Saint Nicholas Owen: Builder, Brother, and Protector of Priests

Sometime during the night of May 1 and the morning of May 2 in the year 1606, Nicholas Owen died a martyr in the Tower of London. In 1970, he was canonized by Paul VI, along with thirty-nine other English and Welsh martyrs, including twenty-eight priests and an earl. Among these famous figures of sixteenth and seventeenth century Catholicism, the diminutive man who often went by the alias of “Little John” would be easy to overlook. But Nicholas, although a mere Jesuit lay brother, was one of the most valuable members of the underground Catholic Church in England during his lifetime.

No one knows where or when Nicholas was born, but by the late sixteenth century, persecuted English Catholics had come to rely upon him. That’s because Nicholas could build priest holes: hiding places where priests could escape detection when the authorities broke into their illegal celebrations of the Catholic Mass. If the police broke into a home during a Mass and no priest or physical proof of a Mass could be found, those Catholics could plausibly claim that they were merely enjoying a dinner party. But the pursuivants—officers who were paid to find Catholic priests—would sometimes search a house for days, even breaking down walls and floors during the search.

Nicholas was short, but he was strong, smart, and amazingly skilled at creating these hiding places. He created priest holes by digging into underground passages, disassembling and reassembling thick walls, and constructing elaborate false fronts. Even though his priest holes were destroyed whenever they were found, he built so many and built them so well that several still exist.

For almost twenty years, Nicholas traveled with priests as they made their rounds to serve secret Catholics, acting as their servant. Nicholas knew that it was a capital crime to hide or help a priest, just as it was a capital crime to be a Catholic priest. Jesuit priest (and future martyr) Henry Garnet eventually admitted the ever-faithful Nicholas to the Jesuit order as a lay brother.

Nicholas, after all, wasn’t merely a good carpenter. He wanted to be a holy one, like our Lord. It is said that he prayed in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament before he began working on each priest hole, and despite living such a dangerous life, everyone remarked upon his personal virtue and innocence.

But, in 1594, a traitor betrayed him and Jesuit Father John Gerard to the authorities, and Nicholas was brutally tortured in an attempt to find out the names of other priests and Catholics. The pain of the tortures did not cause Nicholas to betray his friends, but it did cause permanent damage to his health.

The authorities demanded a hefty fine before they would release Nicholas from prison, but wealthy Catholics paid it. They could hardly do anything less since Nicholas’ abilities were so valuable to them. And his time in prison gave him ideas for a new project: helping Father Gerard escape from prison, which Nicholas promptly did.

Nicholas continued his clandestine building work until the authorities broke into another Catholic Mass, one which he was attending. He had hidden himself inside a priest hole, but he let himself be found to protect the priests who were hidden in other locations.

His interrogators in prison were determined to break him this time, and they did, although not in the way they hoped. Nicholas’ injury from his previous imprisonment was exacerbated by renewed tortures, and he died a painful death. The embarrassed prison guards spread a false rumor that he had confessed everything before he killed himself, but no one believed that lie. After all, if Nicholas had implicated anyone before his death, those charges would have been raised at future trials of priests, which never happened.

How do we know so much about a man who lived like a spy for decades? Because Father John Gerard, S.J., (1564-1637) was ordered by his superiors to write down his experiences as an underground priest in England many years after the fact. The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest describes his missions, escapes, tortures, betrayals, and his friends, including “Little John”, who saved his life. After Father Gerard’s escape from the Tower of London, he continued his clandestine ministry for a time and then managed to secretly travel to continental Europe. He spent the final years of his life at the English College in Rome, a seminary dedicated to training priests so that they too could return to England and provide the sacraments for hidden Catholics, despite the threat of martyrdom.

Gerard himself did not die a martyr. For whatever reason, Gerard has not been canonized or beatified, even though he clearly earned the title of confessor of the faith for his faithfulness under torture. Regardless, Father Gerard’s autobiography reveals him to be a humble, courageous, dedicated priest, and it provides us with an astonishing eyewitness account of the bravery of many Catholic priests, laymen, and laywomen.

So, on March 22, the Church celebrates a humble lay brother, Saint Nicholas Owen, who served the Church by swinging a hammer and sawing wood. And who, just as importantly, was willing to lay down his life for his friends.