Today December 1

Today is the feast of one of my favorite saints, St. Edmund Campion (1540 - 1581). Living in the Elizabethan Age, he was on the cusp of modern times and thus there are a whole lot of words and records concerning him. We feel we know him, rather than seeing him entirely two-dimensionally, as we must many of the early saints and martyrs.

From his very beginning I like him: son of a bookseller, also named Edmund Campion, in London. Now, selling books is a noble profession and often shows a serious love of the written word. They (he and his wife) were converts of convenience to Anglicanism, and their boy Edmund was raised Protestant. He was a bright boy, a star student, and a great writer and speaker. He was enrolled at the University of Oxford and gave a stellar speech welcoming Queen Elizabeth when she visited there in 1566. He was soon a favorite of William Cecil and the Earl of Leicester. He wrote a book called "History of Ireland" and dedicated it to the Earl. He was called "the diamond of England." Wow. Nice.

He became a deacon in the Anglican Church but his faith started to shake when he read the early Church Fathers. That is a common occurrence among our thoughtful Protestant brothers. He was even suspected of being a Catholic (he wasn't), so he fled to Dublin where the situation was more tolerant. While there, he wrote these impassioned (and inflammatory) lines: "The Irish people are thus inclined: religious, frank, amorous, ireful, sufferable of pains infinite, very glorious, many sorcerers, excellent horsemen, delighted with wars, great alms-givers, passing in hospitality: the lewder sort both clerks and laymen are sensual and loose to lechery above measure. The same being virtuously bred up or reformed are such mirrors of holiness and austerity, that other nations retain but a shadow of devotion in comparison to them." It didn't go over well in Ireland.

He was received into the Church in Ireland and became a faithful -- and unapologetic -- Catholic. He returned to England in disguise and was almost caught (since he had no passport), until he agreed to give up all his money and his luggage. He escaped to Douay, France, where he studied, and in Rome took orders in the Society of Jesus. He was assigned to the University of Prague to teach, but he was recalled to England on what can be called a suicide mission, since to be a priest in England -- and even to shield or shelter one -- was punishable by death.

But St. Edmund had remarkable luck -- and grace. He arrived in the disguise of a jeweler and though his presence was soon discovered in London, he was able to escape to the countryside, where he was constantly moving, changing his clothes and identities. He made many converts and was even able to publish 400 copies of his "Decem Rationes" -- "Ten Reasons" why he challenged educated Protestants to debate with him. Although the other document known as "Campion's Brag" was supposed to be withheld from publication -- at least until after his capture or death -- it was released prematurely and caused such a controversial sensation, it turned the attention of the whole country upon him.

Three weeks later he was saying Mass secretly in the house of a Mrs. Yate in Lyford with a traitor in their midst. Edmund was betrayed to the authorities and the house was searched three times. Finally Edmund and two other priests were found in a false wall in a secret room. They were hauled off to the Tower of London and Edmund was cruelly tortured. He was put in a cell so narrow and short he was not able to stand completely up nor lie completely down. After several hours it causes excruciating pain. He was racked several times and so fiercely that he was unable to use his arms. In court he was attacked by hoards of Protestant scholars with lots of books and plenty of notes in front of them and yet he, with nothing, was able to hold his own. He insisted -- and even had declared on oath when he first entered the country -- that he was not in England for political reasons of any kind. He was being condemned for his religion alone. He even managed to say: "In condemning us you condemn all your own ancestors. . . To be condemned with these old lights -- not of England only, but of the world -- by their degenerate descendants is both gladness and glory to us." Wow. He was drawn and quartered on December 1,1581, a wet and muddy day. He had the graciousness to die wishing "a long reign with all prosperity to your queen and my queen." Some of his blood fell upon a young man named Henry Walpole, who himself became a Jesuit and a martyr. What witness! What class! St. Edmund Campion, pray for us.