Links to
individual items
'Voice from Worcester' Tracts
Other booklets
|
There may be a number of small typographical errors in this transcription.
The transcription has been created by a text-recognition scanning process
and, although fairly accurate, some errors will inevitably remain.
The Bishops of London
and
Benediction
A Reply
We ought to obey God rather than man
Many devout and pious Catholics are disturbed in their
consciences by the Sermon of the Bishop of London (a full
report of this Serman appeared in "The Church Times" of
January 3rd, 1919), in which he claims the Canon Law as his
authority for the total prohibition of Benediction in his
diocese, and the power to regulate its use, and in which
he also claims obedience to his order as to the voice of
God, and stigmatises those who resist as disobedient, like
Saul, the Son of Kish, and in which also he represents those
who obey as taking up the Cross of Christ. For the con-
solation of such souls it is a laudable work to endeavour
to set their minds at rest, and it is my purpose to show
that the Canon Law affords no cause for such a general
prohibition, that it gives no one the power to regulate
Benediction out of existence, that it is not better to obey
man than to sacrifice to God, that it is rather the Bishop
than the "disobedient" priests who resemble the autocratic
and disobedient Saul, that the Cross the Bishop offers is
not the Cross of Christ, but the Iron Cross of Prussianism,
and that the priests who lift up Jesus Christ and do
the Father's business have Christ as an example of an
exceptional disobedience, and that Peter, the Prince of the
Apostles, shews them that it is right in the sight of God to
obey God rather than man.
I. The Canon Law.
The Bishop of London claims Canon Law as his sanction
for his right to prohibit Benediction in every Church in his
diocese. He claims that he is the administrator of that law
and he demands, under cover of it, the obedience of the
clergy to his universal prohibition of Benediction In his
diocese. The only Canon Law which deals with the powers
of bishops in regard to Benediction is the Roman. It is
that which was made by the Popes. If the Bishop acts up
to the whole of the Canon Law about Benediction, such
obedience on his part involves him in the duty to do all in
his power to secure the spread of Benediction in every parish
in his diocese; to see that the regulations for its reverent
use are kept by the clergy, and it gives him the power to
prohibit it in parishes where the Sacred Host has been treated
irreverently, or is in proved danger of being so treated.
This is the extent of a bishop's power under the law which
the Bishop says he administers in the London diocese.
The Canon Law does not give any bishop the power to
prohibit Benediction universally in every parish of his diocese,
irrespective of their various circumstances. It does not give
him the power to make any regulations he likes, but only to
carry out those already made. The bishops for whom these
laws and regulations were made are bound to believe in
Transubstantiation and to promote the adoration of the
Host by means of Exposition and Benediction, and the power
of prohibition is only allowed to be exercised for the purpose
of guarding the Blessed Sacrament against profanation by
unbelievers. Were any bishop, not a believerm Transub-
stantiation, to join in a conspiracy with other bishops with
the object of putting down Benediction, were they to forbid
the offering of latreia or supreme worship to the Blessed
Sacrament, they would forfeit their claim to the obedience
of the faithful clergy and laity, and they would be regarded
as dishonest men if they claimed the sanction of the Canon
Law, for the purpose, not of furthering, but of destroying
the very object for which that law was made.
A Roman Catholic bishop obeys the Pope and administers
the Pope's laws, and he does not in addition claim to be the
administrator of an Act of Parliament, such as the Act of
Uniformity of which the Prayer Book is a part. The Bishop
of London, however, makes the double claim. When the
Pope's laws are repugnant to him he is ready to give orders
under the Act of Parliament, and when, as in the case of
Benediction, the Act of Uniformity is silent, he falls back on
the Pope's law. The most ignorant English Churchman
can see that his claim to obedience on the ground of Canon
Law is hollow unless he carries it out in Its spirit and in all
its parts.
This is a brand new claim. He claims the power of
allowing Benediction in every church in his diocese, and
equally he claims the power of prohibiting it in every church
in his diocese; while at the same time he makes the con-
tradictory claim of regulating what he is out to destroy.
Does anyone think that Canon Law is such a foolish thing
as that? It is contrary to common sense as well as to all
ideas of law and justice to exact obedience to the prohibition
of Benediction by force of the carnal law of the land, under
the cloak of giving an order under the spiritual law of the
church, which aims at its promotion and not its extinction.
It is not fair to exploit an exceptional prohibitory power in
the interests of total abolition. At any rate the Canon Law
does not sanction such high handed action.
