‘I will not pray with you, and you shall not pray with me' – Bl. Margaret Clitherow vs. Leo XIV
The memory of our holy English martyr, Bl. Margaret Clitherow – pressed to death by the agents of the Anglican schism – has been betrayed by Leo XIV and the other ecumaniacs. Here's why.
The memory of our holy English martyr, Bl. Margaret Clitherow – pressed to death by the agents of the Anglican schism – has been betrayed by Leo XIV and the other ecumaniacs. Here’s why.
Two ‘Heads of the Church’ in Rome?
King Charles III and Queen Camilla participated in two ecumenical prayer services during their state visit to the Vatican – one of which was led by Leo XIV.
One of His Majesty’s titles is “Supreme Governor of the Church of England” – making him the head of the heretical and schismatic Anglican religion.
The first service took place in the Papal Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls. The King and Queen were were seated on thrones in the sanctuary, which bore the royal coat of arms and the words from the Gospel of St John, Ut unum sint (That they may be one.”
The second was led by Leo XIV and the Anglican ‘Archbishop’ of York, Stephen Cottrell.
The services focused on themes of “unity” and ecumenism, as well as the need to “care for creation.”
The idea that unity is something to be achieved is a tacit denial of Catholic teaching about the nature of the Church herself – namely that she is already united, and that Christ’s prayer (ut unum sint) has already been fulfilled. This teaching has been essentially forgotten in the post-conciliar epoch. We have addressed this previously, including in our pre-conclave report on Cardinal Prevost (Leo XIV).
Further, such ecumenical services would have been unthinkable prior to Vatican II. The teaching around permitted and forbidden forms of communicatio in sacris (communication in sacred things) was clear and established.
It is particularly striking that Stephen Cottrell played such a central role. In addition to his adherence to the Anglican sect, this invalidly ordained heretical minister has also spoken in support of same-sex blessings.
But this is not all.
The Intruder of York and the Pearl of York
Cottrell is the current intruder of the ancient diocesan see of York, in the north of England.
York was also the home of Blessed Margaret Clitherow – sometimes known as “The Pearl of York.” Bl. Margaret was executed by the Elizabethan Anglican regime for the “crime” of harbouring Catholic priests.
Just before she was crushed to death under a door, loaded with heavy stones, the heretical ministers present urged her to join them in prayer. Her reply, some of her last words before entering into glory, were as follows:
“I will not pray with you, and you shall not pray with me; neither will I say Amen to your prayers, nor shall you to mine.”
Thus, this ecumenical service with His Majesty and the intruder of York represents a flagrant betrayal of Bl. Margaret Clitherow’s memory, and that of all those other brave English Catholics who suffered under the Anglican persecution and for refusing to participate in its false religion and worship. To be specific, this betrayal is on the part of Leo XIV and his fellow “Catholic” proponents of this religious ecumenism, and not His Majesty King Charles.
In honour of Bl. Margaret, and in order to illustrate her nobility and her witness, we have summarised parts of the account written by Fr John Mush, her confessor.
The Martyrdom of Bl. Margaret Clitherow
Bl. Margaret Clitherow is one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales who died in during the Reformation – although many more than forty were martyred at that time. These Forty Martyrs were beatified in two stages by Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius XI; they were putatively canonized by Paul VI in 1970.
Bl. Margaret was well known as a good and virtuous woman. She was born in 1556. She became a Catholic in 1574; her husband John did not, but was sympathetic to the Catholic cause due to his brother William being a priest.
John Clitherow and paid Bl. Margaret’s recusancy fines for missing the Anglican services, and she was imprisoned on several occasions for this. Her third child was born in prison.
Even more: the Clitherows permitted their son Henry to enter the English seminary in Reims, France – and John Clitherow had to give an account for the whereabouts of his son to the authorities.
However, her activities were more dangerous than all this. She was instrumental in having priests come and minister to the persecuted Catholics in York, providing rooms and sustenance for them. From 1584, this was a capital offence.
