William Crichton, S.J.. "Gulielmus Crichtonius, Societatis Jesu Presbyter"

William Crichton, a learned member of the Society of the Jesuits, who, after a life devoted to the propagation of his faith, died at Leyden, in the year 1596. Of the talents, travels, and misfortunes of this author, the following account is preserved by Dempster :

“ Gulielmus Crichtonius, Societatis Jesu presbyter eruditus et pius, quinquaginta annis religiosé in eadem sociemte transactis, perigrinando, docendo, scribendo, indefesso labore cives suos, hæresi abdieata, Catholicæ Bc. clesias unire annisus est; vir probissimae conversationis, etiam a sectariis, judicatusi Majesmtis regiæ acerrimus propugnator; quippe cum Anglus quidam ei detexisset Elisabetham Angliæ reginam velle se, quacunque ratione, e medio tollere, intercessitl et quantum fieri potuit ab incepto retmxit. Petrus Mathmus, lib. VI. Hist. Gallic. nan-an II. Eoque beneficio Regina dev-incta, cum ille, ex itinere Scotico mari interceptus, in Turrim Londinensem conjiceretur, e vestigia liberum dimisit; ultro confessa, non posse improbum ease, cui curæ esset Regig dignitas et nnimanun salus. silean t ergo perditæ haereticorum voces clamantium, a societate in principes simrios armari; cum hic Jesuita, hostium etiam confessione, longe ab eo fuerit consiiio." Ejus sunt, Excerpta ex SS. Patribus. In primam partem D. Thomas. Lib. I. Theologia Scholastica contra Sectafios. De legitimol Jacobi VI. scotiæ Regis, titulo ad Regni Anglicani successionem. Qua librm Levanli acriptai m pniculum mail, extra omnea Regi; Hhpaniw ditiorm nleguhu: Pro hispani vero in idem regni-m jure, scripta-t Roberta: Penoniur, Jmn‘tu Anglia:Casus Conscientia obiit Lugduni Galliarum, MncxvL Multis annis Collegium Lovanii Scotorum rexit .

Link (here) to Life of the Admirable Crichton.

The Jacobite Jesuit: Fr. Alexander Cameron, S.J.

The Battle of Culloden

A FASCINATING account of a "forgotten" hero of the Jacobite Uprising has just been published by a senior Lochaber churchman. The Forgotten Cameron of the '45: The Life and Times of Alexander Cameron S.J, has been written by Monsignor Thomas Wynne, well-respected and much-loved parish priest of St Margaret's Church in Roy Bridge. Telling the story of Father Alexander of Achnacarry, a missionary Jesuit priest and chaplain to Bonnie Prince Charlie's army, has been a long-held interest of 80-year-old Monsignor Wynne. He revealed to the Lochaber News: "Many years ago, I was intrigued by a small piece of tartan in a cabinet in the Cathedral House in Oban. "With it was an old hand-written note saying it was part of the tartan vestment worn by Father Alexander Cameron when he said mass on the eve of the Battle of Culloden.  "When I had more time in my new parish of Arisaig, I decided to investigate the life of this virtually unknown priest, and over a long period put together the story of his life which I found so moving.  "Alexander Cameron is almost forgotten by history, yet he was a remarkable man. The brother of the clan chief, Donald Cameron ("the Gentle Lochiel"), he was a life long Jacobite and a missionary in the Highlands during a period of great political, social and religious turmoil.

Link (here) to read the full account at Lochbar News

Jesuit Missionaries in 19th Century Scotland

Dr. James Begg

Their doctrine is an admirable one for the Jesuits. Tell a gardener that he must simply sow seed and the weeds will die of their own accord, and he will smile at your simplicity ; and it is precisely so in the spiritual world. And yet the unscriptural theory to which I have referred has been the main source of all the recent mischief in Scotland. Our wiser and better ancestors were not "dumb dogs that could not bark" (applause), they had their people thoroughly instructed in the controversy with Rome, regarding it as vital to the very existence of a protesting Church. They knew that a faithful minister was a watchman as well as a teacher,—a shepherd to drive away the wolves as well as to lead the sheep to green pastures. (Applause.) But we, imagining ourselves to be wiser than the Word of God, have changed all this; and now that numbers of trained Jesuit emissaries are amongst us, writing and lecturing openly and insidiously against Protestantism in all our cities—now that droves of earnest, bigoted Irish Romanists are in all our towns, and in some of our rural districts, our people are left comparatively unarmed and helpless, as if there were no such text in the Bible as " contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." The matter is a thoroughly practical one. These Romanists are all ready to say plausible things in defence of their system ; and if you have nothing to say in reply, you have little prospect of doing them any good, whilst they are spreading incalculable mischief. Your ignorance and incapacity only hardens them in their delusions ; and instead of the increasing power of truth, we see the melancholy spectacle of the darkness chasing the light even in this land of Sabbaths and Bibles. 

