BERINGTON, JOSEPH. - Theologian, b. 16 Jan. 1743 at Winsley, d. 1 Dec. 1827 at Buckland (Berkshire). As a young man he studied at the college of St-Omer, and having been ordained a priest he exercised the pastoral ministry in France for several years. Of a passionate temperament, on returning to his homeland he took part in the struggle for the emancipation of Catholics, but he came into conflict with the English episcopate because he was willing to take the oath required by the civil authorities. He maintained furthermore that the Catholic religion ought in every country to accord with the national character of the people professing it. His propositions having been condemned, he first wrote a retraction that was not very convincing, which he republished in 1801, with necessary and satisfactory additions.
Among the numerous works in which he upheld these ideas contrary to orthodoxy, the Reflections, with an Exposition of Roman Catholic principles, in Reference to God and the Country (1787) and Protestantism and Popery illustrated. Two letters... tending to illustrate the real sentiments of the Catholics throughout the United Kingdom (1812) are noteworthy. He also wrote various historical works: History of the reign of Henry II, London 1790; A literary history of the Middle Ages, ibid. 1811; The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Catholic Religion in England ...from the reign of Elizabeth to the present time, ibid. 1813.
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Silvio Furlani