In March 1586, their house was searched, and the “priest hole” was found. Bl. Margaret was arrested. She refused to enter a plea; the reason for this was that she wished to limit the number of persons that would be guilty of her blood (as would be the case if she were tried by a jury), and because accepting a trial would result in her children and servants being forced to testify, and perhaps suffer torture.
As a result of her refusal to enter a plea, she suffered the punishment known as peine forte et dure: being pressed to death under a door loaded with heavy stones. This was the typical punishment of those who refused to enter a plea of guilt or innocence.
She was 29 or 30 years old at the time.
It also seems most probable that she was pregnant with her fourth child at the time.
The indictment of Bl. Margaret Clitherow
Fr John Mush, once Bl. Margaret’s confessor and spiritual director, gave the following account of the indictment:
Her indictment was read, that she had harboured and maintained Jesuit and Seminary priests, traitors to the Queen’s Majesty and her laws, and that she had [heard] Mass, and such like. Then Judge Clinch stood up, and said: “Margaret Clitherow, how say you? [Are you] guilty of this indictment, or no?”
Then she [being] about to answer, they commanded her to put off her hat, and then she said mildly with a bold and smiling countenance: “I know no offence whereof I should confess myself guilty.”
“The judge said: “Yes, you have harboured and maintained Jesuits and priests, enemies to her Majesty.”
The martyr answered: “I never knew nor have harboured any such persons [enemies of the Quen], or maintained those which are not the Queen’s friends. God defend I should.”
The judge said: “How will you be tried?”
The martyr answered, “Having made no offence, I need no trial.”
They said: “You have offended the statutes, and therefore you must be tried”; and often asked her how she would be tried.
The martyr answered: “If you say I have offended, and that I must be tried, I will be tried by none but by God and your own consciences.”
The judge said, “No, you cannot so do, for we sit here,” quoth he, “to see justice and law, and therefore you must be tried [by the country].” The martyr still appealed to God, and their consciences.
The officials then produced items for Mass, and mocked Bl. Margaret as an “idolater.”
She answered this and all the other questions with a wit and wisdom that appears to be a manifestation of Christ’s promise to the Apostles: “Lay it up therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before how you shall answer: For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist and gainsay.” (Luke 21.14-15)
In fact, it seems on several occasions as if Bl. Margaret was actually playing with her tormentors.
Because of her resolute refusal to enter a plea, they warned her of the means by which she would die:
They asked her how she liked those vestments. The martyr said: “I like them well, if they were on their backs that know to use them to God’s honour, as they were made.” […]
They asked if her husband were not privy to her doings in keeping priests. The martyr said: “God knoweth I could never yet get my husband in that good case that he were worthy to know or come in place where they were to serve God.”
The judge said: “We must proceed by law against you, which will condemn you to a sharp death for want of trial.”
The martyr said cheerfully: “God’s will be done: I think I may suffer any death for this good cause.”
Some of them said, seeing her joy, that she was mad, and possessed with a smiling spirit. Mr. Rhodes also railed against her on the Catholic faith and priests; so did also the other Councillors, and Mr. Hurleston openly before them all said: “It is not for religion that thou harbourest priests, but for harlotry;” and furiously uttered such like slanders, sitting on the bench.
The following day, they questioned her again, trying to bully her into accepting a trial – giving her further opportunity to profess the faith and exercise this supernatural fortitude and wisdom:
“Indeed,” said the martyr, “I think you have no witnesses against me but children, which with an apple and a rod you may make to say what you will.”
They said, “It is plain that you had priests in your house by these things which were found.” The martyr said, “As for good Catholic priests, I know no cause why I should refuse them as long as I live ; they come only to do me good and others.”
Rhodes, Hurleston, and others said, “They are all traitors, rascals, and deceivers of the Queen’s subjects.” The martyr said, “God forgive you. You would not say so of them if you knew them.”
They said, “You would detest them yourself [if] you knew their treason and wickedness as we do.” The martyr said, “I know them for virtuous men, sent by God only to save our souls.” These speeches and the like she uttered very boldly and with great modesty.
Even the puritan ministers warned the judge of the injustice of proceeding straight to execution.
