Richard Smith

Richard Smith (November 1568 – 18 March 1655) was an English Catholic prelate who served as Vicar Apostolic of English from 1624 to 1632. Having studied at the English College in Rome, he taught at Valladolid and Seville.

Life Richard Smith was born in Lincolnshire, England in 1568. He studied at Trinity College, Oxford University where he became a Catholic and in 1586 was admitted to the English College, Rome where he studied under Robert Bellarmine.

Smith was ordained in Rome as a priest in 1592. He obtained his doctorate in theology at the English College, Valladolid, where he also taught philosophy. In 1598 became a professor of controversies at the English College of St Gregory in Seville. He served as chaplain to Viscountess Montague, wife of Anthony-Maria Browne, 2nd Viscount Montagu, at Battle Abbey in Sussex, England. Smith left Sussex in 1613 he became superior of the small body of English secular priests who had rented the Benedictine house in Paris called Arras College, where they devoted themselves to writing controversy.

King Charles was aware of this. At a dinner during Lent, the King encouraged his pregnant wife to eat some meat, which the queen was reluctant to do without ecclesiastical permission. Whereupon the king turned to the ambassador and requested that he quickly send a servant to obtain the said permission, adding that he knew full well he would find the bishop there.

In the meantime, Pope Urban had the French nuncio remind Smith that he had been consecrated Bishop of Calcedon, not of England, and that his ordinary powers were both limited and revocable, that missionaries sent by the Holy See did not require his approval, and that he should work better with them. Upon receiving the brief through the Queen's chaplain, Robert Phillip, Smith decided that his position as Apostolic Vicar was untenable and went to France. His resignation was quickly accepted, and although he attempted to rescind it, he was forbidden to return to England

Death In Paris, Smith lived at first with Cardinal Richelieu until the latter's death in 1642. He held the title of commendatory abbot of Charroux Abbey, resigning that title in 1648. He died at the Paris priory of English Canonesses Regular of the Lateran, whose founding, under Mother Lettice Mary Tredway, C.R.L. (formally called Lady Treadway), he had supported.

Works Smith authored:

"An answer to T. Bel's late Challenge" (1605), against Thomas Bell; "The Prudentiall Ballance of Religion", (1609); "Vita Dominae Magdalenae Montis-Acuti" i.e., Viscountess Montagu (1609); "De auctore et essentia Protestanticae Religionis" (1619), English translation, 1621; "Collatio doctrinae Catholicorum et Protestantium" (1622), tr. (1631); "Of the distinction of fundamental and not fundamental points of faith" (1645); "Monita quaedam utilia pro Sacerdotibus, Seminaristis, Missionariis Angliae" (1647); "A Treatise of the best kinde of Confessors" (1651); "Of the all-sufficient Eternal Proposer of Matters of Faith" (1653); "Florum Historiae Ecclesiasticae gentis Anglorum libri septem" (1654).