OUR SAINTS:

Saint Edmund Campion
By: James Dufficey, Esq.

Campion was born in London in 1540 (a mere 5 years after More's death) to a Catholic bookseller. He was executed at the infamous English prison Tyburn,on Dec 1, 1581. Like More, he was singled out for education as a promising child. Indeed, when Mary Tudor entered London in state, he was the schoolboy chosen to give the Latin salutation to the queen.He was accepted Campion as one of its first scholars John's College at Oxford, where he became a junior fellow at the young age of seventeen. Like John Henry Newman before his conversion over two centuries later, Champion was praised and imitated as one of the preeminent scholars not only at Oxford, but in all of England.

In 1566, Queen Elizabeth visited Oxford with her chancellor. As the architects of the new church of England in a country still very much Catholic in sentiment, they were extremely keen on locating young intellectual champions to carry their cause and give it weight within the country. Oxford was a particularly desirable location for such recruits, given its ancient Catholic ties and stubbornly Catholic point of view. The queen was won by Campion's bearing, appearance, and wit, and let it be known that high office and honor would follow him if the would but agree to follow her. This promise of position, as well as the arguments of his friends, led Campion to take the Oath of Supremacy and deacon's orders according to the new English rite. Like More before him and Newman after him, his"weakness" for the truth led him to study the Fathers of the Church in all seriousness. While looking for fodder for polemics against the Church, he found there instead reproache to his conscience. His conscience awakened his childhood allegiance to the Church. In a state of anguish, he broke off his

happy Oxford life when his proctorship ended. Thereafter, he traveled to Ireland, with the plan of picking up with his quiet scholar's life at the expected reopening of Dublin University,an institution founded on papal grant.

As a prominent and Catholic-minded Anglican,Campion was suspected, and, though hidden in friendly houses, was exposed to danger as the penalties against those with Catholic sympathies were rigorously enforced. Urged on by the zeal off this friend Gregory Martin, he crossed to England in disguise and under an assumed name, reaching London in time to witness the trial of another martyr, Dr. John Storey. Campion now recognized his vocation and crossed over to the new English seminary at Douay. The seminary at Douay was set up in great haste and confusion after the suppression of the Church by Henry VIII, and became a critical focal point for the struggle for Catholicism in England. Among its achievements was the famed Douay Rhiems ver sion of the Bible.

At Douay, Campion remained long enough for his theological course, but then set out as a barefoot pilgrim to Rome, arriving there just before the death of St. Francis Borgia; "For I meant," he said, "to enter into the Society of Jesus, thereof to vow and to be professed". This he accomplished in 1573. As the English province was not yet created, he was sent to Bohemia, passing his probation year at Brunn in Moravia. In the garden at Brunn, Campion had a vision, in which Our Lady foretold to him his martyrdom. His comrades were moved to make a scroll for <P. Edmundus Campianus Martyr>, and to paint a garland of roses above his cell-bed (as a symbol of martyrdom). He returned to Prague, where he taught in the college and was ordained in 1578. Meanwhile, Dr. Allen (the organizer of the seminary at Douay) was organizing the apostolic work of the English mission. Fathers Robert Parsons and Edmund Campion were selected as his first Jesuits assigned to missions in England. Parsons and Campion set out from Rome, and after many adventures, arrived in disguise in London. As priests, they

(Continued on page 7) St. Edmund Campion

Like More before him and Newman after him, his "weakness" for the truth led him to study the Fathers of the Church in all seriousness