The sentence
The judge sought to wash his hands of her blood, tempting her with the possibility of mercy from a jury. Mush’s account continues:
The martyr still refused. Then Rhodes said,
“Why stand we all the day about this naughty, wilful woman. Let us despatch her.” Then the judge said, “If you will not put yourself to the country, this must be your judgment:
“You must return from whence you came, and there, in the lowest part of the prison, be stripped naked, laid down, your back upon the ground, and as much weight laid upon you as you are able to bear, and so to continue three days without meat or drink, except a little barley bread and puddle water, and the third day to be pressed to death, your hands and feet tied to posts, and a sharp stone under your back.”
Bl. Margaret gently reaffirmed her warning to the judge:
The martyr, standing without any fear or change of countenance, mildly said, “If this judgment be according to your own conscience, I pray God send you better judgment before Him. I thank God heartily for this.”
“Nay,” said the judge, “I do it according to law, and tell you this must be your judgment, unless you put yourself to be tried by the country. Consider of it, you have husband and children to care for; cast not yourself away.”
The martyr answered, “I would to God my husband and children might suffer with me for so good a cause.” Upon which words the heretics reported after, that she would have hanged her husband and children if she could.
The account continues:
After this sentence pronounced, the judge asked her once again, “How say you, Margaret Clitherow? Are you content to put yourself to the trial of the country? Although we have given sentence against you according to the law, yet will we show mercy, if you will do anything yourself.”
The martyr, lifting up her eyes towards heaven, said with a cheerful countenance, “God be thanked, all that He shall send me shall be welcome; I am not worthy of so good a death as this is: I have deserved death for mine offences to God, but not for anything that I am accused of.”
Then the judge bade the sheriff look to her, who pinioned her arms with a cord. The martyr first beholding the one arm and then the other, smiled to herself and was joyful to be bound for Christ’s sake; at which they all raged against her.
So the sheriff brought her with halberts to the bridge again, where she was before. Some of the Bench were sent to mark her countenance as she was carried forth of the Hall, but she departed from thence through the streets with joyful countenance, whereat some said, “It must needs be that she received comfort from the Holy Ghost,” for all were astonished to see her of so good cheer. Some said it was not so, but that she was possessed with a merry devil, and that she sought her own death.
When her husband heard, he wept to the point of a nosebleed, and lamented:
“Alas! will they kill my wife? Let them take all I have and save her, for she is the best wife in all England, and the best Catholic also.”
Bl. Margaret subjected to Protestant preaching
Following her sentence, the only men permitted to speak to Bl. Margaret were Protestant ministers. One exchange was as follows:
They asked, “Why refuse you to come to our church, we having so plain and sure testimonies to show on our side for the truth?” And to this end they brought forth many texts of Scriptures.
The martyr answered, “I am not aminded to your Church, God defend I should, for I have been within the Catholic faith twelve years, I thank God; and if I should now fear or faint, ail that I have done heretofore were in vain, and I wish rather to die.”
Pease said, “Then what is the Church? You know it not: you have been led away by blind guides, making you believe in stocks and stones, and tradition of men contrary to the word of the Lord.
“Answer me,” quoth he, “what is the Church?”
The martyr said, “It is that wherein the true Word of God is preached, which Christ left to His Apostles, and to their successors ministering the Seven Sacraments, which the same Church hath always observed, the Doctors preached, and Martyrs and Confessors witnessed. This is the Church I believe to be true.”
And when she alleged anything for the Church of Rome (which in all her talk with them she stood unto), they said, “Now ye go from us.” Then Bunney began to make, as it were, an oration, and allege places of Scripture, God knoweth to what end.
The martyr said, “I beseech you trouble me not; I am no divine, neither can answer you to these hard questions. I am according to the Queen’s Majesty’s laws to die, and my spirit is very willing, although my flesh may repine. I say, as I have said heretofore, my desire is to die a member of the Catholic Church. My cause is God’s, and it is a great comfort for me to die in His quarrel: flesh is frail, but I trust in my Lord Jesu, that He will give me strength to bear all troubles and torments which shall be laid upon me for His sake.”
