Bard was Catholic but no saint, says UK archbishop

WILLIAM Shakespeare was probably a Catholic, according to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

Rowan Williams discussed the themes with Simon Russell Beale, the great Shakespearean actor, in one of the most eagerly-anticipated talks of this year’s Hay festival, the UK Telegraph reports.

Archbishop Williams said he believed him to be a Catholic.

“I don’t think it tells us a great deal, to settle whether he was a Catholic or a Protestant, but for what it’s worth I think he probably had a Catholic background and a lot of Catholic friends and associates.

“How much he believed in it, or what he did about it, I don’t quite know. He wasn’t a very nice man in many ways. It’s always very shocking that the late Shakespeare was hoarding grain and buying up property in Stratford – it was not terribly attractive.

“If he was a Christian, he wasn’t a saint.”

Report from ucanews.com