The Voice from Worcester
No. 2
Loyalty to
The Church of England
THIS tract is for those who belong to the Church of England. It is intended to show the ground of real loyalty to the Church of England. It is meant to keep Catholics in the Church of England to show them that loyalty to the Church of England requires them to be Catholics who are loyal to Catholic Truth, to Catholic practice and to Catholic Government.
Loyalty to the Church of England is only possible to Catholics. Protestants are essentially disloyal to the Church of England because they can only be protestants either by ignorance of what she is, or perversion of what she teaches, and blindness to God's dealings with her in the last hundred years.
The tract especially appeals to those who are called Papalists in the Church of England. They believe in Corporate Union with Rome. They work for the restoration of full Catholic Government, for express Catholic teaching by the Episcopate, and for the encouragement by authority of all devout Catholic Practices allowed in the West under the authority of the Pope.
There are some of our people who are inclined to give up hope for the Church of England and to make their submission to Rome purely for their own sakes. To do so would be to be false to their brethren who live for the restoration of Catholicism; for the conversion of the official Establishment; and for the Catholicising of the English people.
To leave the Church of England would be the abandonment of a trust laid on them by Almighty God, the dereliction of a duty to the Church of their birth, and a desertion of those priests from whom they have learned the Way of Salvation, to whom they owe their love of the Catholic Church, and from whose lives they have learned their devotion to the Sacraments.
These words are not words of abuse. They are used solely to show the danger of individual Secession of those whose eyes are already open to all Catholic Truth and whose lives are framed according to the standards of the whole Catholic Church.
The reason for this tract is laid deep in the pity which the writer feels for Catholics in the Church of England whose lives are cast in places where the ordinary means of grace are not provided, where reverence is an unknown virtue in priest and people: and where the barest minimum of decency is unknown. Catholics in such places are in a minority, they feel they have no influence, and that they can do nothing to improve the state of things. They are treated with contempt. They are looked upon as cranks. Both Bishop and the favoured clergy regard them as a nuisance. Often they are told to "go to Rome" by people who think that to go to Rome is to go to hell; so little are they valued, in such light esteem are they held.
Devout Catholics can stand such treatment when they see some signs that things are improving. But patience may be tried too far: and they may look to Rome with longing eyes as an escape from present distress and constant annoyance.
What is here aimed at is to show devout and loyal Catholics that bad treatment of them is no sign that God desires their removal to Rome. The hardest thing to bear for a Catholic is a priest who does not believe in his own orders, who neither goes to Confession himself, nor offers the benefit of absolution to other sinners, who does not believe in the divinity of the Blessed Sacrament, who openly asserts that it is not a Sacrifice, that it is only one form of God's Word, the Bible being another and better, who thinks that women can be priests to "take the service of Holy Communion" and to "assure people of God's forgiveness." The patience of Catholics is tried by such men and by the Bishops who promote them and support them. In such circumstances Catholic Clergy have to learn how to behave appropriately as priests who have a proper sense of the dignity of the priesthood. They need not go to Rome. Priests of the Church of England who go over to Rome will find that there is less room in England for the exercise of their ministry than in the Church of England. There are enough Roman priests for the few Catholics who need their ministration. While wishing them Godspeed in their mission to the pagans of this country we need not join their ranks. Every Priest of the Church of England who is tempted to go to Rome should say: "I am doing a Great Work and I cannot come down."
For the Roman Clergy in our midst and especially for the Roman Hierarchy there is a wide field of usefulness. England will no doubt look more and more to the Roman hierarchy for guidance on great questions such as divorce and on fundamental Christian doctrine. It is their province as it was of St. Peter, when they themselves are restored to strengthen their brethren. The Roman Clergy in the Parishes are welcome to make converts of the vast numbers of people in England who know little of God and nothing of the Catholic Church.
Nevertheless, what Newman said nearly a hundred years ago remains true: he said that England is for England's Church. By saying so Newman did not mean to subscribe to the heresy of the Divine Right of National Churches. He only meant that the Christian body with the best chance of gaining a hearing from the English is the Church of England. He did not mean that the Church of England as Reformed and Separated from Rome would ever convert England. Such a thing is too absurd to imagine. For a Reformed Church separated from the rest of Catholic Christendom is a contradiction in terms. A Church separated from the Catholic World cannot be called reformed. What Newman at that time worked for was the revival of the Church of England. He meant that the Church of England with the Catholic Faith and Practice and with the Mission of the Divine Head would have the best chance of being heard by the English people.