After that Pease had railed and blasphemed a while, they departed for that day.
She endured further attempts to persuade her to save herself each day, for days, along with promises of mercy. Each time, she answered them with simple eloquence, and with a request to be left in peace. Throughout, she showed the same playful resolution:
About Monday came Wiggington again, and said: “Mrs. Clitherow, I am once come again to you. I am sent by the Council to see if you be any more conformable than you were before. Will you,” said he, “come and hear a godly sermon ? Otherwise, I know not how you will escape the danger of the law.”
The martyr said, “I will with all my heart hear a sermon.”
“That is very well said, good Mrs. Clitherow,” quoth he.
“I pray you understand me,” quoth the martyr; “ I mind to do it, if I may have a Catholic priest or preacher, but to come to your sermons I will never.”
At last, after much petty mistreatment, and wearied requests for these heretics to leave her alone, the day of her martyrdom arrived.
The martyrdom
Fr Mush gives us the following account:
About eight of the clock the Sheriffs came to her, and she being ready expecting them, having trimmed up her head with new inkle, and carrying on her arm the new habit of linen with inkle strings, which she had prepared to bind her hands, went cheerfully to her marriage, as she called it, dealing her alms in the street, which was so full of people that she could scarce pass by them. She went barefoot and barelegged, her gown loose about her.
Fawcet, the Sheriff, made haste and said, “Come away, Mrs. Clitheroe.” The martyr answered merrily, “Good Master Sheriff, let me deal my poor alms before I now go, for my time is but short.” They marvelled all to see her joyful countenance.
The place of execution was the Tolbooth, six or seven yards distance from the prison. There were present at her martyrdom the two Sheriffs of York, Fawcet and Gibson, Frost, a minister, Fox, Mr. Cheeke’s kinsman, with another of his men, the four sergeants which had hired certain beggars to do the murther, three or four men, and four women.
The martyr coming to the place, kneeled her down, and prayed to herself.
Here we arrive at one of the most striking parts of the martyrdom, in which the simple words of this holy woman of York rebuke the powerful heretics of our own day.
The tormentors bade her pray with them, and they would pray with her. The martyr denied, and said, “I will not pray with you, and you shall not pray with me; neither will I say Amen to your prayers, nor shall you to mine.”
There are many learned treatments of the impossibility of communicatio in sacris with non-Catholics; perhaps none are as powerful as these dignified words.
From here, we will leave Fr Mush to recount Bl. Margaret’s martyrdom without interruption – echoing, with her, our love and obedience to our own King Charles III:
Then they all willed her to pray for the Queen’s Majesty. The martyr began in this order:
First, in the hearing of them all, she prayed for the Catholic Church, then for the Pope’s Holiness, Cardinals, and other Fathers which have charge of souls, and then for all Christian princes. At which words the tormentors interrupted her, and willed her not to put her Majesty among that company; yet the martyr proceeded in this order:
“And especially for Elizabeth, Queen of England, that God move her to the Catholic Faith, and that after this mortal life she may receive the blessed joys of heaven; for I wish as much good,’ quoth she, ‘to her Majesty’s soul as to mine own.”
Sheriff Gibson, abhorring the cruel fact, stood weeping at the door. Then said Fawcet, “Mrs. Clitheroe, you must remember and confess that you die for treason.’ The martyr answered, ‘No, no, Mr. Sheriff; I die for the love of my Lord Jesu;” which last words she spake with a loud voice. Then Fawcet commanded her to put off her apparel, “For you must die,’ said he, ‘naked, as judgment was given and pronounced against you.”
The martyr with the other women requested him on their knees that she might die in her smock, and that for the honour of womanhood they would not see her naked; but that would not be granted. Then she requested that women might unapparel her, and that they would turn their faces from her for that time.
The women took off her clothes and put upon her the long habit of linen. Then very quietly she laid her down upon the ground, her face covered with a handkerchief, the linen habit being placed over her as far as it could reach, all the rest of her body being naked. The door was laid upon her, her hands she joined towards her face.
