Posted on 01/23/2015 6:23:37 AM PST by marshmallow
Petition is organised by historians whose efforts led to the discovery of the king's remains
Three thousand people have signed a petition calling for Richard III to be given a Catholic burial.
The petition, addressed to Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, is being organised by the historians whose efforts led to the king’s remains being found under a car park in Leicester.
Under present plans Richard III, who died in the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, before the Reformation, will be buried at the Anglican cathedral in Leicester on March 26.
But Philippa Langley, leader of the Looking for Richard project, said the burial should take into account Richard III’s Catholic faith.
She said: “It seems this former king and head of state is to be treated as a scientific specimen right up to and including the point at which he is laid in his coffin.”
Dr John Ashdown-Hill, a historian who worked to identify the bones, has also called for a Catholic burial, saying: “There is a lot of evidence that Richard III had a very serious personal faith. If Richard III had not have died, maybe the Anglican church would never have existed.”
However, a joint statement by Leicester Cathedral and the Catholic Diocese of Nottingham said these concerns were “fundamentally misplaced”.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicherald.co.uk ...
Interesting. I agree.
And I’m an OT believer, so no axes to grind here.
Interesting. I keep hearing the Christians in England have become apathetic. Nice to know at least 3K people still do care. Of course this may be a group of historian devotees more than anything else. Both the English and the Europeans remain more connected with their histories compared to most Americans.
I wonder if it will be a catered affair. Watercress finger sandwiches.
Didn’t Richard likely already have a Catholic burial when he was interred at the abbey?
I’m pretty neutral between Anglicans and Catholics, being Jewish myself. My view is that the man was a practicing Catholic during his life, knew nothing of the Anglican Church (because it never existed), and went on a crusade because the (Catholic) Pope of the time wanted to recapture Jerusalem and its holy-for-Catholics sites. Seems pretty much a slam dunk by my way of thinking.
In any case, I’m sure that he had some kind of funeral at the time he was buried, and he’s already been/is being judged - where his body ends up is of no concern of his, only to those now living.
In his autobiography he said he wanted to be cremated and shot out of a cannon.
Or maybe that was someone else...
Importantly, nobody did this through the entire process of decided to bury him in a CofE cathedral. It truly had to go up a long political chain for that decision to be made. But only now, *after* the decision was made, are they petitioning.
I don't think that was Richard III. Richard I more like it.
The utter absurdity of democracy. We voted for it!
Strikes me as an exercise in historical anachronism. In Richard’s day Leicester Cathedral was also a Catholic church. Besides, the Cathedral already has a memorial to Richard. Seems a natural place for him.
I agree; he couldn’t care less, having gone on to other things.
A nice little ceremony, somewhere; but I prefer cucumber sammiches.
-JT
Yum..cucumber sandwiches.
Well, you do have to make them correctly.....:-)
-JT
Not-quite-Tudor ping!
close enough!
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