Saint of the Day: St. Edmund Campion, priest and martyr

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The saint of the day  is St. Edmund Campion, Jesuit martyr, one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, also called "the Pope's Champion".

Edmund Campion was born in London on 25 January 1540. He was raised a Catholic and had such a powerful intellect that at the age of only 17 he was made a junior fellow at Saint John’s College at Oxford University.

On visiting the university, Queen Elizabeth I was so taken by Edmund’s brilliance, as were a few of her dignitaries, that she bid him to ask for anything he wished. The exaltation of so many fed his vanity and led him away from his Catholic faith. He took the Oath of Supremacy, thus acknowledging the Queen as head of the church, and became an Anglican deacon.

However, his brilliant intellect and his conscience would not allow him to be reconciled to the idea of Anglicanism for too long, and after a stay in Dublin he turned back to his faith and returned to England. He was at this point suspected of being too Catholic. On witnessing the trial of a soon to be martyr, he was shaken to the conviction that his vocation was to minister to the Catholic faithful in England during this time of persecution and to convert Protestants.

He set off to Rome barefoot and entered the Society of Jesus in 1573, was ordained in 1578 and had a vision in which the Virgin Mary foretold him of his martyrdom. When he returned to England he made an immediate impression, winning many converts.

On July 17, 1581, he was betrayed by one of the faithful who knew his whereabouts and was thrown into prison. The queen offered him all manner of riches if he would forsake his loyalty to the pope, but he refused.

He was sentenced to death by hanging, drawing and quartering. His martyrom in Tyburn on 1 December 1581 sparked off a wave of conversions to Catholicism. He was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970.

Saint Quote:

"[My mission is] of free cost to preach the Gospel, to minister the sacraments, to instruct the simple, to reform sinners, to confute errors; in brief, to cry alarm spiritual against foul vice and proud ignorance, wherewith many of my dear countrymen are abused."

~ From Campion's Brag

Comments

  1. Fr Seán Coyle8:03 am, December 01, 2011

    Thank you for this post. In my first year in the seminary in Ireland 50 years ago we read Evelyn Waugh's life of Edmund Campion as part of our English course.

    A fine portrait of the saint.

    One slight quibble with the video: would not St Edmund Campion be more correctly described as 'English' rather than 'British'? I'm not sure that the latter term was used in those days or that there was even such an identity as 'British'. Britain consists of three historical and distinct nations, England, Scotland and Wales.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jean Heimann1:45 am, December 02, 2011

    You're welcome, Fr. Sean.

    That's a good point, Fr. I think most Americans probably view the words 'English' and 'British' as synonymous.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Fr Seán Coyle8:11 am, December 03, 2011

    Many of us Irish are just as guilty, Jean. And never call a Scotsman 'English'!

    ReplyDelete

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