The price of Eucharistic faithfulness

The last Catholic martyr executed at Tyburn in London, St Oliver Plunkett (1625-1681) served as Archbishop of Armagh and successor of St Patrick. During a period of anti-Catholic persecution, he risked his life to provide the sacraments, ordain priests and sustain Eucharistic life among the faithful.

Canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1975, St Oliver Plunkett became the first new Irish saint in almost seven hundred years.  After spending many years in Rome while Catholics in Ireland faced severe restrictions, Plunkett returned to Ireland in 1670 following a relaxation in laws against Catholics. 

During the Stuart Restoration, Plunkett dissented from the Test Act.  The Test Act of 1673 required

public office-holders to receive Communion according to the rites of the ‘Established Church’, which in Ireland, was the Church of Ireland and to reject the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation. For a Catholic bishop, compliance would have meant publicly denying a central doctrine of the Catholic faith. Hence, while there was a political context to the religious persecutions of that era, it is clear that in the case of Oliver Plunkett the matter was to do with eucharistic doctrine and faith.  St Oliver died for more than a formula of words – essential as these are – he died for his brothers and sisters that they might know their Lord and Saviour truly present in the Eucharist.  Doctrine mattered then and doctrine matters now.

St Oliver was tried in Westminster Hall, the same historic venue in which St Thomas More had been tried nearly a century and a half earlier.

St Oliver risked his life not merely to preserve a church institution but to ensure that the faithful continued to have access to the Mass and the sacraments.  The sacrifices made by saints such as Oliver Plunkett as well as the other Irish martyrs and saints of this period remind us not to take for granted the freedom to attend Mass, to receive Holy Communion and to pray before the Blessed Sacrament.

Thankfully, political and religious circumstances have vastly improved since the persecutions of the 17^th Century (and from which Protestants were on the receiving end in many European countries ruled by Catholic monarchs).  For that we must be grateful. 

In remaining faithful to Christ even unto death, St Oliver bore witness to the sacrifice made present at every Mass

The Memorial of St Oliver Plunket is on 1 July.