CAMPION, EDMUND, blessed. — Jesuit, martyr, born in London on 25 January 1539, died there on 1 December 1581. As a student at Oxford, he won universal admiration for his gifts of intellect and eloquence, and was also praised by Queen Elizabeth during one of her visits to the University. Although he came from a Catholic family, he had the weakness to subscribe in 1564 to the oath by which he acknowledged the Queen’s spiritual supremacy and to allow himself to be ordained a deacon of the Anglican Church. Stricken, however, by remorse, he soon went to Ireland, where he lived as a Catholic, and then to Douai, France, to the English seminary, where he abjured, took a degree in theology, and was ordained subdeacon; finally he went to Rome, where he entered the Society of Jesus (1573). Sent to the Jesuit college in Prague, he was ordained a priest there (1578). When the English mission was opened, he was sent there with Fr. Persons (1580) to strengthen Catholics in the faith and win back apostates, and he succeeded admirably through both word and pen.
A declaration of his, circulated in manuscript, in which he challenged the councillors of London to three public disputations, caused alarm among the Protestants. C. reaffirmed it in the pamphlet Ten reasons (Cosmopoli [London] 1581), refuting every Protestant sophism and defending Catholic doctrine. His adversaries gave him no respite until they had him in their hands. Betrayed and condemned as a conspirator against the Queen, he was hanged and quartered at Tyburn. His cult was confirmed by Leo XIII on 9 December 1886; feast day, 1 December.