Link (here) to The Protestant magazine and read Dr. James Begg's full discourse against the Catholic Church

That Long, Bleak, And Barren Moor

It was among a handful of simple and primitive fisher-folk, in the village of Cove, near Aberdeen, that Father Humphrey began his professional career. The Cove is a fishing village, situated in a nook of the rock-bound coast of Kincardineshire, four miles south of Aberdeen. It stands, our author tells as, ' on the verge of that long, bleak, and barren moor of Drumthwacket,' which Sir Walter Scott has made familiar to novel-readers as the 'fair patrimony' of Captain Dugald Dalgetty, who is the source of so much genial merriment in the 'Legend of Montrose'

Link (here) to the biographical story of Episcopal convert Fr. William Humphrey, S.J., entitled Priestly Recollections, published in Literary World. Photo (source)

Jesuit On Elements Of Religous Life

Religious warfare, on the other hand, that is to say, the waging of war in defense of the Catholic Faith, of the Catholic Church, and of the innocent,

is a fitting end for which it is possible that a religious Order should be instituted, with this as its proper scope and aim. This is the judgment of St. Thomas Aquinas, and his judgment is confirmed by the practice of the Church. Military Orders, recognized and approved as religious Orders, have for many ages existed in the Church, in fact, from the time of Urban II. The vow of chastity is most excellently adapted to the end of a military Order. The obligations of a husband and father and the burdens of matrimony stand greatly in the way of freedom to expose one s life to the perils of war without solicitude for wife or children.

Supposing celibacy, consecration of chastity to God by vow is itself most well-pleasing to God, and it avails to obtain from Him the protection which is so specially necessary in so perilous a life. The same or similar advantages are to be found in a vow of poverty. In order that a man may truly and from his heart consecrate himself to military service for the sake of God, and seek therein no temporal gain, there cannot be any better disposition than that of his renouncing all temporal things, and laying aside all affection for them. Otherwise there might often be great danger of his fighting rather in order to the increase of his fortune than for the sake of his Maker.

Link (here) to the portion of the book

Go (here) to read this classic work published in 1895 by Fr. William Humphrey, S.J. entitled, Elements of Religious Life

Fool For Christ: Fr. Patick Anderson, S.J.

Part of the Biblical basis for it can be seen in the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 4:10, which famously says:

"We are fools on Christ's account, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are held in honor, but we in disrepute."

" Let no one deceive himself. If any one among you considers himself wise in this age, let him become a fool so as to become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God, for it is written: "He catches the wise in their own ruses," (1 Corinthians 3:18-19)

" For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with the wisdom of human eloquence, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning. The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the learning of the learned I will set aside." (1 Corinthians 1:17-19)

"For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith (1 Corinthians 1:21)

See the "Milford Jesuit Clown Flyer" which has gone viral (here)

Link (here) to an account of the Jesuit Father Patrick Anderson being interrogated by protestant officials for heresy in Scotland.

Two officers, whose duty it is to accompany the criminal, waited outside the gates. Pale and weak as I was, and hardly able to walk, they led me through the town. The people crowded round, saying, ' Here is Jesuit Anderson.'