What we hold is that the Church of England under her proper jurisdiction, with her renewed Faith and with the Catholic use
of the Sacraments, with a Catholic Hierarchy, Catholic in ideal and in fact, would draw the English into the fold of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Whatever praise we give to Roman Catholics in England we cannot say that they have half as good a chance of converting England as the Church of England can have when brought back to her old Catholic position as the Mother and Teacher of the English.
The business and the splendid mission of Catholics in the Church of England is first to the Church of England herself; and through her to the English people. We are sent to get the Church of England back to her old Cathlic position. So far from the task being a forlorn hope, it shows every sign of having the blessing of God. People must be smitten with every sort of blindness, historical, political, social and religious if they cannot see what marvellous changes have taken place in the Church of England in the last hundred years. It is but a short century since the Tracts for the Times sounded the Catholic rallying tocsin in the Church of England. One movement succeeded another with the result that Churches were cleansed and adorned, the Holy Ghost moved on the Church and in thousands of Churches He gave beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. The Church began again to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
The ritual and High Church Movement did an immense work. It is somewhat fashionable to deride the High Church Movement. It is better to be careful to observe the order and method of the Spirit of God than to criticise the agents of the Revival. The Oxford Movers were High Churchmen in the sense that they had high ideals associated with their belief in the Church, and they were High Church in contrast with the sort of people who minimise the position of Bishops and Priests and of Holy Order and the Sacraments, whose sort we have at large in our midst to-day. The Tracts of the times were the product of Theologians and Scholars. They put doctrine first and ritual almost nowhere. Then came the High Church, the people so often ridiculed by Catholics. We owe them gratitude for getting people used to decency and order in our Churches. Catholics have a much easier task as the result of the work done by the derided ritualists. When a Catholic Priest goes into a High Church parish now, he knows that he will have very little to say about ritual: and he need make very few if any changes in the outward appearance of things in the Church. He can devote his energies solely to the teaching of Catholic truth and the inculcation of Catholic Devotions. He will be busy about The Blessed Sacrament: our Blessed Lady: the actual practice of Confession: and he will feel his way to drop anything which is of meaningless High Churchism, sub-stituting for it things which give outward expression to his teaching. Images of Our Lady and the Saints will be introduced
and lots of other things, as holy water, votive candles and other sacramentals.
But he will bless the High Church man who preceded him for his fight over the outside decencies, the six Altar lights, cassock and surplices, vestments and the Stations of the Cross, and many other simple things now everywhere accepted, but once vehemently opposed in the Parishes.
Catholics in the Church of England are debtors to the High Church for decency and order, to the Broad Church for sweet reasonableness, and to the Low Church for their pious use of the Bible and the practice of prayer. We need not attach over-whelming importance to ritual as the High Church were inclined to do, nor need we copy the very contradiction of their name in the hostility to Catholics and their narrow sectarianism of the Broad Church, nor the total lack in the Low Church of the sacramentalism which is of the very essence of Christianity. Let Catholics realise their heritage, St. Paul, at a time when for saying so he risked great unpopularity and misunderstanding, said he was a debtor to Greeks and to barbarians. We can say that we are debtors to High Church, Broad Church and Low Church, as well as to Nonconformists and to Roman Catholics. Pious Nonconformists are flying from the semi-political religions of their sects to find freedom in the Catholic Church. They naturally tend towards the English Church rather than towards the Roman. We benefit by the simplicity of the piety of the Methodist now turned Catholic, which piety is so like that of Roman Catholics in Catholic Countries. We also benefit by the Roman Catholics in England though the benefit be indirect. The benefit is that while the prejudice against Rome is still widespread and their teaching is still much spoken against the average man has learned broadly what their teaching is; and all we have to say is "their teaching is just the same as ours. There is no difference." So we can let people know where we stand. In steering a boat or in driving a motor car the expert helmsman or driver makes it a rule to show other traffic where he is going. It should be the unbroken and unbreakable rule of the Catholic in the Church of England to show where he is going: and to express unswerving adhesion to all other Catholics.
The point to be driven home in view of all these facts is that all sections of the population look to the Church of England tor their religion. And it is the privilege of Catholics to have the opportunity of using the Church of England platform or pulpit for the proper business of the Church of England which is to make the people Catholics by the Grace of God.
