The Rector of the Venerable English College here in Rome Monsignor Nicholas Hudson
is hosting celebrations this weekend to mark six centuries and a half since the founding
of the English and Welsh Hospice in Rome.
Monsignor Hudson shares the story
with Veronica Scarisbrick , explaining the weekend events as he goes along. Highlighting
in a special way the legacy of witness come 1570 : ..." when Queen Elizabeth I of
England was excommunicated, very quickly it became prohibited in England and Wales
to train men for the Catholic priesthood so the continuing Catholic community had
to look abroad ..."..
This explains he remarks how while the foundation of
a hospice on this site in 1362 first brought here many pilgrims , among whom characters
as famous as John Milton or the priest hunter Thomas Cromwell, the split with Rome
two centuries later soon brought to this house many future martyrs. A spiritual
legacy still very much alive today : "...On the first day that students come to
the College I take them to see the Martyr's picture ...and the reason for that is
that in the first century of the College's existence between 1581 and 1678, forty
four of the students from this House were martyred by being hanged, drawn, quartered.."
Whenever
news of this reached the house, Monsignor Hudson adds , the community would gather
around this picture and sing a 'Te Deum Laudamus' . A powerful moment to be repeated
during anniversary celebrations: "..our thoughts will be reunited ...with those students
of the first century who used to intone the very same prayer of praise to God before
the very same Martyr's picture..."