Truth is stranger than fiction. And nowhere in literature is it so
apparent as in this classic work, The Autobiography of a Hunted
Priest. This autobiography of a Jesuit priest in Elizabethan
England is a most remarkable document and John Gerard, its
author, a most remarkable priest in a time when to be a Catholic
in England courted imprisonment and torture; to be a priest was
treason by act of Parliament.
Smuggled into England after his ordination and dumped on a
Norfolk beach at night, Fr. Gerard disguised himself as a country
gentleman and traveled about the country saying Mass, preaching and ministering to the faithful in secret – always in constant
danger. The houses in which he found shelter were frequently
raided by “priest hunters”; priest-holes, hide-outs and hairbreadth escapes were part of his daily life. He was finally caught
and imprisoned, and later removed to the infamous Tower of
London where he was brutally tortured.
The stirring account of his escape, by means of a rope thrown
across the moat, is a daring and magnificent climax to a true
story which, for sheer narrative power and interest, far exceeds
any fiction. Here is an accurate and compelling picture of
England when Catholics were denied their freedom to worship
and endured vicious persecution and often martyrdom.
But more than the story of a single priest, The Autobiography
of a Hunted Priest epitomizes the constant struggle of all human
beings through the ages to maintain their freedom. It is a book of
courage and of conviction whose message is most timely for our
age.