Papist

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Papist is a term, usually disparaging, referring to a member of the Roman Catholic Church. It was coined during the English Reformation to indicate a Christian's loyalties were to the Pope, rather than to the Protestant Church of England. Over time, however, it came to mean one who supported Papal authority over all Christians and thus became a popular term, especially among Anglicans and Presbyterians. The word ultimately derives from Latin papa, meaning "Pope".

The word was in common use until the mid-nineteenth century; it occurs frequently in Macaulay's History of England from the Accession of James II, and in other historical or controversial works from that period. It survives in the British legal system one of the surviving relics of the Penal Laws, Catholic ineligibility to the throne under the current law of the United Kingdom. Under the Act of Settlement enacted in 1701 and still in force, no one who professes "the popish religion" or marries "a papist" may succeed to the throne of the United Kingdom. Fears that Roman Catholic secular leaders would be Anti-Protestant arose during the suppression of the Catholic Church in England during the reign of Henry VIII and the subsequent persecution of Protestants during the reign of the Roman Catholic Mary I of England.

A derivative term Apist is used to describe Anglo-Catholics who ape or copy the practices of the Roman Catholics, including the wearing of brightly coloured and elaborately embroidered vestments and large, twin-peaked episcopal mitres. Apist may be used by Protestants believing such apparel to be effeminate and foreign to Anglo-Saxon traditions.

Currently loyalty to the Pope is sometimes indicated by the newer term "Papalism" with no pejorative intended. [1]

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) author of Gulliver's Travels, frequently uses the term in his satirical work A Modest Proposal in which he proposes selling Irish children to wealthy English landlords for cannabilistic purposes.

Papist

See also