'Faith of Our Fathers'

The hymn by Fr Frederick William Faber is very popular in Protestant Churches, but they always alter or omit one verse of the hymn as he wrote it. Why?

Well, Fr Faber is better known today to Catholics, especially to those who have read True Devotion to Mary by St Louis Marie de Montfort, which he translated into English.

Fr Faber was born into the Anglican Church, in a family that was of Huguenot descent. As a result, they were very strongly Calvinist. His grandfather was the Anglican vicar of the parish in which he was born and his uncle was a prominent theologian.

In 1832, after prepping at Harrow and Shrewsbury, he went up to Oxford to Balliol College. In 1834 he obtained a scholarship in University College. 

At Oxford, he came under the influence of the early Anglo-Catholic founders of the Oxford Movement, including John Keble and the still Protestant St John Henry Newman. 

He abandoned his Calvinism and became a follower of Newman. He was, however, ordained in the Church of England in 1839, becoming Rector of a church in Elton, Huntingdonshire (now in Cambridgeshire). He introduced 'Catholic' practices such as confession, keeping Saints' Days, and the Sacred Heart Devotion. His services were packed, not by devout Anglicans, but by protestant dissenters trying to disrupt his 'Catholic' ways.

Finally, in 1845, he followed Newman into the Church of Christ, being received in November of that year by Bishop William Wareing of Northampton.

He became well known as a controversialist and hymnodist, 'Faith of Our Fathers' probably being his best-known hymn.

The protestants, not wanting to admit that 'Faith of Our Fathers' is a Catholic hymn, pretend that the 'fire, dungeon, and sword' are those of the Roman persecutions and not those of the founder of the Anglican Church, Henry the Tyrant, and his equally bloodthirsty daughter, Bloody Bess.

The verse they alter? It is the third verse, which Fr Faber wrote as:

Faith of our Fathers! Mary's prayers
Shall win our country back to thee:
And through the truth that comes from God
England shall then indeed be free.

Mary's prayers? The horror! So they either omit it entirely or change it to something like this:

Faith of our Fathers! we will strive
To win all nations unto thee,
And through the truth that comes from God,
Mankind shall then be truly free.

Or this:

Faith of our Fathers! Faith and prayer
Shall win all nations unto thee,
And through the truth that comes from God,
Mankind shall then be truly free.

I'm sure both Our Blessed Mother and Fr Faber are praying for their conversion!