scholar park honan, in "shakespeare, a life" (1998), concurs with the view that shakespeare's biblical references are essentially conformist, alluding to his use of the bishop's bible in his plays and religious activity in protestant circles. however, critics of the former point say that church attendance cannot be taken as a conclusive proof because attendance at protestant churches was mandatory in the epoch. hence, callaghan concludes that "we may not know decisively if shakespeare was a catholic, but crucially, neither do we know that he was a stalwart protestant."