I walked cheerfully on, smiling and erect, developing St Paul's idea for the benefit of the senators as I went along, ' We are made a spectacle to God, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ'

I was brought before two of the chief bishops of the kingdom, him of St Andrews, and him of Glasgow, and the Lord High Steward, a man of much prudence and judgment, and of great weight in the kingdom. These men had received a new commission from the King to subject me to a most searching examination. The High Steward read the commission granted to him and the others. He then required an oath from me, by which I should bind myself to answer all questions directly and sincerely, dilating at some length on the nature and obligation of an oath,

"'My dear Lord Steward,' said I, 'there are four heads by which I could be examined by you four distinguished men. First, concerning my religion, which is Catholic and Roman, for which I appear here, and for which I am willing to die a thousand times if I could. As the time is now come for confessing it, that Jesus Christ may confess me before the Eternal Father, I promise to reply directly and sincerely to all questions touching faith. Secondly, I could be examined on all that involves the crime of high treason against the King's person, of which I take God to witness that 1 am most innocent, and I pledge myself equally to reply directly and sincerely, when questioned concerning this. Thirdly, I might be examined on things of state—to wit, whether I mixed myself up in them. I promise equally, conscious of my innocence, to reply directly and sincerely. Fourthly, I may be questioned as to what places I have visited in Scotland, and with whom I have stayed. Touching these things I am unwilling to reply directly and to your purpose, nor will I take any oath to do Bo. The law and commandments of Christ our Lord, for whose sake I appear here, His example, the practice of the Catholic Church during these sixteen hundred years, forbid me to reveal these things.'

"' How now, Master Anderson,' said the Bishop of Glasgow,' you attempt to quote Christ before us; Christ, who never gave any such example ?'

"' With all respect, reverend lord,' replied I, ' Christ, when brought up before Annas, the bishop and high priest, and interrogated by him touching His disciples and His teaching, and with whom He had been, replied, as St John the Evangelist says, " I have spoken nothing in secret, but have taught openly; why askest thou Me ? ask those who have heard me." Upon which " one of the servants gave him a blow," as the text says.

The full and gripping account (here)

The Highland Jesuits

The Jesuit Mission & Fasnakyle Alexander MacRae S.J (who founded the church at Dornie) took over the (excellent, excellent link) Jesuit Strathglass mission when Father Munro was captured. By 1714 there were over a hundred Catholic families and Mass was openly celebrated. By 1720 Father MacRae had made 395 further converts in Strathglass alone. He was joined by a famous triad of Jesuits -John Farquharson and his brother, and Alex Cameron. Father John built the priest’s house and chapel at Fasnakyle. Mass houses were also built at Crochail and Strathfarrer.

Father John, or Maghistair Ian as he was known locally, dressed in kilt and tartan hose, learnt Gaelic and was the first person to make a collection of Gaelic poetry, which unfortunately did not survive.

There is a a short story of his altercation with the devil asan ‘old carle, with a noise like a thousand thunders, and spitting fire, flame and smoke’ who dived into the river at Cannich bridge. After the ‘45 and the defeat at Culloden, the penal laws were reinforced.

Father John was captured at Balnain, and transported to Hanover, but the captain of the convict ship smuggled him back to Scotland.

He returned to Cannich and the three priests hid up Glen Cannich in a temporary hide at the Brae of Craskie. It was at this time that he is supposed to have baptized the locals in the Clach-a-bastaidh, now at Marydale.

The Farquharson brothers gave themselves up when the redcoat captain threatened them with burning every Catholic home in Strathglass: Alex Cameron was captured later. They were sent to a prison ship where Alex Cameron died. After 15 months the brothers were released, Fr. John later returning as chaplain to his nephew at Balmoral.

Chisholms & the Strathglass ‘nursery of priests’ In 1773, the same year that the Jesuits were temporarily suppressed the emigration from Strathglass to Nova Scotia took place, and from 1803-31 the Highland clearances in Strathglass and Glen Affric. It was at this time that the ‘fair brothers,’ John and Aeneas Chisholm were priests in Strathglass, and the ‘fair lady’ Chisholm tried desperately to prevent the clearances in the lets she controlled. John was priest in Strathglass for 17 years before being made Bishop of the Highland District in 1791: Aeneas succeeded him as Bishop in 1814. Father Aeneas built a small chapel at Inchullie, for lower Strathglass, which was replaced with a slated chapel at Aigas in 1801: he rebuilt the mission chapel at Fasnakyle on a grander scale. The old cross from Fasnakyle chapel, dated 1780, Leo XIII, was saved and now tops St. Ignatius well at Guisachan.

Link (here) McCrae's of Strathglass history (here)

THE CATHOLIC HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND (here)

Photo is of The Church of St. Mary and St. Bean 

.