11. Canonical Obedience.
The kind of obedience promised by a priest to his bishop
is a particular kind which goes by the name of " Canonical
obedience. "
It is not a personal obedience, It is not an obedience
due to a vow like that of a religious to his Superior. It is
not parental obedience, nor is it military obedience. It is
obedience concerning the objects and purposes for which the
Canons and Customs of the Church were made and which
it is the duty of the bishop to further. The priest promises
to obey the bishop when the latter requires him to observe
the Church's laws in furtherance of the Church's life. Canonical
obedience is limited by Canon taw in two ways-It must be
lawful, and it must be honest.
It must be lawful.-The command to which obedience is
required must be lawful. The Bishop has no power to enforce
obedience to a command without pointing to the particular
law on which the command is based. The Bishop of London
does not point to any law which requires priests to give up'
Benediction. He does not point to the Prayer Book because
it contains nothing about Benediction. He does not point
to the Bishops' Resolution against permanent reservation,
because he himself permits such reservation, and is not
standing by that resolution to which he subscribed. The
only semblance of law which he invokes is the Pope's law,
which he himself does not obey. He does not even make an
appeal to Scripture, and his indirect appeal falls to the ground
on examination. He has not succeeded in convincing the
consciences of his clergy. His diocesan Conference may
agree with him, but the Catholic clergy are notoriously
outside such Conferences as they are outside Convocation.
His appeal to numbers is not an appeal to law. His command
is based on the Pope's laws and the clergy of the Church of
England are not bound to render obedience to such laws
merely because those laws exist, much less can they be forced
to obey them merely because they are issued by the Bishop
of Rome, and far less when they are exploited by the Bishop
of London for the sinister purpose of destroying Benediction ..
Besides the command being based on some law, the obedience
rendered to it must also be lawful. Obedience may be given
to a harmless command though the command be without
law, and such obedience cannot be exacted, though it may be
innocently accorded.
Obedience is not lawful when it is freely rendered to a
command which does not rest on law and which aims at the
destruction of what the law exists to preserve. Those who
obey an order under the Canon Law of Rome for the des-
truction of Benediction become partakers in the sins of those
who have lifted their hands against the Blessed Sacrament,
and no weapon forged against it can prosper.
Obedience must be honest.- When a priest knows there is
a movement afoot to stop Benediction or to destroy some-
thing which he believes belongs to the life and well-being of
souls, it would not be lawful for him to obey any orders
which might abet such a purpose. He would be acting
against the law of conscience. And when no law is produced
for the command, the priest is left to decide the matter
according to his lights, and he is responsible for the decision.
And in what concerns the inner part of his will he is not
bound to obey man but only God. That obedience is not
honest, which is given in violation of conscience .. Should a
priest be unable to give honest obedience to a definite law
put before him by a bishop, it is for the bishop to reason
with him and even plead with him as a father, and if he cannot
convince him, it is for the bishop to decide whether it is a
matter of such importance as to require him the application of
discipline. The Bishop of London requires personal instead
of lawful obedience. His requirement is that of the autocrat.
He demands loyalty to himself before obedience to Truth, and
obedience to his word as though it were the Word of God.
The claim to absolute obedience, as of Divine right, is not
deceiving anyone in these days of fallen Kaisers, and neither
the Bible nor law give help to the Supreme egotist whether
he be War Lord or Lord Bishop, when he erects himself into
the law, and substitutes personal will for law and custom.
The conscience of mankind at this hour is against him.
No' man, be he bishop or monarch, has any chance now of
deluding any considerable body of men into thinking that
the personal will and mandate of a despot should in right and
justice over-ride law and conscience.
When the liberty to worship the God of our fathers in
the Catholic way is assailed by one claiming despotic powers
of supremacy, divorced from the corresponding powers of
propagation, every liberty-loving man of every shade of
belief should be up against the aggressor. It is not the
" disobedient·" priests who need an apologia, but the Bishop
himself.
Here is a bishop bound by the State law and the Act of
Uniformity, an officer of the Establishment, bent on maintain-
ing the State religion and rooting out Catholic devotions to
the Blessed Sacrament, putting up the claim to have as much
right to obey the Pope's laws, and carry them out on his clergy,
as any Roman bishop. While at the same time he neither
obeys the Pope, nor the positive requirements of the Canon
law he invokes; and it is apparent that all he is concerned to
do is to use the disciplinary enactments of these laws for the
prohibition of what those laws enjoin. Some apologia is
needed for such transparent dishonesty and hypocrisy.
