John Forrest (martyr)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Forrest (1471 – 22 May 1538) was an English martyr and friar.^[1]

Born in the Oxford area, John Forrest became a Franciscan Friar Minor of the Regular Observance in 1491. He went on to study theology at the University of Oxford, later becoming confessor to Queen Catherine of Aragon, first wife to King Henry VIII. From 1531 the Friars Minor had gained the enmity of the King by opposing his divorce and his movements toward Protestantism.

On 8 April 1538, Forrest was brought before Henry's Archbishop Thomas Cranmer to renounce his rejection of King Henry's assumed title of head of the Church of England. Refusing to accept the King as head of the church, Forrest was condemned to death by burning. Bishop Hugh Latimer read out the list of heresies that Forest was to have abjured:

“

First that the Holie Catholike Church was the Church of Rome, and that wee ought to ought to beeleve out the same. Second, that wee should beleeve on the Pope’s pardon for remission of our sinnes. Thirdlie, that wee ought to beleeve and doe as our fathers have donne aforetyme fowertene yeares past. Fourthlie, that a priest maie turne and change the paines of hell of a sinner, truly penitent, contrite of his sins, by certaine penance him in the paines of purgatorie ...

”

On 22 May, he was burnt to death at Smithfield, London, bound to a famous religious statue, Darvell Gadern, brought from a church in Wales, for the purpose. Hugh Latimer officiated at the execution.^[2] Extra fuel for the pyre is said to have been provided by an enormous wooden statue from the pilgrimage site of Llandderfel in north Wales. ^[3]

Father Forrest, together with fifty-three other English martyrs, was declared Blessed by Pope Leo XIII, on 9 December 1886.