There are so many historical falsehoods here, I don’t know where to begin.
1) Henry VIII did not start the Church of England or the “Anglican Church”. Anglicanism dates to the martyrdom of St Alban in the year 303. When St Augustune of Canterbury arrived, he encountered a missionary church of the Celtic tradition that was converting the Saxon pagans to Christianity.
2) Henry VIII did not attempt to eradicate Catholicism from England. In fact, he enforced it. Check out the Six Articles.
3) Thomas More was not executed for being a Papist. He was executed for being a traitor. He was caught trying to subvert Henry VIII’s authority as King- a capital offense throughout Europe at the time. Many Roman Catholics remained Roman Catholics and survived Henry VIII. Keep in mind that Henry VIII was very tolerant of differing points of view. However when he made a decision he expected all to obey and none to attempt to undermine. This is why Cranmer survived the Six Articles.
4) Does the Pope have the authority to lay aside God’s law?
5) The King’s title of governor-general is an administrative title that reflects the King’s responsibility to see to the maintenance of the church- paying bills, erecting buildings, funding education, filling vacancies, etc. These were the things Kings, Counts, Dukes and Emperors had been doing since Constantine the Great.
6) Priests do not offer sacrifice. That is heresy. Christ’s one oblation on the Cross is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. Offerring another sacrifice is to claim Christ’s work on the Cross is insufficient. The only sacrificing that is done is what we believer do when we take up our crosses and follow Him.
Before the breach with Rome under Henry VIII there was absolutely no doctrinal difference between the faith of Englishmen and the rest of Catholic Christendom, and "Anglicanism", as connoting a separate or independent religious system, was unknown.
The name Ecclesia Anglicana, or English Church, was of course employed, but always in the Catholic and Papal use of the term as signifying that part or region of the one Catholic Church under the jurisdiction of the Pope which was situated in England, and precisely in the same way as the Church in Scotland was called the Ecclesia Scotticana, the Church in France, the Ecclesia Gallicana, and the Church in Spain the Ecclesia Hispanica. That such national or regional appellations were a part of the style in the Roman Curia itself, and that they in no sense could have implied any indication of independence from Rome, is sufficiently well known to all who are familiar with pre-Reformation records.
Pope Honorius III, in 1218, in his Bull to King Alexander speaks of the Scottish Church (Ecclesia Scotticana) as "being immediately subject to the Apostolic See" (Papal Letters I, 60).
The abbots and priors of England in their letter to Innocent IV, in 1246, declared that the English Church (Ecclesia Anglicana) is "a special member of the Most Holy Church of Rome" [Matthew Paris (Rolls Series), IV, 531].
In 1413 Archbishop Arundel, with the assent of Convocation, affirmed against the Lollards the faith of the English Church in a number of test articles, including the Divine institution of the Papacy and the duty of all Christians to render obedience to it (Wilkins, Concilia, III, 355).
In 1521, only thirteen years before the breach, John Clerk, the English Ambassador at Rome, was able to assure the Pope in full consistory that England was second to no country in Christendom, "not even to Rome itself", in the "service of God: and of the Christian Faith, and in the obedience due to the Most Holy Roman Church" (Clerks' oration, ed. Jerome Emser).
Source: Catholic Encyclopedia "Anglicanism"
Your post is filled with so many errors that I hardly no where to begin. SO, let’s start at the beginning:
“1) Henry VIII did not start the Church of England or the “Anglican Church”.”
Actually he did. The evidence is overwhelming that Henry forced a break between the Church and the Church IN England. Communion was broken by Henry. He seized control of the Church through illegal laws enacted by parliament. That was not at all in keeping with either existing law within England or with the traditional practices of English monarchs or parliaments.
“Anglicanism dates to the martyrdom of St Alban in the year 303.”
Incorrect. St. Alban never once referred to himself as an Anglican nor did he know anything about the concepts or system of secular government that would given to Anglicanism because they were centuries off into the future. Also, the following facts must be stipulated by anyone who has any idea of what they’re talking about in regard to the history of the Church in England:
1) St. Alban was not English. He was a Celt.
2) England did not yet exist.
3) Britain was merely a province of Rome and not an independent state.
4) The Church in Britain was, in fact, in union with Rome - unlike Henry VIII’s novel sect.
5) St. Alban, great martyr that he was, did not establish a Church hierarchy.
How ironic that St. John Fisher was martyred on St. Alban’s feast day!
You wrote:
“When St Augustune of Canterbury arrived, he encountered a missionary church of the Celtic tradition that was converting the Saxon pagans to Christianity.”
Not really. When he arrived....wait, strange how you didn’t mention that St. Augustine was SENT BY THE POPE!!! Anyway, when he arrived, Augustine found Christians there already. They were descendents of the Romano-Celts and some Celtic Christians from Scotland and Ireland. The Venerable Bede (who was most DEFINITELY Catholic and not Anglican) says that Augustine was received by King Ethelbert who was married to a Christian Frankish princess named Bertha. Notice, there was already a Christian queen in the land and she was most definitely CATHOLIC. And, Bede tells us, that Ethelbert, “whom he had received from her parents, upon condition that she should be permitted to preserve inviolate the rites of her religion with the Bishop Liudhard, who was sent with her to support her in the faith.”