You have read the Bishop of London's sermon in which he
seeks to impress his hearers with the idea that in issuing an
order prohibiting Benediction in his diocese he, has the
sanction 'of the Sacred Scriptures for denouncing all priests
who disobey his prohibition as disobedient, like the apostate
Saul, and further, that all priests who obey him are bearers
of the Cross and imitators of the Blessed Virgin. Should you
happen to know any of the priests concerned, as also perchance
you happen to know the Bishop, you have a feeling that there
must be some fallacy in the Bishop's argument. You know
these priests as men of high principle, considerable knowledge
of their business and unimpeachable integrity, that they have
never been charged with heresy, nor any moral delinquency
nor crime; that they have lived a life 0:( open honesty and
devotion to their calling before their fellow men, and that
their people are devoted to them for their works' sake. So
that you wonder whether it may not be that the Bishop is
making claims of an extravagant sort, and beyond his power,
that he is misinterpreting Scriptu re and that he is domineering
over the Lord's heritage and browbeating his priests.
When such a thing as disobedience is insinuated or
charged against priests it is but just that the Scripture
examples used to. support the charge should be carefully
investigated, because if they are misused and wrongly applied,
by one in the position of the Bishop of London, the result
practically amounts to the taking away of the character of
the priest and the reduction of his influence to zero. Is the
matter as the Bishop says? Is his power according to his
claim? Are these priests as bad as he makes out? I think
when you ponder over his sermon you will come to the con-
clusion that the Bishop's claims are extravagant and his
innuendoes baseless.
III. Saul's Disobedience.
Samuel received a direct revelation from God, in which
the Lord commanded him to tell Saul to slay all the cattle
and all the women and children .of the Amalekites. Saul
disobeyed the Word of the Lord and spared Agag, the king;
and the best of the cattle.
The Bishop of London prohibits Benediction in his whole
diocese, and when the general prohibition is ignored by any
priest, the Bishop says that priest is like Saul in disobedience.
Samuel's positive order was received from God; from whom
did the Bishop get his order of prohibition? Certainly
not from God. Samuel ordered something positively good,
of which the Lord approved. The Bishop, on the other hand,
prohibits something positively good; he prohibits the lifting
up of Jesus Christ over His adoring people; he prohibits
a thing of which Our Lord approves.
Saul for base and unworthy motives of avarice and
time-serving, disobeyed the positive command. The priests
for good and holy motives, for the honour of Our Lord, refuse to deny Him and to obey an ungodly prohibition.
Had the Bishop positively ordered the priests to trample
upon the Sacred Host and to rebuke, drive out, and if necessary
prosecute, or at least persecute, all who persisted in adoring
It; all priests who disobeyed such an order would be hailed
as courageous upholders of the rights of the laity, as men
faithful to God, to His people, and as heroic fighters against
the unwarrantable edict of a despot. But when the Bishop,
just as effectively, secures by his prohibition the withdrawal
of the Sacred Host and the dispersion of Its adorers, then
the men who resist are likened to the disobedient Saul,
whom God rejected for his impiety.
There could scarcely be a wider difference between two
things than that which there is between the disobedience of
Saul and that of the priests who continue to give Benediction.
Saul disobeyed a Divine positive command and would not
do the good thing ordered. The priests go on doing a good
thing, (a thing which the Bishop is reported as speaking of
as a pious and evangelic devotion), in defiance of an order
Which is contrary alike to the spirit of Christ and to the Canon
Law, which the Bishop erroneously claims to support him.
Saul erred by defect of devotion. The priests are abused for
excess of devotion. God would not have punished Saul for
disobedience had he been guilty only of excess of zeal. If
he had not only killed the women and children, the king and
princes and the cattle, but if he had added some appropriate
dramatic spectacle in order to impress the people with the
thoroughness of the holocaust; so far from being charged
with, and punished for, disobedience, he would have been
praised and rewarded for his zeal for the Lord of Hosts.
Such would have been the way of Samuel. Not so the Bishop
of London. Does he order the Lord of Hosts to be lifted up
in blessing in every church of his diocese, as he claims to have
the authority to do, and does he charge with disobedience
everyone who refuses? Not so, he orders that the Lord of
Hosts be not lifted up in any church of his diocese, and any
priest who dares to prefer the Lord of Glory to the Lord
Bishop is branded as disobedient and lawless. It is an insult
to devout and holy priests to compare them with the profane'
King of Israel for resisting a prohibition which is an insult
to the Lord Jesus Christ their Master. How could they
obey an .order for the universal suppression of Benediction
in the diocese? Is their Lord of so little value in their eyes
that they can suppress Him according to edict and withdraw
Him "according to plan ? "
A priest who reverently follows the pious ways of Bene-
diction would say, "May my right hand wither if I refuse to
uplift the Host, that the Lord may in Person bless His people."
