Following the destruction of the Catholic Church in England by King Henry VIII in the sixteenth century and his successors (notably Queen Elizabeth I), refugees from England were welcomed by Catholic countries on the Continent, and several English Colleges were born in various places. Famous are the ones at Douai and Rheims, now long dissolved, which gave us the enduring English translation of the Catholic Scriptures called the Douai-Rheims, and again the still-extant ones at Rome and Valladolid, which are still the home of seminaries belonging to the bishops of England and Wales. We have just been notified by e-mail of a new history of the English College in Lisbon, only dissolved in 1972, which is now available for purchase. The communiqué we have been sent is below…
“THE ENGLISH COLLEGE AT LISBON, 1622-1972
Simon P. Johnson
Gracewing 2023
“The English College in Lisbon was unique in being the only continental college to be controlled by the secular clergy of England from its inception to its closure: a ‘diocesan’ seminary on the model instituted by the Council of Trent but serving an entire country. Its origins go back to the early seventeenth century when the sympathy of a Portuguese noble, Dom Pedro Coutinho, for the sufferings of English Catholics prompted him to fund the establishment of the College of Saints Peter and Paul in 1622. This marked the beginning of a virtually unbroken record of providing priests for England and Wales until obliged to close in 1972. Simon Johnson has provided a succinct and lively account of the college’s fortunes, between poverty and riches, neglect and Portuguese royal favour. Established at a time of penal persecution in England, it found itself able as a British establishment to help negotiate the marriage of Catherine of Braganza and Charles II, and at times of violent anti-Catholic political sentiment in Portugal was able to provide a safe haven for Lisbon inhabitants to worship, both students and staff blithely ignoring the prohibition of the public display of clerical dress. Forced to close at the end of the Second World War, it found new life in 1948 under the presidency of Mgr James Sullivan (later awarded OBE for his service to Anglo-Portuguese understanding). Generations of students from widely differing backgrounds studied together: former Royal Navy officers found themselves rubbing shoulders with ex-National Servicemen, journalists, teachers and teenagers fresh from school. With a foreword by the Duke of Braganza, the book has already re-energised interest in the college’s place in the religious and political history of both England and Portugal.
“The book is available directly from Gracewing or from Amazon Books, priced £25.00.”
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 