Did you see that? There was already a Frankish bishop in the land - most definitely Catholic - with the already established - most definitely Catholic queen.
We also see this in Bede: “There was on the east side of the city, a church dedicated of old to the honour of St. Martin, (Note: St. Martin was regarded with special reverence in Britain and Ireland. Possibly some of the earliest missionaries may have been his disciples, e.g., St. Ninian and, St. Patrick. The Roman church of St. Martin at Canterbury has been frequently altered and partly rebuilt, so that “small portions only of the Roman walls remain. Roman bricks are used as old materials in the parts rebuilt”) built whilst the Romans were still in the island, wherein the queen, who, as has been said before, was a Christian, was wont to pray.”
So, there were churches still there - or the remnants thereof - of ROMAN churches built with the usual long flat bricks employed by the Romans in their buildings. Imagine that.
“2) Henry VIII did not attempt to eradicate Catholicism from England. In fact, he enforced it. Check out the Six Articles.”
Utter nonsense. Henry VIII killed off those who remained loyal to the pope. You can’t be Catholic without the pope. You can be Protestant, but you can’t be Catholic. How could Henry have been Catholic without embracing the very idea of the Catholic hierarchy? The Six Articles are essentially meaningles in that regard. Henry created a schism, murdered those who remained Catholic and refused to recognize his illegal seizure of the Church and was more than willing to bump off his wives too.
“3) Thomas More was not executed for being a Papist. He was executed for being a traitor.”
According to the illegal parliamentary laws pushed through by Henry, being a “papist” was being a traitor. Remember, the Act of Supremacy, a law which would have been incomprehensible to any previous generation of Catholics in England or Britain, demanded that all the English people, from whatever walk of life, acknowledge Henry as the head of the Church in England and not the pope who everyone KNEW had always been the leader of the Church in England. Even Henry II, who doggedly tried to rule over the Church in England, must have known he was seizing control of something that DID NOT BELONG TO HIM.
“He was caught trying to subvert Henry VIII’s authority as King- a capital offense throughout Europe at the time.”
Nowhere but in Protestant countries was it viewed as a capital offense to practice the Catholic faith of your forefathers - the only faith almost everyone had known for centuries.
“Many Roman Catholics remained Roman Catholics and survived Henry VIII.”
Yes, they did - because they did not matter much, were not high ranking enough, didn’t embarrass Henry by being more brilliant than he (and everyone knew it), or they bribed Henry’s officials. But even that fact undermines your own argument. If Henry did not create a new sect, then why did those Recusants increasingly refuse to worship in it and why did they deny that it was the same Church that had always been?
“Keep in mind that Henry VIII was very tolerant of differing points of view.”
What? If Henry VIII was “very tolerant” then why did he put to death Lutherans and Lollards BEFORE he started putting to death Catholics? All you can rationally claim is that all people who disagreed with Henry on religion and were exectuted happened also to be traitors. Is that what you’re going to claim? How open minded is that? How tolerant is that?
“However when he made a decision he expected all to obey and none to attempt to undermine. This is why Cranmer survived the Six Articles.”
Henry, like other evil-minded, egomaniacs surrounded himself with bootlickers. Some of these men were more than happy to lick boots while Henry did what was right, but quickly grew a backbone when Henry did what was evil (e.g. St. Thomas More). Cranmer never grew that backbone - not in regard to Henry, not in regard to Edward, not in regard to Mary - until the time he was executed. He recanted his recantation. I kid you not. And such ridiculous behavior could only come from a despicable worm like Cranmer.
“4) Does the Pope have the authority to lay aside God’s law?”
Did he?
“5) The King’s title of governor-general is an administrative title that reflects the King’s responsibility to see to the maintenance of the church- paying bills, erecting buildings, funding education, filling vacancies, etc. These were the things Kings, Counts, Dukes and Emperors had been doing since Constantine the Great.”
Nonsense. Henry, through the Act of Supremacy, seized control of the Church in England in a way that no monarch in the Western world EVER possessed in any age before his time. He robbed and destroyed over 2,100 monasteries, convents, colleges, orphanages, hospitals, shrines, chantries, and chapels. Monks who refused to cooperate were murdered on the spot. The Abbots of Jervaulx and Glastonbury, for instance, refused and were hanged within full view of their monasteries. How does robbing and destroying over 2,100 church properties - many of which served the poor by the way - fit into your seeing “to the maintenance of the church”?
How does that work? You tell me.
“6) Priests do not offer sacrifice. That is heresy.”
According to whom? Do sectarians get to decide what is heresy and what is not or is it up to those Christ sent? Hint: Christ didn’t send you or your sect.
“Christ’s one oblation on the Cross is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. Offerring another sacrifice is to claim Christ’s work on the Cross is insufficient.”
I agree entirely - and what is offered is THE SAME SACRIFICE through the power of God. Hence, Christ said, THIS IS MY BODY.
“The only sacrificing that is done is what we believer do when we take up our crosses and follow Him.”
Looks like you’ve sacrificed a thorough knowledge of history in place of something else.