If the Bishop insults the priests by likening them to the
disobedient Saul, he insults the pious laity by likening them
to the avaricious people of Israel, who wanted Saul to spare
the cattle. Benediction is not a sin. It is a most holy thing,
and when priests say that pious people feel its power and
resort to it, they are not pointing to the numbers of a mob
to justify them in supplying an unwholesome demand and
satisfying an ungodly appetite. They are simply saying
that the Lord's people love the Lord's blessing. They are
not trying to excuse something wrong by counting the heads
of those who want it, like Aaron, who made the Golden Calf
because the people would have it, and like Saul who would
not kill all the beasts because a greedy people, sated with
those already dead, wanted the remainder kept for a future
feast. They rightly point to the fact that where the full
truth of the Person in the Blessed Sacrament is taught, the
Christian instinct finds a deep satisfaction in receiving
Benediction from that Person. These priests, so far from
feeling shame at having evoked, by their godly teaching, this
deep desire in the people, are resolved that the appetite which
the Blessed Sacrament has quickened shall not be destroyed,
but satisfied, and that when God's people ask for bread
they shall not be put off with prohibitions and stonings.
The Lord Jesus Christ has adopted the form of bread
as the way in which He will stay with His people. And He
does not bless that people who claim the name of Catholic
and yet go out to teach, without Him; as they did in the
National Mission, to evangelise the world, without this
Sacramental doctrine. Everybody has seen the failure of
the National Mission. The priests of Benediction knew it
must fail, because the Person of Jesus in the Sacred Host was
not in the van, and that the hearts of the good, where the
seed can grow, cannot be satisfied by any substitute for the
Lord of Glory in His self-chosen form of bread.
It is monstrous that the pastoral appeal to these instincts of devotion should be likened as the Bishop likens them, to
the impious excuses of the apostate Saul.
If the priests had, through fear of unbelieving bishops
and the terrors of State law, ceased from lifting up the Lord
of Glory; if, from fear of losing the gold and silver of the rich,
and the support of the undevotional members of their con-
gregations, they had deprived the little-ones-who-believe
of the Benediction of their Creator; had they given Bene-
diction only in order to draw crowds of people and not because
they knew its power, and Who it is that blesses, they might
have deserved some of the censures of the Bishop. Even
then we should have thought it harsh to compare them with
the apostate and rejected Saul. Had they even refused to
obey an episciopal order to give Benediction, we should not
odiously compare them with the disobedient, self-willed and
autocratic king, though there would be some colour for such
a comparison. But when this odious comparison is made,
and this charge of disobedience is hurled, by one claiming to
be arrayed in all the panoply of sovereign authority, insisting
on absolute and unconditional obedience to his personal will,
with the power of pains and penalties of State law in the
background; the likeness to the mad, self-willed autocrat of
Israel will not be found in the victims of the tirade, but might
more appropriately be looked for in its author.
Saul was the autocrat who refused to do the Lord's work,
and he forced his servants to refrain from doing it too. It
was the autocrat Saul who put a stop to the Sacrifice and sent
out an order prohibiting any more cattle to be slain for God's
honour. It is not recorded that even he visited his wrath
on those who dared to obey God and disobey their king; it
is not told that 'even he claimed lawful authority for his
prohibition and charged with disobedience those who would
not obey it.
The Word of God has a double edge, and he who misuses
it often finds his own hand cut while brandishing it over his
opponent. So the case of Saul can only apply to an autocrat
who resists the movements of the Holy Ghost in the Church,
and issues prohibitions for the destruction of a pious and
evangelic practice in all the churches of his diocese. I do
not say that the case of Saul's disobedience fits the Bishop
exactly; I would not compare him with such an apostate
and say, "Thou art the man," but I do say that the Bishop
is the only man in the present instance to whom the case of
Saul could at all be applied, in agreement with the Scriptures
as they stand.
The Appeal of Numbers.
When Saul said it was the people who spared the oxen,
the Bishop likens this excuse to the priests' plea on behalf of
the devout, that they love Benediction; and he goes on to
imply that it is an appeal to numbers which he greatly
deprecates.
It is a very note-worthy fact that while the tide of numbers
was flowing on their side, in their attacks on lights, vestments,
incense and the rest, the Bishops censured those priests who
introduced such things and who disobeyed their orders to give
them up, they scolded them for offending the susceptibilities
of their congregations, and as being wanting in the pastoral
instinct. In those days they never said that the priests
must lead their people to Catholic devotions, as the Bishop
of London now exhorts them to lead the people to do without
Benediction. The tide of popular feeling is flowing towards
Catholic devotions; and the bishops, like Mrs. Partington
with her mop and bucket trying to push out the Atlantic
Ocean, are meeting it with the mop of prohibitions and the
bucket of resolutions; but they will find, as that excellent and
well-intentioned lady found, that, however useful a mop and
a bucket may be in dealing with a puddle, it is of no effect
for pushing back the ocean of Catholic love.
