By Father Mark A. Pasik
Pastor of St. Mark’s Parish, Utica

Recently, I was in London joining the pilgrimage of celebration in honor of the beatification of John Henry Cardinal Newman. It was in a British pub located next to Scotland Yard and across from 10 Downing Street that I paused for lunch together with other priests on our tour of that great city. It is a metropolis of living history, yet contemporary in its technology and academic quarters. Fish and chips were on the menu. There is no place better to relax and observe the English in their enjoyment of conversation and good British ale.

We continued to trace the biography of Cardinal Newman, celebrating Mass at different Oratorian Churches, including those of the martyrs who calmly and deliberately shed their blood for Christ and his church. Their Catholic gift of witness poured itself into England’s struggle with history. Hence, it became like an ancestor not quite settled in the family’s genealogy. Yet, undoubtedly putting this “uncooperative relative” in its place did not imply total apathy on the part of the British psyche. From the perspective of a Londoner’s thought, it was beyond reason to eliminate King St. Edward the Confessor or even St. Thomas More from the discourses of historical memory. Simply put: the roots are Catholic and the tree of English civilization will not be neglected in its attachment.