Then the Sheriff said, “Nay, you must have your hands bound.” The martyr put forth her hands over the door still joined. Then two sergeants parted them, and with the inkle strings which she had prepared for that purpose bound them to two posts, so that her body and her arms made a perfect cross. They willed her again to ask the Queen’s Majesty’s forgiveness and to pray for her. The martyr said she had prayed for her. They also willed her to ask her husband’s forgiveness. The martyr said, “If ever I have offended him, but for my conscience, I ask him forgiveness.”
After this they laid weight upon her, which, when she first felt, she said, “Jesu! Jesu! Jesu! have mercy upon me!” which were the last words which she was heard to speak. She was in dying one quarter of an hour.
A sharp stone, as much as a man’s fist, was put under her back; upon her was laid a quantity of seven or eight hundredweight at the least, which breaking her ribs, caused them to burst forth of the skin.
Thus most gloriously this gracious martyr overcame all her enemies, passing [from] this mortal life with marvelous triumph into the peaceable city of God, there to receive a worthy crown of endless immortality and joy.
This was at nine of the clock, and she continued in the press until three at afternoon. Her hat before she died she sent to her husband, in sign of her loving duty to him as to her head. Her hose and shoes to her eldest daughter, Anne, about twelve years old, signifying that she should serve God and follow her steps of virtue.
Conclusion: Fr Mush’s rebuke and prayer
Fr Mush ends his account with a rebuke to those who murdered Bl. Margaret – a rebuke which applies, in its own way, to those agents of the “Conciliar/Synodal Church,” who choose to betray her memory by defecting from the Catholic faith, and for engaging in the ecumenical and interreligious frenzy of our time:
Behold how God hath wrought by His servant all things to her immortal honour, and your endless confusion and shame.
She, a woman, with invincible courage, entered combat against you all, to defend that most ancient faith, wherein she and you were baptized, and gave your promise to God to keep the same to death; where you, men, cowardish in the quarrel, and faithless in your promise, laboured all at once against her, to make her partaker of your turpitude and dishonesty.
She in everything simple and innocent, you in everything deceitful and mischievous; she patient and joyful, you furious and fretting; she victorious, you conquered; she exalted, and you confounded.
Where is now the force of your tyranny and impious law? Hath not the fortitude of one woman showed the injustice of it?
Finally, Fr Mush addressed Bl. Margaret herself, addressing his spiritual daughter and penitent now as his mother and mistress:
But now, O sacred martyr, letting go thy enemies, I turn to thee.
Remember me, I beseech thy perfect charity, whom thou hast left miserable behind thee, in times past thine unworthy Father, and now thy most unworthy servant, made ever joyful by thy virtuous life, and comfortable by lamenting thy death, lamenting thy absence, and yet rejoicing in thy glory.
Behold me wrestling in the multitude of mine imperfections, and bestow, for God’s sake, that alms on me, in the exceeding fervour of thy charity, which in this toilsome life so many times, for God’s sake, thou humbly didst require of me at the holy altar. I was not so able to help thee as thou art now to procure mercy and grace for me; for thou art now all washed in thy sacred blood from all spots of frailty, securely possessing God Himself; whereas I am yet a woeful wretch, and clothed with impiety, as now thou seest, and not so able to break the loathsome bonds of my own sensuality as I shall be when, by thy gracious intercession, I receive more help.
Be not wanting, therefore, my glorious mother, in the perfection of thy charity, which was not little towards me in thy mortality, to obtain mercy and procure the plenties of such graces for me, thy miserable son, as thou knowest to be most needful for me, and acceptable in the sight of our Lord, which hath thus glorified thee; that I may honour Him by imitation of thy happy life, and by any death, which He will give me, to be partaker with thee and all holy saints of His kingdom, to whom be all glory and honour, now and for ever. Amen.
Bl. Margaret Clitherow, pray for us.
From Fr John Mush’s ‘Life of Margaret Clitherow’, in The Troubles of our Catholic Fore-fathers related by themselves. Third series, London, Burns, 1872.
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God grant us all to be so steadfast in the Faith as Margaret Clitherow.
I had this exact thought. .thank you for stating it so well. .