Those priests did not appeal to numbers, but the sig
nificance of the Bishop's attitude makes one wonder whether
the numbers are not really against prohibitions, as once they
were against episcopal prosecutions. While the Bishop
deprecates in his opponents any appeal to numbers he does
not disdain to point to the formidable hosts arrayed on his
side.
Observe how the order of proceedings follows the Prussian
method of dealing with the liberties of conquered peoples..
It is the will of the despots that Benediction, like freedom,
shall be suppressed; but it must be done in such a way as to
shew that the majority of people are agreeable to the ways of
their conquerors. To secure this end, the offices and benefices
are filled with the bishop's sycophants, all lovers of Bene-
diction are suppressed, or, if possible, as the Germans do,
deported, to Rome for preference; diocesan grants are stopped ;
there are to be no consolations of religion for the dying, no
one to teach the young, no one to prepare the children for
Confirmation, no one to visit the sick, the parish and people
are to be paganised and denied the knowledge of Christ. And
then the bishop having done away with Benediction by
prohibition, and got rid of its champions and votaries, ad-
vising them to go to Rome, and having filled up as many
"places" as possible with" Bishops' men," comes forth and
cries, "In this diocese all the great and most prominent
churches are loyal, and in this diocese the main tide of the
Church's life is loyal through and through." He means, of
course, loyal to himself, not loyal to the truth. And the
Germans, having manipulated the population of conquered
peoples and deported the champions of freedom, cry, "the
natives of the German Colony have given a decisive vote in
favour of German occupation."
IV. The Obedience of Our Lady.
If the Bishop is unfortunate in his application of the case
of Saul, and if that weapon recoils on his own head, the other
case he relies on, the obedience of the Blessed Virgin, is a very
boomerang, which brains the thrower of it. The Bishop
emphasises two points-first, the cross she accepted in braving
public opinion, and consenting to appear as a Mother without
being married; and secondly, her answer to the Angel,
"Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me
according to Thy word."
The Bishop insinuates that when in obedience to his
prohibition a priest gives up Benediction he is like the" Hand-
maid of the Lord," letting the Bishop have his way with him
according to the Bishop's word, as Blessed Mary let it be to
her according to the Angel's word. This will not do. God
gave Mary a special revelation from Heaven, sending her a
message by the Angel, and it was not a prohibition to prevent
Christ being brough tin to the war Id and exhibited, but a message
which, if accepted, would lead to His shewing unto Israel,
and eventually to all the world. When Our Lady signified
her acceptance of the Angel's word she thereby undertook to
bring, forth Christ, and to let the Son of God appear before the
eyes of men. How anyone could have the effrontery to liken
her obedience to that of the priests who consent to an order
to shut Jesus up altogether in the Tabernacle, out of sight,
or to put him out of the church so that He shall never be
lifted up in Benediction, never shewn for the adoration of
His people, passes belief. He further insinuates that the
priest who obeys his probibition and gives up Benediction
thereby becomes like the Blessed Virgin, a cross bearer,
laying himself open to misrepresentation and reproach.
What can that misrepresentation be, which the Bishop
calls a cross, that is, something taken up voluntarily for
Christ's sake? It would seem to be that the Cross would
consist in the criticism of those who love the Blessed Sacra-
ment, and who might think that the priest had deserted them
and saved his skin; that he seemed more careful to retain
his living than to minister the full word of God as he knows
it, and more eager to please the Bishop than to obey his
conscience.
If the people are wrong in that view, then the burden
may be called a cross; but if they are right, the priest is not
a cross bearer, but a time server. The Catholic people are
not inclined to judge the motives of their priests, and it is
very hard to see what cross he takes up who gives up Bene-
diction. If there be a cross, it is not a cross for the priest,
but for the people. The Bishop seems to glorify what the
Church has always reprobated, and to reprobate what the
Church has always crowned.· The Church has always
honoured those who resisted tyrannical and state-made laws
against her teaching and practices. She has always repro-
bated those who for any reason obeyed man rather than God.
The priest who sprinkled a few grains of incense on a hot pan,
at the lawful order of the Roman Magistrate, was held in
abhorrence by all Christians. He fell under the condemna
tion of his fellow Christians; but no one said he was bearing
the cross of Christ. He was treated rather as one who had
sold his Saviour.
