The Irish standard., 1894-12-29
REFORMATION IN; ENGLAND.


REFoR6ATI1,N IN:ENGIAND- ..
King Henry VIII. One Of the vIlest Mons
tiers That Ever Cursed the Earti.
Father Cleary discussed the 6 Reforma-
tion in England" at st. Charles church.
last Sunday evening, Gays the Daily
Times. The attendance was very large
as the interest in his series OF discourses
on "Luther's Legacy" continued una
bated. The following is brief outline
of his lecture:
"a feeling of inexpressible horror still
pervades this community. We cannot
forget the shocking crime that has given
our fair city an unenvlable notoriety.
Our faith in human nature is disturbed
as we trace the progress of the most fiend-
ish plot to take the life of defenselees
girl, for the sake of sordid gain, that has
been unearthed in the memory Of this
generation. We almost despair OF
humanity's progress, when we ref .ct
that after all the advantages OF schooling
and social culture, men eau be found
who are impelled to such bloody deeds
of satanic malice to crafty greed or am
bition. But the diabollsm Of this bastard
ly crime, in all it's revolving, malicious
deliberation, pales into insignificant, and
becomes trivial IN it's enormlty, when
compared with the horrid deeds of blood
aud heliish hate with which the seeds OF
the boosted religious reformation We're
sown in English soil 400 years ago
"The apologists of the English reforma-
ton generally adopt one OF two theories.
One section, and ] imagine by far the
larger and more respectable, admits that
the character OF the brutal King Henry
is wholly indefensible, and claim that
the religious revolution was good thing
effected by bad man Another section
attempts defeuse of Hen1y's monstrous
character, ard insists that he was not
half 80 bad as he has been painted, and
that he was actuated byworthy motives.
God does not employ bad means to a
good end. The chosen messengers OF
God in all times have been good and
worthy men and women. Men OF sanity
lives had planted the cred seeds Ut
Christian faith in English soil; mon of
unparalleled vllIainy attempted to uproot
that seed. With the cry of rel, rm on
their polluted lips, they Mortified the
civilized world by the moral deformity OF
their wicked lives. KingHenry VIII. is
the father of the English reformation,
and history proves him to have been the
vilest monster that has cursed the earth
since Nero fiddled while Rome was burn
ing. His bastard daughter, Elizabeth,
the vile fruit of his adulteroua union
with Anne Boleyn, inherited her wicked
fathers gross cruelty, consummated the
rebellion against God which he had be-
gun, and merited for herself the
infamous distinction of being remember
ed as the most inhumanwoman that ever
welded power.
King Henry had lived happily with
his chaste and lawful wife, Queen Cath
crime, for over Is ears, and more than 70
years had elapsed sirce their betrothal
without feeling any qualms of conscience
as to the lawfulnees of his marriage But
The Gospel of light now beamed from
Anne Boleyn's eyes, and when the Pope
would not betray bis divine trust and
pretend to sever what God had joined,
Henry repudiated the Pope and pro-
claimed his independence of Rome, set
himself up as the head Of the church,
and started a religion Of his own. All
this was done in the name of conscience
and of religious liberty, but all who pre-
sumed to differ from the new religion by
law established we're punished with
death.
''The demoralizing influence of: the
wicked kings example, especially after
he claimed to be the head Of his people
in spiritual matters, was disastrous in
the extreme. The corruption of his Ii
centious court affected the entire king.
dom But Henry, with all his vices, did
not repudiate the sacraments Of the
Church, the adorable sacrifice of the
mass, or the salutary influences of the
venerated Catholic practices. His radi-
cal error, into which his naddenipg lust
and naughty ambition had deluded him,
was the rejection of the supremacy of
the successor of st. Peter in spiritual
matters. His fatal delusion en- angled
the great English realm in net work of
religious disorder, as his lecherous ex-
ample plunged the people into cesspool
of moral corruption.
3 sit remained for Elizabeth, Henry's
bastard daughter, whom the laws OF her
country, at the time of her accession to
the throne, regarded as illegitimate, to
complete the establishment Of the Prot
estant religion in that Inflated land. AL
though at the death of her sister, Mary,