HELD IN TRUST BOOK:Prelim Pages
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Introduction THOMAS M. McCOOG SJ
demanded of sixteenth-century Protestants. If the reformed Church is the Church established by Jesus Christ, where was it before the publication of Martin Luther’s 95 theses in 1517? Jesus promised that his Spirit would remain in the Church and guide it. So where was this Church during the 1500 years prior to Luther’s protest? Were Luther’s antecedents patristic and medieval heretics? Did the reformed Church suddenly appear out of nowhere? How could the Church, under divine guidance, have been so wrong for so long? In England the situation was different. In the reformations initiated by Henry VIII, his son Edward VI, and daughter Elizabeth I, the English Church claimed to be the legitimate descendant of Christianity as established within the kingdom, perhaps by Joseph of Arimathea, before a later introduction of Roman corruption and abuses. Crown officials such as Thomas Cromwell purged colleges, cathedrals, and churches of any manuscript or work of art considered superstitious or “smacking of popery”. Chantries were destroyed, tombs looted, statues maimed, parchments burned and paintings whitewashed. Catholics loyal to the old religion watched in horror as their
From stamps to autographs; from bottle tops to empty tins; from postcards to military insignia; from thimbles to keys: anything and everything is collectible. A cursory visit to eBay reveals the present-day extent and diversity of collecting. Many comment how a hobby can become an obsession, but few offer any explanation. Philipp Blom studied the “urge to collect” in To Have and To Hold: An Intimate History of Collectors and Collecting (London, 2002). Blom conducts the reader on a tour from Renaissance cabinets of curiosities to unpacked crates of art, sculpture and architecture purchased by American moguls, memorably filmed in Citizen Kane. What confers value upon a collected object? Why, asks Blom, “is someone prepared to pay a small fortune for a stamp that is no longer valid, for an empty matchbox that missed the rubbish bin only because its last user had a poor aim, for a bottle that has not contained any wine for decades?” (p.166). The author argues that their value lies in their significance: “they mean something, stand for something, carry associations that make them valuable in the eye of the collector”. “Where was your church before Luther?”, Catholics across continental Europe
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