James Bell

James Bell (1524 – 20 April 1584) was an English Catholic priest and the only one of the Marian Priests that is known to have suffered martyrdom.

Life He was born at Warrington in Lancashire, in 1524, was educated at Oxford University, where he was ordained priest in Queen Mary's reign. For some time he refused to conform to the alterations in religion made by Queen Elizabeth; but afterwards, adopting the tenets of the Reformation, he exercised the functions of a minister of the Church of England for twenty years.

In 1581 he solicited a lady to use her good offices to procure for him a small Readership, of which her husband was the patron. This lady, being a Catholic, induced him to be reconciled to the Church. Moved by her words he sought reconciliation with the Catholic Church in 1581, and after "spending some months devoting himself to penance and spiritual exercises, applying himself to the study of the Breviary, the ceremonies of the Holy Mass, the Sacraments and the other duties of his priesthood", he was allowed to resume priestly functions. He laboured zealously as a missionary priest for two years among the poorer Catholics, in nearly all of the Catholic Houses and Mass-centres in Lancashire,

In January 1584, while travelling on foot from one Catholic house to another, he asked directions of a man who turned out to be a spy. Bell was apprehended by this pursuivant at Golborne, and imprisoned in Salford Gaol. His trial was heard along with that of the layman John Finch, and Thomas Williamson and Richard Hutton who were also both Catholic priests.

He was interrogated by Justices Huddleston and Parker on 18 April 1584. Bell was about sixty years of age, and somewhat hard of hearing, so did not hear all that was said to him, and did not always reply. This was taken as a sign that his constancy was failing, so the next day, 19 April, they sought to terrify him with the description of the manner of his death, but he was unmoved by this.

Finally they asked him whether he had been reconciled (to the Catholic Church) or not. He admitted that he had and they said "oh that is High Treason", as the law of the time stipulated for Catholic priests in England. However, Bell replied: "it is nothing else than the Holy Sacrifice of Penance". The Court is said to have been filled with laughter and scorn on hearing this, Bell then said: "I forgive sins not by mine own power, but because I am a priest and have authority to absolve from sins". John Finch, a layman, suffered at the same time and place for being reconciled to the Catholic Church, and denying the Queen's spiritual supremacy.

Fr. James Bell was among the 108 martyrs beatified by Pope Pius XI on 15 December 1929.

Veneration

Blessed James Bell is commemorated on the Martyrs' Plaque in Lancaster Cathedral; in a stained glass window of St. Mary's Church, Warrington; in a stained glass window of the closed Our Lady's Church, Latchford, Warrington; there is a statue of him in the Lady Chapel of St. Werburgh's Church, Birkenhead and up until its demolition in the early 1990s, St Benedict's Church, Warrington had a building named the 'Bell Hall' near its former school. On 1 May 2018 the parishes of St Mary's, St Benedict and St. Oswald in Warrington to combined to form a new parish under the patronage of Blessed James Bell.