Faith and Treason: The story of the gunpowder plot by Antonia Fraser

 Faith and Treason: The story of the gunpowder plot by Antonia Fraser

Catholic Church and the Flames of Separatism

For a person like this Reviewer, who is not a Christian, and lives in a numerically predominant Hindu society with a miniscule Christian population, the only perceptible difference between the Catholic and Protestant Christians is that priests of the former denomination are expected to remain celibates, while those of the latter marry and raise large families. It is generally assumed that this comprises the whole of the difference between the two denominations. What unites them however, is the relatively lavish upper middleclass lifestyle of the priests aided by influx of foreign Christian money. (This is in sharp contrast to the Hindu priests, who perennially totter on the edge of poverty.) That co-religionists who believe in the same holy book, and the same God, should so divide themselves for what appears a silly reason- that of the marital practices of the priests, had always been a matter of wonder for this Reviewer.

Theological differences apart, it is the temporal manifestation of the two denominations that raises questions of nationalism, patriotism, loyalty (or its mirror image, sedition), terrorism and regicide. The predilection faced by King James I of England as he ascended the throne after the long (despotic) rule of Queen Elizabeth I, is not much different from that facing the democratically elected liberal Western European nations today in respect of their immigrant minorities. This book relating the events of sixteenth century, is remarkably relevant today.

The practice of the Catholic faith has many difficulties:

1. The Catholics pledge their loyalty to the Pope in distant Rome, and not to their sovereign. When asked to take the ‘pledge of supremacy’ (or later, the so called ‘Bloody Question’) to acknowledge the primacy of the crown over the Pope, the Catholics prevaricate, evade the question, or take refuge in silence. Catholicism calls this the ‘principle of equivocation’.

2. The Catholics are prone to resort to anti-national activities, instigated by the Pope or any other foreign Catholic power (most notoriously, Spain), and thereby attempt to unseat the Protestant English monarch by propagating their creed overtly or covertly. In this effort they may even resort to violent activities, activities known to all Christians to be a sin, but Catholicism by resorting to the Confessional offers a route to the alleviation of such sin. Often the pardon afforded by the Confessional, is secured even before the act, so that the violent act is perpetrated with spiritual fervor, without fear or remorse.

3. The collateral damage or hurt caused to innocents in the course of a violent act is condoned by the principle of ‘double effect’, as the good intended to be propagated (that is, the spread of the Catholic faith) far outweighs the bad effects that are brought about in a closely linked or simultaneous manner (sounds like ‘collateral damage’ during the bombing of Afghanistan or the invasion of Iraq?).

4. Catholic literature both directly, and indirectly, provides for the removal of an ‘unjust’ Ruler. Regicide, that is ‘King killing’ or ‘Queen killing’, is sanctioned if it amounts to ‘Tyrranicide’.  

 Little wonder then that Queen Elizabeth I put down the Catholics ruthlessly (hanging, drawing and quartering being the preferred protocol). The tendency of Catholics to ‘equivocate’ was seen by the Protestant sovereign as being unpatriotic, and loyalty to a transnational power such as the Pope was seen as sedition. Not an entirely unjustified stand, as the Popes in those days could wage war, expiate sin against payment of money, and glorify genocide as that carried out against the Protestant minority in France (and elsewhere).

James a survivor of numerous conspiracies before he could ascend the throne of England, was wary of all such activities and held out the promise of enhanced religious freedom to the Catholics supposedly to stop them from conspiring to overthrow him. His feelings are best expressed in his own words:

“I will never allow in my conscience that the blood of any man shall be shed for diversity of opinions in religion, but I should be sorry that catholics should so multiply as they might be able to practise their old principles on us.”

Fraser describes the predilection facing the King:

“The King indicated that catholics might be tolerated, just so long as their numbers did not increase. But catholic toleration almost certainly would bring about an increase in numbers. The religious climate would be balmier and the Church Papists would venture forth again under their true colours.”

This Reviewer would not be surprised if the President of France, in the face of race riots spreading across his country shares the same thoughts, in respect of his immigrant Muslim population, who in many ways today, share the characteristics of Catholics of sixteenth century England. The role of the Church in fomenting separatist unrest in the North Eastern States of India has been the worst kept secret in India that every Indian politician acknowledges in private, and denies in public. Fraser’s book inadvertently sheds light on the theological foundations that impels the Church to foment this separatist unrest.