If the Church of England is serious about its commitment to pay reparations in atonement for past wrongs, there is an obvious community it should attend to: British and Irish Catholics. After all, the Anglican Church was founded precisely to suppress and replace the Catholic Church, first in England and later in Ireland.
While the Church of England has widely publicised its regret over past links to the slave trade, Anglican leaders have not mentioned the Catholic community. In an acute piece of analysis for this publication, Joseph Shaw raised the question of the moral seriousness of the reparations debate – it is hard to take seriously if the Church of England does not consider its obligations to right the wrongs perpetrated against Catholics. Without ignoring Shaw’s rebuttal of those arguing for reparations for links to slavery, based on the Church of England’s own reasoning the most obvious case for reparations is to the Catholic faithful.
The Church of England’s present reparations debate relates to its study of Queen Anne’s Bounty, a fund established in 1704 to aid poor Anglican clergy. A 2022 report found that the bounty was supported in part through investments in transatlantic chattel slavery. That report was commissioned (an interim report states) “to know its past better in order to understand its present”. It took place within a broader context of a reckoning with Britain’s past involvement in the slave trade. Responding to the report, the Church of England pledged to repair the damage wrought by slavery, which it argued continues to have a negative impact on the life outcomes of people of colour.
When the report was released in 2022, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, issued an apology for the Church’s links to “this abominable trade”, which took men, women and children “created in God’s image and stripped them of their dignity and freedom”.
“The fact that some within the Church actively supported and profited from it is a source of shame,” Welby continued. “It is only by facing this painful reality that we can take steps towards genuine healing and reconciliation – the path that Jesus Christ calls us to walk. This is a moment for lament, repentance and restorative action. I pray for those affected by this news and hope that we may work together to discern a new way forward.”
Facing up to the evils of one’s past can only be commended. As an Irish Catholic, the legacy of religious persecution is still embedded in our national life, and our forebears were also “stripped of their dignity and freedom”. I only wish the Church of England would take a hard look at the history of its institution in relation to the persecution of Catholics and religious minorities. Imagine if the Church of England were to investigate the degree to which not only “some within it”, but the whole institution, “actively supported and profited” from the persecution of Catholics. The results would be hard to contain in a single report.
The 2022 report on slavery does not mention that the bounty is itself derived from funds intended for the Pope, but which were diverted by King Henry VIII to finance the Crown instead. Prior to King Henry’s intervention, newly appointed bishops, clergy, abbots, etc, paid a tenth of their first year’s earnings directly to the Pope after being appointed. While King Henry initially halted the collection of such payments, Thomas Cromwell obtained an Act of Parliament to restore the payments, this time to the Crown and ultimately for the benefit of the established Church.
This is but one example of how the Church of England benefited massively from the confiscation of Catholic property and wealth. In a manner far more direct than its links to the slave trade, its own wealth and power were built on the persecution of the Catholic community. The legacy of the Church of England’s actions – or those actions carried out by the Crown on its behalf – has been one of great suffering and hardship for Catholics in many ways. Across Ireland and the British Isles, Catholics were outlawed from practising their Faith on pain of death: they were barred from taking up public office unless they converted, had property confiscated and saw beautiful churches and religious artefacts – which they had scrimped and saved to fund – destroyed or seized.
To this day, many old beautiful churches and cathedrals still in use by the Churches of England and Ireland were forcibly confiscated from Catholics. One of the most egregious examples is surely Dublin, Ireland’s capital. It was only in 2025, when St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral was elevated by Pope Leo XIV, that for the first time since the Reformation Dublin Catholics had a cathedral in which to worship. In all that time, the Church of Ireland has made use of not one but two former Catholic cathedrals, St Patrick’s and Christ Church. Catholics hoped in vain for many centuries to see these returned to the long-beleaguered community.
In facing this “painful reality”, as Welby put it, imagine if the Church of England took steps towards “genuine healing and reconciliation” with Catholics. What would that look like? As we move towards the 200th anniversary of Catholic Emancipation in Great Britain and Ireland, there could hardly be a better time for the Church of England to take a cold, hard look at itself.
The desired result here, for Catholics at least, is not the establishment of a reparations fund, but the healing of a divide within Christendom. If the Church of England were serious about reparations, then it should seek to repair the greatest evil perpetuated by its institution: the lamentable division in the Body of Christ. Only when Catholics are able to welcome the Church of England back into the fold could they call themselves satisfied – this would be a true and just reparation.
