…he was Catholic. At least, that’s what Ave Maria University Lit professor Joseph Pearce says.

While it ain’t exactly DaVinci Code-ish, Pearce’s research flies in the face of common scholarship. In 17th Century Protestant England, Catholics could be fined, prohibited from holding public office or killed, hence the playwright’s secretive faith, according to Pearce.

But the plays, and the paper trail, betray the bard, says the Lit man.

Pearce said he was “initially skeptical about the suggestion that Shakespeare was Catholic. but became curious as I unearthed some proof for it. After a period of intense research, I became utterly convinced of his Catholicism, and that it could be proven through the documentary evidence. This is the truth that has been unknown, ignored, or covered up for hundreds of years.”

In his new book, “The Quest for Shakespeare,” Pearce offers the following evidence.

1) Shakespeare’s mother, Mary Arden, was a member of “one of the most militant Catholic families in England”

2) Dad, John Shakespeare, was a devout Catholic who was forced from public office because of his faith

3) Daughter, Susanna, was fined for being Catholic in 1623

Pearce is not the first scholar to make this argument (see here, here and here, our own bard, David Anderson, takes a gander at some recent scholarship.)

Ah, so sweet is zealous contemplation.

You didn’t think I could resist one quotation, did you?