That the Catholics make a legitimate use of the prestige of the Church of England should not need arguing. But the ignorant and prejudiced think that Catholics are not only disloyal to the Church of England but positively dishonest to use the pulpits, Churches, Parochial Buildings and emoluments for the multiplication of Catholics and for the propagation of the Catholic Faith. They are called cuckoos in the nest or intruders. The fact is that Catholics are the only loyal members of the Church of England for they are the only people who believe, profess and practise the Catholic Faith which is the Faith of the Church of England. As for dishonesty, it cannot be dishonest to speak the truth in love. When people speak of Catholics as being dishonest it is a sure sign that they do not believe what they profess every time they say the Nicene Creed: for they say solemnly before God in Church that they believe in One Church. They betray the One Church by their insistence that there are several Churches of which the Church of England is one. They evidently reveal the fact that they think that Henry VIII made a new Church and called it the Church of England. If the Church of England dates from Henry VIII it cannot be the Church of Christ any more than they are Churches of Christ which have arisen since, as the Baptists, Methodists and the Presbyterians. They are all new churches and if newness is a sign of soundness the newer the sect the sounder the Church. So that the Church of England would only be one of many new "Churches" and certainly not the newest. The Sectaries claim to be true because they are new. The Church of England claims to go back to Pentecost through her Roman lineage. She vehemently denies that she is new while she as vehemently asserts that she is true. They only can be loyal to the Church of England who believe that there is only One Church to which the Church of England belongs.
It is offensive to say that Catholics are disloyal and dishonest: when they are loyal to Christ's truth and Christ's Church and while they are doing their utmost to drive back that wave of heresy launched by the reformers.
The Catholic Movement in the Church of England is a movement for binding together all parties in the Church of England into one.
Catholics do not seek separation from their fellow Christians, from their bishops, archdeacons and rural deans, much less from their Primate and Archbishops. They have no intention of forming a ramp and making a march to Rome.
Every individual Secessionist weakens the power of Catholics over the whole Corporation of the Church of England: and over England and its Parliament.
Remember and lay it well to heart as an axiom that anything that is contrary to Catholic Truth has nothing to do with the Church of England. It has no claim on our faith even if it be enshrined in some Formulary or Article and backed by the authority of some lawyer or by some official believer in the Divinity of National Churches and in the Headship of Princes. It may have the authority of Parliament and of the Privy Council, but, if it is contrary to the Catholic Faith and the Rule of the Universal Church, you need not believe it nor practice it.
What is contrary to Catholic Truth cannot gain Catholic Authority by being ordered in National Prayer Books and imposed by Civil Law. Catholics ignore uncatholic orders and uncanonical commands.
Catholics in the Church of England are far too easily disturbed by the pontifical utterances of men in high places who have no thought for Christ's One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church: and who foist their own opinions upon the Faithful. Why should Catholics of all people take any notice of such persons ?
What happened in the sixteenth century was that a pirate crew seized the ship of the Church of England, killed and banished the rightful Captain, officers and crew, and sailed away with their prize. The Catholics are trying to right this wrong and they must be friends with the Roman Catholics who are doing the same thing in another way. The Ship of the Church of England must be again restored to her true Captain, officers and crew.
While we in no way desire to hinder the legitimate work of the Roman Catholics nor even to prescribe to them what we think to be the object of the Holy Father in England we need not hesitate to give strong expression to our own conviction that individual Secessions of Catholics from the Church of England can but set back the true restoration of the English Church and so postpone the time when England can again be called Catholic.
Catholic Reunionists in the Church of England are aware that they are misunderstood and misrepresented not only by their own protestant brethren in Nonconformist circles and in the Church of England but also by some Roman Catholics in England. Reunionists in the Church of England have reason to believe that their work is welcomed on the Continent of Europe, in America, and by Roman Ecclesiastics in high places in the British Isles and in the Colonies. They have proofs that the attitude of the Roman press and of Roman Parish Priests has taken a distinctly favourable turn towards them in recent years. They will do nothing to disturb the advance towards unity of spirit which is growing up between Catholics in the Church of England and Roman Catholics. They do not ask Rome to recede from any of the defined truths generally held by Roman Catholics. They desire to educate the whole Church of England to the same end that all Catholics have in view. They unite with the great desire of many popes for the Conversion of England and for the reclama-tion of England from Protestantism and Atheism to the Faith of Christ and to the Church of Christ.
