Hampton Court hosts its first Catholic service since the Reformation

THE CATHOLIC Church and the Church of England put aside more than 450 years of history this week when two of their most senior clerics came together for the Catholic rite of Vespers in Henry VIII’s Chapel Royal at Hampton Court Palace.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols was the main celebrant of the rite, sung mostly in Latin, and the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Richard Chartres, gave the homily on the Virgin Mary.

The occasion formed part of the celebrations to mark the 500th anniversary of Hampton Court as well as being an historic event of reconciliation between the two denominations in the palace of the king responsible for England’s break with Rome.

During a conversation held before the service, the two churchmen said that Catholics and Anglicans must forget their divisions to be witnesses to Christianity in a more secular age. “We are all minorities now,” said Bishop Chartres.
Cardinal Nichols warned: “The task we face is doing our utmost to ensure that the Judaeo-Christian beliefs that formed the character of this country are not lost. We have taken them for granted and we are losing them by default.”
Bishop Chartres also said that for those brought up on the Scriptures, the equality of people under God was self-evident but was no longer the case. There is today “an absence of meaning” in society, he said. For Christians, the differences between them did not matter so much. “We live in a post-denominational age,” he said.

The music at the Vespers service was sung by The Sixteen and included compositions by the Tudor composers Thomas Tallis, William Cornysh and John Taverner. Tallis and Cornysh were members of the choir of the Chapel Royal, where Henry VIII worshipped with Katherine of Aragon before and Anne Boleyn after the split with Rome. It was last used for Catholic worship during the reign of Mary I.

The idea for the Catholic service originated in a conversation between Michele Price, director of the Choral Foundation, the charity that promotes the musical heritage of the Chapel Royal, and the Catholic businessman John Studzinski, whose Genesis Foundation supports The Sixteen. The evening was “an unforgettable, historic occasion”, he said.

Among those attending Vespers were the papal nuncio, Archbishop Mennini, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, and the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney. The service is one of several recent events indicating closer relations between Catholics and Anglicans, as Churches begin preparations to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Two years ago Cardinal Nichols and Bishop Chartres prayed together in the cell in the Tower of London where St Thomas More was imprisoned before execution after he refused to agree the break with Rome. In November, papal household preacher Fr Raniero Cantalamessa preached at the Westminster Abbey service in front of the Queen to mark the opening of the Church of England’s General Synod.

However, the greater closeness has upset some. Members of the Protestant Truth Society demonstrated close to Hampton Court Palace before Vespers, saying the service reversed the Reformation.