Building on a long tradition of scholarship, the role of Shakespeare’s Catholicism in his dramas has been well-established by the work of Lady Claire Asquith (Shadowplay). Joseph Pearce has done an equally fine job reviewing the tradition of Catholic connections in Shakespeare’s personal history.

Our course will very briefly review that evidence and then place its focus on examining the two plays most widely read by high school students. Although set in Scotland of the 11th century and Rome of the 1st century BC, both plays comment clearly and powerfully on the sad situation of the Catholic Church, outlawed and persecuted in Shakespeare’s England. Both dramas end with victory for Christ’s Holy Bride that cannot, for long, be suppressed.

Macbeth is our greatest play about how wickedness completely corrupts an initially good man who gives scope to occult evil, eventually becoming a mass-murderer like Lenin or Stalin. It is also the story of how a woman, Lady Macbeth– a figure of Queen Elizabeth–destroys herself by casting away her feminine and god-formed nature. But the end is glorious as the man (Malcolm) who married St. Margaret of Scotland assumes the throne.

Julius Caesar focuses on how even noble men like Brutus become corrupted by the lust for power and attack their country under the pretense of doing good for it. Such a theme is constantly relevant to political life. At the same time it presents the will of Christ as the ultimate force which drives history, using flawed men as its instruments for good.

There is great enjoyment in seeing how Shakespeare roused the spirits of his many fellow Catholics by telling the truth in his time, while remaining largely immune from censorship or martyrdom. Dr. Russell, who has taught and written on the Catholic Shakespeare since 1992, will show that only when we bring a carefully Catholic view to the plays do they make complete sense and do not break down into a mere series of unanswered questions and scattered themes.