There is such a thing as outraging Christian feeling, and
even short of that, there is the awful possibility of putting a
stumbling block in the way of the little ones who believe in
Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. It is almost diabolical to
call either of these things the taking up of the same Saviour's
Cross. Our Lady obeyed the word of the Angel, and not
that of the Chief Priests and Scribes. She bore the cross
because she preferred Christ to her neighbour's good opinion.
Her faith led her to obey God rather than man. There are
dignataries to-day occupying high posts of preferment in
the Church who think she acted under an hallucination. They
are not charged with disobedience. The Bishop of London
will not allow anything his priests may think or say to be
called heresy-only those who refuse to give up Benediction
are disobedient-all the rest are bearing the cross with the
Bishop's certificate of orthodoxy and good conduct in their
pockets.
The Church dignitaries in Judea acted in collusion with
Herod to destroy that Christ whom they could not prevent
Mary from conceiving, nor bringing forth; because hidden
from the prince of this world was the child-bearing of Mary.
Who doubts that they would have stopped her listening to
the Angel if they could? As now, when Christ is no more to
be hidden, but set forth in His true Person there are men
who are called pillars of the Church putting forth their hands
against the Holy One in Benediction, as once did Herod
and Pontius Pilate and the people of the Jews against the
Holy Child, Jesus. As well say that Herod's servants were
taking up the cross of Jesus when they went forth, in obedi-
ence to the King's command, and attempted the life of the
Lord, as they accomplished the deaths of the Holy Innocents.
We shall next be told that Pontius Pilate bore the cross.
The attempt on Benediction is an attempt on the liberty, if
not on the life of Jesus. He is the same Jesus in the Sacred
Host as He whom Herod tried to destroy. He is in the
Sacred Host to-day what the Holy Child was in. that day.
Some are for Him, and some are against Him. Those who
would prevent Him giving Benediction to His people by
disabling His priests, encourage their servants to do their
will, and put down Jesus in Benediction.
" Destroy the Monstrance," say they, "away with the
Sacred Host, away with Him, away with Him, shut Him up
in the Tabernacle, shew Him not to His people lest they
worship Him and be carried away with His error-send away
the people whose hearts ache for His Benediction." And
you who obey this edict you are the true cross bearers; you
are the real followers of the Blessed Mother that bore Him.
Obey, obey, lift not up the Lord of Glory, and you shall be
comforted; for has not your Bishop said that in putting
down the Host you are taking up the Cross, in lowering the
Lord of Glory you are going up in his lordship's favour; be
comforted, you shall be full of honour though you sent the
souls empty away.
Never heed grieving the hearts of those whom God would
make glad with his Blessing; the Bishop has ordered Jesus
out of the Church; and if you, as an obedient servant of the
Bishop, carry Him out you will be decorated with the iron
cross, and having the episcopal benediction, instead of His,
whom is being destroyed. Never mind how you stifle your
convictions and drug your consciences, the Bishop has spoken,
the case is over.
v. The Claims of God and Conscience.
The Master's Business.
Our Lord's example teaches us that there are occasions
when the Father's business excuses disobedience to earthly
superiors. He taught that children are not to prefer father
and mother before Him; and he acted on it when He
left His parents to go away from Jerusalem without Him,
thereby subjecting them to three days of anguished search.
He did not ask their leave, although He knew it would be
granted. He did not ask it, because they had no power to
refuse it; and He wished us to know that neither is the consent
of parents to be asked, nor their opposition heeded, when
God gives a call to the Soul. Thus when Our Lady asked,
" Son, why hast thou dealt so with us ?" The reply was in
effect that He was not about their business but His Father's.
This example is intended to be imitated in like circum-
stances. When a bishop comes to hinder a priest and prevent
him doing the Master's business, that priest must go on with
that business and, like Nehemiah, say, " I am doing a great
work, I cannot come down."
The Bishop's authority is given him for the promotion of
the Master's business and if he uses it for the destruction of
it, he must be disobeyed. When a priest is fully assured in
his own mind that Benediction is the Master's business, he
can claim to follow that same Master, and obey God though
it involves disobeying man. Leaving out, of course, the
example of our Lord in His attitude towards the authorities
of the Church in His day, the priests have the authority
of the Apostles to sustain them in opposing wrong in high
places. The dignitaries of their day acted as the dignitaries
of the Church of England are to-day acting towards the priests
who give Benediction, they said: "What shall we do to
these men? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been
done by them is manifest to all, and we cannot deny it. But
that it spread no further among the people let us straitly
threaten them, that they speak henceforth to no man in this
Name. And they called them and commanded them not to
speak at all nor teach in the Name of Jesus. But Peter and
John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in
the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God,
judge ye, for we cannot but speak the things we have seen
and heard. So when they had further threatened them
they let them go, finding nothing how they might punish
them because of the people, for all men glorified God for that
which was done."
