The Papacy abused excommunication freely and frequently for political advantage – so much so that a bishop would excommunicate a thief who stole his property!

Divorce was finally, officially forbidden by the Council of Trent. This ushered in about two centuries of adultery, natural and unnatural vice, and flagrant prostitution.

King Henry VIII and the First Act of Supremacy (1534) It was also on this date, November 3, 1534, that England's Parliament passed the first Act of Supremacy, thus making King Henry VIII head of the English church. Under Henry's urging, and in 276 words, Parliament gave to the head of state the role until […]

Pope Paul III Approves the Jesuits (1540) On this date, September 27, in 1540, Pope Paul III officially approved the Society of Jesus – the Jesuits – through his encyclical, Regimini militantis ecclesiae. Born Alessandro Farnese on 29 February 1468 in Rome, Paul III was pope for 15 years, from 12 October 1534 until his […]

Queen Elizabeth I (1533) It was on this date, September 7, 1533, that the first Queen Elizabeth, monarch of the "Golden Age" of English history, was born at Greenwich Palace. She was a disappointment to her father, King Henry VIII, who desperately wanted a son. Henry had gone so far as to break away from […]

The Catholic Church has been hypocritical in its position on divorce and adultery.

Had Becket but served his king with half the zeal that he served his God, he would not have been left naked to his enemies.

There is a curious collection of the impious residing eternally in and around Westminster: Ralph Vaughan Williams, Geoffrey Chaucer, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, John Dryden – and the admittedly agnostic Charles Darwin!

If the supposedly perfect Supreme Being was right in 1965, was he wrong in 1054 — when both excommunication and faith were stronger?