Catholics in the Church of England should be discouraged from leaving the Church of England. Their work for God and for England is England's restored Church. They are the re-builders of England's Church from within. Roman Catholics are doing it from without. Both must be true to the place where God has put them.
In every great work there must be a controlling and directing mind. In the matter of Rebuilding the Church in England God is the Director and Controller. Some He places among the Romans and some in the Church of England. You must stay where put. God's call is God's enabling. It is God's work so you must stay in God's place. That is your place where God has put you. It is dangerous to take yourself from where God has put you.
To every man in whatsoever religion he be brought up, God says: "Stay where you are until I call you. When the time is ripe I will call My sons and daughters out of Egypt." From the Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, and Church Army come all sorts of religions gathered to the Catholic Church, some go direct to Rome, some by way of the Church of England. When God calls you out of your place, you must arise and obey. When there is an overwhelming power upon you, urging you to leave the heresy in which you had been cradled, at your peril you refuse to leave that religious body and answer the call. When God says: "Arise shine for thy light has come," you must cast off the heretical dogmas, and the darkness of bigotry and let in the light of the glory of God in His Church. When that call comes to protestants in the Church of England, it is a call to open their eyes to the truth of the Church of England. It is a call to take your place with those who are rebuilding the Church from within. It is not a call to leave the Church of England. When persecutors of Catholics are converted they should make reparation for their former mischief by a life of service in the Church of England, like, St. Paul, from a persecutor, became an Apostle of the Catholic Church: and as the prophet foretold of many when he said: "The sons also that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee: and they that despised thee shall bow them-selves down at the soles of thy feet and they shall call thee, The City of the Lord the Zion of the Holy One of Israel."
A word must be added for those Catholics who are in Parishes where, by no fault of theirs, they are deprived of the normal means of grace. Such people can expect some very special help from God. They must go to such Masses as are provided. They will make Communion when possible, always fasting. They will persevere in prayer that God will send them a Confessor, that reverence may be increased: that Catholic truth be preached and taught in the Sunday and Day Schools. Such isolated Catholics are specially called to prayer: theirs is a glorious vocation.
The writer knows of many who suffered sore deprivations in parishes to which they were sent by God's providence, and where they could only close their eyes to the drab irreverence even in the celebration of the Mass, where Mass was always Low Mass, and only said on certain Sundays, and never on Weekdays, either Saints' days or ferias. These faithful souls persevered in attend-ance at Mattins and Evensong and they prayed and worked for a
change for the better. Sometimes after a long time the change came. God moved the Vicar in some cases to have Mass every Sunday: and on Saints' days. Then Sung Mass once a month and a Daily Mass, with gradually progressive teaching of at least a pious kind. So that where there was desolation there came to be at least a minimum of Sacramental grace. If God has called you to Himself in the Church of England He has called you to be a Saint in the Church of England. The fact that there is some scarcity of Sacramental grace will not hinder God from supplying you with special grace in the emergency into which He has thrust you for His own purposes. He will not fail you. No man can do without Sacramental grace which is within reach. But where it cannot be had God can save you without it. There are multitudes in heaven who without much Sacramental grace beyond Holy Baptism became Saints by the special graces God gave them because they served Him well where He placed them. For such people it is a fact that God specially honours their prayer. No Catholic would substitute personal prayer for Sacraments, which may be termed the prayers of the Church. But when Sacraments cannot be had God gives grace without measure to those who pray. To stay where God has placed you till God Himself removes you is a principle on which Saints are made, and one that gives great confidence in God and the satisfaction which comes from the knowledge that God is managing your life, and that it is not self-controlled but God-controlled.
Remember the Church of England is the Mother that bare you, to her you owe your salvation. She looks to you to help her out of the hands of those that oppress her. She ought not to call in vain.
As in times when the Nation calls for help all purely personal considerations are set aside in order to render help to the whole body, so when the Church calls, you must not pet yourself and go where all is easy and where you expect to find everything comfortable and free from all evils. It terrifies me to think what disaster awaits your disillusionment: for there is no such place in the whole Catholic Church which corresponds to your glamourous imagining. You must join those who are rebuilding the Church of England, and say with Nehemiah: "The God of heaven He will prosper us; therefore we His servants will rise and build."
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