January 11 - Blessed William Carter

The only person I know who’s reading this blog is a Protestant – my husband.  So I had to think long and hard about whether to cover the story of a Catholic who was tortured and killed for the faith by Protestants.  I finally decided to do so, because a heroic martyr deserves to be remembered whether that martyr is killed by pagans or Anglicans.  (Obviously, I bear no animosity towards Anglicans;  I like Anglicans and can’t imagine them nowadays advocating violence towards anyone.)  And as distasteful as it is to recall that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Christians routinely killed Christians for their faith, I think it is very important to know the history, if only so that the devil may never incite different groups of Christians to such mistrust and hatred again.

 

In England, the kings and queens were almost always Anglican after 1534, when Henry VIII declared himself to be the head of the Church in England.  Catholics were persecuted for centuries, because to be Catholic was seen as traitorous to one’s country.  It was a capital crime, for instance, to be a Catholic priest in England, or to help a priest hide.  But during times of nationalistic fervor between 1534 and 1681, such as the invasion of the Spanish Armada, ordinary English Catholics were made scapegoats and executed.

 

William Carter (1548-1584) was an ordinary Catholic layman, a printer, who was executed for treason under Elizabeth I.  He printed Catholic books under the false name “Johannem Bogardi,” but he was eventually caught.  William was arrested for printing “lewd” (i.e. Catholic) pamphlets, possessing pro-Catholic books, and hiding vestments in his house.  He was imprisoned for 18 months, held in the Tower of London, and tortured on the rack.  His wife died while he was in prison.  Finally, he was put on trial.  The key charge against him was that he had called for the assassination of the queen, because one line in a book he had printed expressed confidence that the Catholic Hope would triumph, and that pious Judith would slay Holofernes.  The jury deliberated for 15 minutes before sentencing him to death, and the next day he was hung, drawn, and quartered.

Let us pray that we have the courage of martyrs like William who are willing to live dangerously, suffer, and die for their faith.  And let us pray that we shall never bear any resemblance to those who persecuted him, remembering Jesus’s admonishment that he who is angry with a brother has murdered him in his heart.  I am a Catholic among Protestant friends and family, and I need to constantly remember that discussions of doctrinal differences between Christians must not lead to pride or anger, but to greater love and understanding for one another.