St. Edmund Campion: "the Pope's Champion"

Historically, today is the feast of 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 January 25, 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 told 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 Blessed 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 December 1, 1581 sparked off a wave of conversions to Catholicism. He was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970.

Saint Quotes

And touching our Society, be it known to you that we have made a league – all the Jesuits in the world – cheerfully to carry the cross you shall lay upon us, and never to despair your recovery, while we have a man left to enjoy your Tyburn, or to be racked with your torments or consumed with your prisons. The expense is reckoned, the enterprise is begun; it is of God, it cannot be withstood. So the faith was planted; so it must be restored. ~ Saint Edmund Campion, from Campion’s Brag

As to the treasons which have been laid to my charge, and for which I come here to suffer, I desire you all to bear witness with me that I am thereto altogether innocent. I am a Catholic man and a priest; in that Faith I have lived, and in that Faith do I intend to die. If you esteem my Religion treason, then I am guilty; as for the other treason, I never committed any, God is my judge. ~ Saint Edmund Campion

Prayer to St. Edmund Campion

St. Edmund Campion, martyr for the Roman Primacy, obtain for us, but especially for the Church’s bishops and priests, such obedient loyalty to the Vicar of Christ that like you, they will not be afraid to proclaim the truth and like you, they will be willing to shed their blood for Jesus Christ.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.