Skip to content
Deacon Keith Fournier Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you. Help Now >

John Fenn

Free World Class Education
FREE Catholic Classes

Born at Montacute near Wells in Somersetshire; d. 27 Dec., 1615. He was the eldest brother of Ven. James Fenn, the martyr, and Robert Fenn, the confessor. After being a chorister at Wells Cathedral, he went to Winchester School in 1547, and in 1550 to New College, Oxford, of which he was elected fellow in 1552. Next year he became head master of the Bury St. Edmunds' grammar-school, but was deprived of this office and also of his fellowship for refusing to take the oath of supremacy under Elizabeth. He thereupon went to Rome where after four years' study he was ordained priest about 1566. Having for a time been chaplain to Sir William Stanley's regiment in Flanders he settled at Louvain, where he lived for forty years. A great and valuable work to which he contrituted was the publication, in 1583, by Father John Gibbons, S.J., of the various accounts of the persecution, under the Title "Concertatio Ecclesiae Catholicae in Angliâ", which was the groundwork of the invaluable larger collection published by Bridgewater under the same name in 1588. He also collected from old English sources some spiritual treatises for the Brigittine nuns of Syon. In 1609, when the English Augustinian Canonnesses founded St. Monica'sPriory at Louvain, he became their first chaplain until in 1611 when his sight failed. Even then he continued to live in the priory and the nuns tended him till his death. Besides his "Vitae quorundam Martyrum in Angliâ", included in the "Concertatio", he translated into Latin Blessed John Fisher's "Treatise on the penitential Psalms" (1597) and two of his sermons ; he also published English versions of the Catechism of the Council of Trent , Osorio's reply to Haddon's attack on his letter to Queen Elizabeth (1568), Guerra's "Treatise of Tribulation", an Italian life of St. Catherine of Sienna (1609; 1867), and Loarte's "Instructions How to Meditate the Misteries of the Rosarie".

We ask you, humbly: don't scroll away.

Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you.

Help Now >

We ask you, humbly: don't scroll away.

Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you.

Help Now >

Join the Movement
When you sign up below, you don't just join an email list - you're joining an entire movement for Free world class Catholic education.

Prayer of the Day logo
Saint of the Day logo

Catholic Online Logo

Copyright 2024 Catholic Online. All materials contained on this site, whether written, audible or visual are the exclusive property of Catholic Online and are protected under U.S. and International copyright laws, © Copyright 2024 Catholic Online. Any unauthorized use, without prior written consent of Catholic Online is strictly forbidden and prohibited.

Catholic Online is a Project of Your Catholic Voice Foundation, a Not-for-Profit Corporation. Your Catholic Voice Foundation has been granted a recognition of tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Federal Tax Identification Number: 81-0596847. Your gift is tax-deductible as allowed by law.