455 Years Ago: Anniversary of the Excommunication of Queen Elizabeth I of England
The reason: Elizabeth had established the heretical and apostatic "Church of England" and had "forbidden" the Church of Christ on her territory.
In his bull, Pius V recalled that Christ "ordained one holy Catholic and apostolic Church, outside of which there is no salvation".
He insists that the Pope rules "in the fullness of power" and that Christ has made him "ruler over all nations and kingdoms, to raise up, to destroy, to scatter, to disperse, to plant and to build".
The role of the Pope is to preserve the unity of the Catholic religion: "But the number of the ungodly has grown so much in power that there is no place in the world which they have not sought to corrupt with their most wicked doctrines."
Among these ungodly, Pius V included Elizabeth, "the pretended Queen of England and the servant of crime". She had "monstrously usurped the place of supreme head of the Church in all England" and reduced her kingdom "to a miserable ruin".
The bull listed the charges against Elizabeth:
- She has forbidden the use of the true religion;
- She has accepted the errors of the heretics;
- She has abolished the Royal Council and filled it with obscure heretics;
- She oppressed the Catholics;
- It has instituted false preachers of impiety;
- She has abolished the Holy Mass, prayers, fasting, celibacy and Catholic ceremonies;
- It has spread books of heretical content throughout the empire;
- It has created impious rites and institutions after the rule of Calvin;
- It has expelled bishops and priests from their churches and benefices;
- It has given these churches and benefices to heretics.
- It has forbidden the clergy and the people to acknowledge and obey the Church of Rome;
- She has forced most of them to accept her evil laws under oath;
- She imposed punishments on those who would not agree;
- It has thrown Catholic priests into prison, where many have died miserably.
Pius V noticed that the persecution of the faithful was increasing every day.
He saw that Elizabeth's mind was made up, that she despised the admonitions of Catholic princes and did not allow the nuncios sent to her by the Pope to enter England.
Therefore, Pius V is forced to take up the weapons of justice against her, and he declares with the fullness of our apostolic power that Elizabeth is "a heretic and a patron of heretics".
Consequently, she has incurred the sentence of excommunication and is "cut off from the unity of the Body of Christ".
The Pope declares that she is deprived of her pretended title and of all lordship, dignity and privilege.
Therefore all the nobles, subjects and people of the said realm, and all others who have in any way sworn oaths to her, are "forever absolved from such oaths and from any duty towards her".
Pius V orders the nobles, subjects, peoples and others not to obey her orders and laws: "Those who shall act contrary, we include in the same sentence of excommunication".