In the National Review, Ryan Sayre Patrico reviews Eamon Duffy’s new revisionist work, Fires of Faith: Catholic England under Mary Tudor:
Duffy argues that many of our modern assumptions about the burnings are misguided. It is unfair, for example, to assume that, because our modern sensibilities recoil at the thought of executing heretics, those of 16th-century societies did as well. Heresy was a threat not only to the stability of the state but also to the eternal salvation of the men, women, and children under the state’s care. Rulers and church leaders on both sides of the Protestant/Catholic divide therefore felt a solemn obligation to root out heresy, using lethal force when necessary. Moreover, as Duffy shows in example after example, Pole and Mary were actually quite reluctant to use lethal force against heretics, seeking every opportunity to persuade recalcitrant heretics to recant their beliefs.
Read more at the National Review.