The Apostles did not obey this prohibition; and once
more they were brought before the Rulers, but without
violence because they feared the people. And the High
Priest asked them, "Did we not straitly command you that
you should not teach in this name? and behold you have
filled Jerusalem with this doctrine and intend to bring this
Man's blood upon us." Then Peter and the other Apostles
answered and said: "We ought to- obey God rather than
men," and" God has given the Holy Ghost to them that
obey Him."
Then they took counsel to slay them, but Gamaliel gave
them good advice-if the Bishops would only take it-he
said, "Take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as
touching these men. Refrain from them and let them alone
for if their counsel or their work be of men it will come to
nought, but if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it, lest haply
ye be found even to fight against God."
Then they beat them and repeated their prohibitions
and let them go. And that work was not of man, and the
rulers were found even to fight against God. If there be a
Gamaliel among the Bishops his advice is spurned. They
have been fighting God during the whole Catholic Revival,
and everything they opposed, so far from coming to nought,
has spread abroad and flourished; the surplice, lights mixed
chalice, Eastward position, incense, vestments, prayers for
the dead, the invocation of the Saints, the Sacrifice of the Mass,
the assumption of Our Lady, Reservation of the Sick, Reser-
vation for worship, and now Benediction. And still they go
on in the same old way, unable to punish because of the
people, still fearing, still threatening, still willing to beat the
faithful priests and lay people, and always compelled "to
let them go." Will they ever learn? When we hear the
Prince of the Apostles telling the dignataries, "Yon do
always resist the Holy Ghost," and when we hear the Bishop
of London telling the priests not to mind paining the hearts
of those who love Benediction, we seem to hear, and we are
brought to our bearings by, the voice of Authority, "See that
you offend not any of these little ones. It were better that
a millstone were hanged about his neck and he be drowned
in the depth of the sea than that he should offend one of
these little ones who believe in me."
The Bishop of London is not alone in his opposition to
the devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. Without a single
dissentient the Bench of Bishops in Secret Conclave made a
resolution which theymeant to enforce as a law, in which
they condemned" permanent reservation." They were only
just deterred from enforcing on the clergy and people an
intended prohibition of worshipping the Blessed Sacrament
Reserved. A thousand priests. threatened disobedience to
any such order. And the reasons then alleged can be urged
with tenfold weight in favour of disobeying any order pro-
hibiting Benediction. There is only too much reason to
think that the Bishops are tainted with various forms of
heresy in regard to the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament.
Some are Consubstantialists, some Zwinglians, and some'
Receptionists. Is it safe to trust implicitly, and obey the
orders of such men? How can you tell that your obedience
will not have the effect of betraying the faith? Were their
faith above suspicion the claim to absolute and unconditional
obedience could not safely be allowed. How much less when
they have yet to prove themselves worthy of the least
confidence ?
It is too late in the day for such men to claim absolute
obedience from priests who love the Truth more than their
livings, and our Lord under the species of bread, more than
their lives. And when they offer us hesitations for faith
and reasons instead of belief, and send forth edicts to repress
devotions, and always against the Blessed Sacrament, when
they say to those who lift up the Lord in Benediction; " Go
back, put Him away; send the people away; do not teach
any more in this name; you shall not give supreme worship
to Jesus in the Reserved Sacrament, nor give the blessing
of the Son of God under the cover of bread;" we reply as
the Prince of Apostles has taught us, " Whether we ought to
obey God rather than man, judge ye, we cannot but speak
and do the things we have seen and heard and know."
APPENDIX.
Justification of a Monstrance in Spite of Episcopal Order to
the Contrary.
1. A Monstrance for the Corpus Christi Procession is
one of those covered by the Ornaments Rubric. The Corpus
Christi Procession can be carried out in spite of Episcopal
opposition. Every Parish Priest has the right to have one.
2. The Roman rule cannot be applied to a Monstrance
any more than to our Rite of Holy Communion. Rome
does not allow interpolations in the Authorised Rite. But
we must have them or perish. So with the Monstrance.
3. Monstrance due to the Blessed Sacrament for
greater glory.
4. To assist devotion by the sight of the Host.
5. To spread the truth of the Blessed Sacrament, and
draw eyes and hearts to Him.
6. The Circumstances of the Time.-Episcopal Un-
belief must be met by Christ uplifted and seen. Episcopal
authority is dead and has been for a long time. It is not for
us to revive it under present conditions of unbelief and
method of appointment of bishops. Rule by the Prayer
Book is impossible, therefore it may be wise for us to treat
the Bishop as bound by the Prayer Book. They have asked
for it Let them feel the bonds while they watch the Church
march by. We have not a long time in which to get people
used to everything Catholic. When legislation comes it
will allow nothing but what is in vogue and generally accepted.
