is not a valid marriage.
But Pope Pius V, in Regnans in Excelsis, rejected the legality of the Third Succession Act. He commanded Catholics on pain of excommunication to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I Tudor. Regnans in Excelsis declares that it is not the Crown-in-Parliament that decides upon the line of succession to the throne of England, but the Pope. And the Pope wanted not non-Catholic Elizabeth Tudor but Catholic Mary Stuart and behind her Catholic Felipe II Habsburg:
...(though unequal to such a burden) upon this supreme justice-seat, we do out of the fullness of our apostolic power declare the foresaid Elizabeth to be a heretic and favourer of heretics, and her adherents in the matters aforesaid to have incurred the sentence of excommunication and to be cut off from the unity of the body of Christ. And moreover (we declare) her to be deprived of her pretended title to the aforesaid crown and of all lordship, dignity and privilege whatsoever. And also (declare) the nobles, subjects and people of the said realm and all others who have in any way sworn oaths to her, to be forever absolved from such an oath and from any duty arising from lordship. fealty and obedience; and we do, by authority of these presents , so absolve them and so deprive the same Elizabeth of her pretended title to the crown and all other the above said matters. We charge and command all and singular the nobles, subjects, peoples and others afore said that they do not dare obey her orders, mandates and laws. Those who shall act to the contrary we include in the like sentence of excommunication...
Regnans in Excelsis: an ugly document, written by an ugly Pope in an ugly time, intended to start a civil war.
