Roy Hattersley’s father was a Catholic priest. Two weeks after performing the wedding ceremony for a young couple, he ran off with the bride. Hattersley knew nothing about any of this until he read a letter of condolence on his father’s death that began, “As you will know, we were at the English College in Rome together and were young priests in the diocese . . .” It’s a story that confirms pretty much every negative aspect of the English view of Catholicism – sexual misconduct, secrecy, abuse of power. Yet somehow it has left Hattersley with a warm respect and fascination for the Church, the fruit of which is this big-hearted, fair-minded, insightful book.
As a history of Catholicism, it’s a joy to read. But the timing of its publication has made it much more important than that. Hattersley starts not with St Ninian landing at Whithorn in the 4th century, but with the Reformation. The separation from Rome is presented as a kind of Brexit, spearheaded by Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell had been an unremarkable MP but his Supplication of the Commons Against the Ordinaries argued passionately that England could become the most powerful state in Europe if it shook off the shackles of foreign ecclesiastical courts and became independent. He drove the separation forward long after Henry VIII had lost nerve and interest.
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