Ven. John Goodman

Priest and martyr; born in the Diocese of Bangor, Wales, 1590; died 1642. He was educated at Oxford, and ordained a Protestant minister, but abandoning heresy, he crossed over to Paris, where he was received into the Church by Mr. Richard Ireland. Admitted to Douai College, 12 Feb., 1621, he continued his studies there until 1624, when he proceeded to St-Omer, in order to enter the Society of Jesus. Finding, however, that this was not his vocation, he was ordained a secular priest and sent on the English mission. He worked with unremitting zeal for some years, was twice apprehended and twice released. Once more a prisoner in 1642, he was brought to trial and condemned to death, but at the queen’s intercession was reprieved. When this act of clemency on the part of Charles I excited the anger of Parliament, Goodman, with great magnanimity, protested his unwillingness to be a cause of dissension between Charles and his subjects, and begged that he might be sacrificed to appease the popular displeasure. This heroic act of generosity made a considerable sensation, and probably suggested to Wentworth, Lord Strafford, the idea of doing the same. Goodman, however, was left to languish in Newgate, but the hardships soon put an end to his life on Good Friday, 1642, not 1645, as is sometimes said.