Reginald Pole, the last representative of the Plantagenet dynasty, was inexplicably removed from his ecclesiastical duties after regaining the “Isle of Saints” from the Papacy. What happened?
Newsdesk (July 15, 2021 21:05, Gaudium Press) The sad reign of Henry VIII in England (1509-1547) represented a great turning point in the history of the country, of Europe, and of Catholicism itself. After centuries of prosperity of the Catholic religion in the British island, the monarch unleashed a violent persecution of the English faithful to the Pope, among whom were especially Bishop St. John Fisher and St. Thomas Morus, former Chancellor of the realm, models of integrity in the midst of setbacks and persecution.
While so much innocent blood was being spilled without mercy, men with true ideals tried to restrain the great whirlwind caused by the Anglican schism. Reginald Pole (1500-1558) is undoubtedly one of the greatest exponents of this resistance, the only one who could give the English nation a few years of amnesty from the condemnations of Rome.
Nobility of blood and soul
In the year 1500, Reginald was born in Straffordshire, son of the earls of Salisbury and, therefore, belonging to the noble Plantagenet lineage, the closest branch of the reigning royal house. From his youth he showed great intelligence and erudition, as well as virtue and exemplary religiousness, and soon followed the path of the Church.
When Henry VIII asked him to support his divorce and his heretical ideas, he retired to Italy, starting a tireless campaign to save religion in his homeland, which culminated with the publication of the work Pro Ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione. In it he urged the rebellious sovereign to recant his errors and return to unity with Rome. Indeed, this blow was felt by Henry who incontinently had his mother – Blessed Margaret Pole, later martyred – imprisoned in the London prison and had her head placed at a high price in gold.[1]
Pole, now clothed in ecclesiastical purple and constituted papal legate a latere, did not flinch in the face of the difficulties that came his way.
He was “a zealous and austere Catholic”,[2] who combined in himself “the finesse of a prelate with the haughty timidity of a great English lord”,[3] a deep and serious character, coherent in his thought and action, indispensable predicates for a good pastor of the Church. However, in the midst of the tangled European politics, he could not find anyone to second his plans. It was a hard period for him, in which his voice was not echoed even within the Church, relegated to hiding and waiting for better times… Nevertheless, he was able to act intensively in the Council of Trent (1545-1563), to which he was appointed president by the Pope.
“God was lost, but found again!”
Finally, after numerous controversies in the Protestant reigns of Henry VIII and his son Edward VI, there ascended the English throne the Princess Mary Tudor, a fervent Catholic, cousin of Cardinal Pole, and faithful to Rome; it was a door opening to the British people to embrace the true religion again, through the intervention of the legacy Cardinal. A pontifical bull granted Pole full powers, and he soon embarked to reconquer his land; memorable are the words addressed by the prelate as he embarked at Calais for England: “God was lost, but found again!”, expressing supernatural joy at finally being able to fulfill his great mission.[4]
Upon disembarking, he was received with all pomp and joy, which only increased upon arriving in the capital. The king, queen, and nobles assembled in parliament after hearing the Cardinal’s famous apology of Catholicism, prostrated before the purple figure, received the solemn general absolution. The excommunication was lifted, worship returned to the churches, and England was renewed; all the lords were deeply contrite, and the rejoicing of the people seemed boundless, and “all the Catholic glories of the past rang out. The next day, twenty-five thousand faithful, crowded into Saint Paul’s and its vicinity, received on their knees the apostolic blessing. On January 3, 1555, everything that Henry VIII and Edward VI had enacted against the Church was repealed.”[5]
Cardinal Pole, however, was aware that his mission was not entirely fulfilled; it was necessary to spread among the English people the sound customs of the Church, so denigrated in previous years. He convened a great council under the title of Reformatio Angliae, for which he prepared a general exposition of the Catholic faith to provide for the most pressing needs of religion.[6] This reformation seemed to create a rejuvenated Church, as the beautiful Isle of Saints had never seen before.
The last chance was lost…
Unfortunately, this state of repentance for the return to ecclesial unity did not last long, and Anglicanism resurfaced with an even more intense zeal.
Since the marriage of Queen Mary Tudor to Philip II (1527-1598), King of Spain, there was a gradual withdrawal of the Holy See’s policy toward the English subject; and this was accentuated considerably by the claim that the Papal States had on the kingdom of Naples, then under Spanish rule.
It was then that Paul IV, the Neapolitan pope, judging that England and Spain represented a threat to the Papacy’s Italian interests, allied himself with the French – whom we not infrequently see united with Protestants or infidels – in a war against the two powers, and inexplicably removed Cardinal Pole from his functions of religious jurisdiction in England, when England needed him most. Feeling powerless and without means, Reginald had no choice but to leave his post and report to Rome. “We must confess that it was giving strange treatment to a prelate who had restored a kingdom to the Papacy!”[7] To compound their misfortune, the French had just razed the last English strongholds on the continent.
Within British psychology a terrible axiom was then forged: “Catholicism and fidelity to Rome became synonymous with defeat; was it to undergo these humiliations that England begged the Pontiff’s pardon?”[8]
The rest came by consequence. With the Cardinal’s absence, the Protestant party regained the sympathies of the people, and with the passing of Queen Mary, Catholicism also almost descended into the grave in English lands. Interestingly enough, Reginald Pole would leave this earth only a few hours after the last Catholic Queen of England; there was no longer any reason to live without being able to fulfill his mission. By the actions of the Church’s enemies – and perhaps also by those of his supposed friends – Cardinal Pole’s actions went unnoticed in the history of men, and England immersed in the shadows of schism.
By André Luiz Kleina
[1] Cf. BETES, José Luis Repetto. Mil años de santidad seglar: Santos y beatos del segundo milenio. Madrid: BAC, 2002, p. 125-126.
[2] CHURCHILL, Winston. History of the English-speaking peoples. Trad. Enéas Camargo. São Paulo: IBRASA, 1960, v. 2, p. 82.
[3] MAUROIS, André. Histoire d’Anglaterre. Paris: Fayard & Cie, 1937, p. 329.
[4] Cf. MAUROIS, André. Histoire d’Anglaterre. Paris: Fayard & Cie,1937, p. 329.
[5] ROPS, Daniel. The Church of the Renaissance and Reformation: the Protestant Reformation. Trad. Emérico da Gama. São Paulo: Quadrante, 1996, p.494.
[6] Cf. ibid., p.495.
[7] Ibid., p.496.
[8] Cf. ibid., p.496.
