The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-10 00:00:00

ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY.

The following has been addressed to a con-
temporary by Lady Herbert of Lea :
An appeal has two weeks ago been put forth
in your columns on behalf of the restoration of
the church of St. Thomas of Canterbury, at
Rome.

To many this appeal may appear almost as
an unfair strain on the charity of English
Catholics, for the subject is little understood
amongst us, and one great defect of our insu-
lar training and character is to prevent our
taking much interest or feeling much sympathy
in any works which we fancy to be extraneous.
But if we will consider the question more
fully, and inquire into the previous history of
the church, to the completion of which we
are asked to give our alms, we shall find that
no appeal has, in fact, been ever made to Eng-
lish Catholics which is more strictly national
in its character, and which should more pro-
perly enlist the sympathies of the English
people.
There is not a Catholic on the face of the
earth who does not instinctively turn to Rome
as his home : as the centre from which ema-
nate unity, strength, and peace, like the rays
from the summer's sun. This feeling is so
universally recognized that there is not a
Christian nation which, from the earliest times,
did not give proof to the world of its faith
and piety by erecting a church of its own
in that which may eminently be called the
" Holy City," and adorning it with all that
wealth and art could devise to make it worthy
of its sacred purpose.
England was not behind-hand in the race.
As early as the eighth century of the Chris-
tian era, she had raised a church under the
invocation of the Most Holy Trinity, which
was included in the number of the twenty pri-
vileged abbacies of Rome, whose abbot assisted
the Sovereign Pontiff when he solemnly cele-
brated the Divine Mysteries. In those Anglo-
Saxon days, which we are apt to look upon
as barbarous, but when, if men wore uncouth
garments and strewed their floors with rushes
instead of carpets, they yet gave proof of a
burning zeal for God's honour and a lively
faith, which we, of this nineteenth century,
well might envy, King Ina came to Rome and
built a church, hospital and school, with a
house for the reception of pilgrims. The Borgo
adjoining the Vatican became soon entirely
English or Saxon, as its name " Santo Spirito
in Sassria" sufficiently testifies. Then Eng-
lish saints began to be venerated on Roman
altars, and churches were everywhere dedicated
in their honour. In the Archives of the
Vatican there is a letter still extant of Pope
Alexander 11. to William the Conqueror,
praising him and the English for their devotion
to the Holy See in erecting and maintaining
a Church in Rome under the shadow of St.
Peter.

A century later, the English removed from
that quarter, and established themselves in the
Via del Monserrato, where they again erected
a church, a home for pilgrims, and a college
for their students. After the glorious mar-
tyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury, the
church was rebuilt, and dedicated to the Holy
Trinity in honour of that great saint. Docu-
ments, which are still preserved in the English
College, prove that the consecration was per-
formed by the Pope himself, Eugenius IV.,
and that with great splendour ; the Bishops
of Rome, from the time of Gregory the Great
until now, having always shown their paternal
interest in the little island, once called " of the
saints," and that in a marked and special man-
ner.

It was meet that St. Thomas should be the
patron of the English Church at Rome, since
he had shed his blood in defending the rights
of that Church in his own land, and in main-
taining intact the authority of the Vicar of
Jesus Christ. The cause for which he died is
the cause of Catholics in all ages : the freedom
of the Church from the oppression of the Civil
Power.

And so ages passed by. And when time
and its consequent inevitable decay began to
mar the fair work which Eugenius had blessed,
Cardinal Howard undertook to rebuild it under
the same patronage, but with still greater
splendour; and the new Church of St. Thomas
of Canterbury was consecrated in 1575, which
remained until the beginning of this century
the glory of the Catholics of England.
But then came the storm of the great Re-
volution, convulsing the nations of Europe,
and sweeping away, as with a whirlwind, all
that told of the Faith which men held most
sacred. Rome did not escape. The French
took possession of the city, and their first fury
was directed against the English Church,
which they unroofed and finally destroyed;
and then proceeded, according to a system now,
alas! almost universal in Italy, to evict the
students from the college, and to convert it
into a barrack.
Yet, even then, the project of repairing the
sacrilege thus committed was formed ; and, on
the departure of the French from Rome, the
first stone was laid of a new sanctuary ; when
unforseen difficulties came upon the work,
which was first interrupted, and then suspended
indefinitely. This was the state of things when
Cardinal Wiseman came to Rome as a student.
He found only a few columns standing, with
a window said to have formed part of the origi-
nal foundation ; all the rest was a perfect
wreck. For sixty years has our national
church thus laid in ruins, although the col-
lege has been restored to its original pur-
poses. And yet, for an ecclesiastical seminary,
a fine Church is even more necessary than
strict discipline ; in order to instil into the
minds of the students a due love for and ap-
preciation of the Church's services, and to im-
bue them with a fervent zeal for her honour,
which may make them effective priests in their
future sphere of work in our own home mis-
sions. The Cardinal felt this strongly, and
when the time came for power to be placed
in his hands, hepublished a letter from the
" Sacred Congregation," with a preface from
himself, strongly urging the necessity of the
work, and calling upon the faithful to assist
him in carrying it out. He 'considered, in the
words of this letter :—" That the new edifice
could not be better placed than by the side of
that college whi.3ll its founder, Pope Gregory
and his zealous co-operator, William
Allen, an English nobleman, designed to be a
seminary for useful missionaries, and a strong
bulwark of the Catholic faith for the kingdom
of England—a college of which Cardinal Baro-
nius, in his note to the Roman Martyrology,
has written, that his century had the honour of
seeing many of its sons gain the crown of
martyrdom, and become heroes of priestly for-
titude."

A simple inscription in the upper corridor
records at this day the passion and crown of
those five-and-forty youthful martyrs, who, in
the great persecution of England, gave their
lives for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
But other works pressed upon the Catholics
of England, and this letter produced but small
fruit, while the Cardinal's death soon after put
a stop to the plan he had formed for promoting
the undertaking. Yet the thousands of men
and women who flock yearly to Rome require
more and more a church with pastors of their
own race and speech ; especially for those who,
though they may learn the language of a
foreign country enough for the common uses
of life, rarely attain to that command of it
which is necessary for the ministration of the
Church, especially in the time of sickness, or
at the hour of death. Even without this con-
sideration, is it not a disgrace that we should
be the only nation not possessing a national
church in the capital of Christendom, whilst
Scotland and Ireland have theirs ? This work
has, likewise, been specially blessed by him
who now sits in St. Peter's Chair, and who,
to testify his hearty sympathy in whatever
tends to strengthen the growing faith of Eng-
land, himself deigned 'to lay the first stone of
the new building, and delivered a most touch-
ing allocution on the occasion.
Let us, then, as Englislaueu mid as Catholics,