Jump to content

Robert Sutton (martyr)

Edit links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Cydebot (talk | contribs) at 20:58, 3 June 2016 (Robot - Moving category People from Staffordshire executed by hanging, drawing and quartering to Category:Executed people from Staffordshire per CFD at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2016 April 12.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Not to be confused with Robert Sutton (d. 1588).
Blessed Robert Sutton
Statue of Bl. Robert Sutton at Our Lady of Victories Church, Lutterworth
Bornc.1544
Burton-on-Trent
Died(1588-07-27)27 July 1588
Stafford
Venerated inRoman Catholic Church
Beatified1987 by Pope John Paul II

Robert Sutton (d. 27 July 1587 at Stafford) was an English Roman Catholic priest. He is a Catholic martyr, beatified in 1987.

Life

Robert Sutton was born in Burton-on-Trent about 1544,[1] and baptised in St Modwen's Parish Church on 11 September 1545. His father was a carpenter. He was ordained an Anglican minister in 1566 and took the degree of M. A. from Christ Church, Oxford, 9 July 1567. He and became Rector of Lutterworth, Leicestershire, on 17 June 1571.[2] He was converted to Catholicism by his younger brother William, who later became a Jesuit.

With his younger brother Abraham, who matriculated from Hart Hall in 1576, aged 25, he arrived at Douai, 23 March 1576. They were both ordained subdeacons at Cambrai in September, deacons in December, and priests in the following February. They left for the English Mission on 19 March 1578.[3] Robert and his brother Abraham were arrested, imprisoned, and banished in 1585.

Robert returned to England and was arrested while saying Mass at Stafford. He was condemned for being a Catholic priest. He was martyred at Gallows Flat, Stafford on 27 July 1588.[2] Sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, he was cut down still alive, and while attempting to stand, his head was cut off with a blow to the mouth.[1]

Veneration

Robert Sutton was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1987.[4]

Relics

After the lapse of a year Catholics, wishing to have some relics of the martyr, carried off one night he theft of a shoulder and an arm. After the parts of his body being exposed to the birds of the air for a year, all were bones except the thumb and forefinger, relatively intact, which came into the possession of his brother Abraham . Abraham Sutton gave Father John Gerard the thumb, later presented in a reliquary to Stonyhurst College.[3] In 1987 the Jesuits, translated it back to Lutterworth where it is reserved in a niche within the altar of Our Lady of Victories Church, Lutterworth.[2]

In 1850 there was found hidden in the sanctuary behind the old chapel of Sutton Place a box of relics containing a rib bone with a label attached bearing the notation in what appeared to be sixteenth or seventeenth century, "R. Sutton, Staffordiae". This relic was placed in the sacristy of St. Edmund's Church, Sutton Park.[1]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Ross, Francis E., "Venerable Robert Sutton", Lives of the English Martyrs, (Edwin H. Burton and J. H. Pollen eds.), London. Longmans, Green and Co., 1914
  2. ^ a b c Harris, Philip. "History of the Catholic Church in Lutterworth", The Church of Our Lady of Victories & St. Alphonsus, Lutterworth
  3. ^ a b Wainewright, John. "Ven. Robert Sutton." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 28 March 2016
  4. ^ "Blessed Robert Sutton", St. Anne's Catholic Church Stafford
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Ven. Robert Sutton". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Sutton_(martyr)&oldid=723574111"