It is better to fight for the whole thing if you fight at all.
The Bishops will not allow a pyx any more than a Monstrance.
And the real fight will be over the rite used in Benediction.
A thing illegal is not made more legal by a lot of priests
agreeing to doit. It is just as legal for you to use a Monstrance
as for others to use a pyx even if allowed by a bishop. You
could prosecute the bishop for allowing a priest to have it,
while denying you the Monstrance, and he would have no
legal right to allow anyone to have a Monstrance. What he
cannot allow he can only disallow, therefore, it is absurd to
claim for him the right to act on the latest Roman decree.
According to that, and by prescription, every Roman bishop
can allow a Monstrance in every Church in his diocese-his
prohibition of one would be rarely used-and only in cases
where, on account of infidels or a large Protestant population,
as in Ulster, there might be a proximate danger of irreverence
leading to riots. When our Bishops allow the Monstrance
in nearly all the Churches of their dioceses they may be trusted
to use the power of stopping it only where harm would likely
come of its use. Let them set about the suppression of
Evening Communion and heresy and the restraint of silly
ritual before we acknowledge the right to prevent a Catholic
priest having Benediction with a Monstrance. It is ridiculous
to pretend that there is not one congregation in the diocese
fit to be trusted with Benediction.
The Catholic Revival has been carried on by men who
did not feel it necessary to clothe the Bishops in a Roman
authority. I believe our most hopeful line is to make the
Bishops feel their impotence under the Prayer Book and to
go on the same line until they realise that they must teach
the faith and govern according to Catholic law.
The Bishops have given their governing powers to the
State. The State Religion is at an end. The Bishops have
no more taught the Faith than they have governed the
Church. We do not send enquirers to them. The duty of
instructing enquirers falls on the Priests, who have been
the only real teachers of the Church here for 70 years.
We have strong justification for our position, because
as Catholics in the Church of England we have the ear of
the English people, and as pastors, we can lead them to
Christ.
While we are doing so, we must break up the State
Religion. Many priests have broken it up in their
parishes. We must smash the system by proving it to be
unworkable. We can prove it unworkable by getting the
people with us, giving them Catholic privileges, so that they
may fight for them and' think them worth fighting for.
They are now asking why they cannot have Benediction
in their own Parish Churches; and not have to go to the
Roman Catholic Chapel for it.
In my opinion the Monstrance is a comparative trifle
from the point of view of legality (ecclesiastical or State) in
comparison with the Litany of Loretto, the Canon of the Mass,
the Hail Mary, Litany of Saints, or indeed the use of any
Roman devotions, as the Stations of the Cross, or the Prayers
after Mass, or even Introits, Graduals, Agnus Dei, etc.
The men who began "Agnus Dei" in the Church of
England were monstrous rebels.
The Bishop could with some real authority order a priest
to have the Prayer Book, " none other or otherwise;" mark
the last word, and realise what special collects, Epistles and
Gospels outside the Prayer Book are-how illegal-how
hated by Bishops; how great an advance on a Monstrance.
This furniture question or ornaments is really absurdly
over-emphasised. Allow Bishop to prohibit a Monstrance
and where are we with the Stations of the Cross and
Confession?
The only difference really is that all these other things
have been won in the teeth of Episcopal opposition and in
the teeth of Acts of Parliament by men who were Ministers
of disobedience, while the Monstrance is not yet even known
to the vast majority of Catholics. They have never seen one.
And in their fear of a new thing they are by way of rating you
as a fierce rebel, when really you are a dear gentle soul shewing
them what a harmless thing a Monstrance is; that it does
not" go off" in your hand, and that it is a very suitable
thing for shewing the Lord of Glory under the cover of
bread.
There is no need for other priests, many or few, to agree
with you now. They will all have Monstrances very soon if
you keep yours. If you give up yours no one will have
Monstrances for a long time to come; because everyone is
afraid of the unknown and the very word is fearful. Hide
the Monstrance and you create a bogey. And then when
some one else does exactly what you are doing, he will have
a far hotter and never-ending opposition to face.
He will have the multitudes who have got to like the
pyx, opposing all innovations, and doing it as really pious
Catholics, which will give substance to their opposition;
therefore, stick to the Monstrance.
" And who knoweth whether thou art not sent to the
Kingdom for such a time as this."-Esther iv., 14.
" If thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time then
shall their enlargement and deliverance arise to the Church
from another place; and thou and thy father's house shall
be destroyed."-Esther iv., 14 .
|
