more recently it has been suggested that shakespeare was simply playing upon an english catholic tradition, rather than actually being catholic, and was using the symbolic nature of catholic ceremony to embellish his own theatre. literary scholar david daniell arrives at a similar conclusion, but from the opposite direction: as a good protestant shakespeare used many biblical allusions and quotations in his works, but only because his audience, well versed in the bible in english, would quickly take his meaning. however, david beauregard points out that the plays echo both protestant and catholic translations of the bible, with some forty verbal correspondences to the 1582 rheims new testament, and they also conflict with the elizabethan homilies on at least ten theological topics, such as purgatory, prayers for the dead, indulgences, pilgrimages, merit, auricular confession and satisfaction. schoenbaum suspects catholic sympathies of some kind or another in shakespeare and his family, but considers the writer himself to be a less than pious person with essentially worldly motives: "...the artist takes precedence over the votary".