Touchstones of Catholicity
Bishop Richard Challoner & the Idea of the Primitive Church
by William P. Hyland
Bishop Richard Challoner was the indefatigable leader of the small community of English Catholics during the often difficult times of the eighteenth century. Called “Recusants” because of their refusal to attend Church of England services, Catholics were penalized by various laws and persecuted during the period that lasted from the English Reformation up to the nineteenth century. Challoner is a revered figure in the English Catholic imagination, and a symbol of the fortitude of the Catholic community in the last century of those penal days, from the aftermath of the Glorious . . .
