The Purpose of the Papacy Part 5

This gentleman is a Protestant, and the son of a Protestant clergyman, so we may be quite sure that he harbours no special leanings towards us, yet he speaks impartially as one who has not only read history, but read it without coloured spectacles. Perhaps Lord Macaulay puts the case as bluntly as any one, and we may as well quote him because he, too, was no Catholic, and held no brief for the Church of Rome.

This brilliant writer, who was, perhaps, an historian before all things, tells us that the work of the Reformation was the work, not of three saints, nor even of three ordinary decent men, but of three notorious murderers! These are not our words, but Macaulay's, and it is not our fault if this is his reading of history. We merely summon him as a Protestant witness. He calmly and deliberately states that the Reformation was "begun by Henry VIII., the murderer of his wives; was continued by Somerset, the murderer of his brother; and was completed by Elizabeth, the murderer of her guest". Not a very auspicious beginning, it must be confessed, and scarcely suggestive of the Divine afflatus. Those who planted the Catholic Church used no violence, and did not inflict death. No! on the contrary, they endured death, and their blood became the seed of the Church. And that is quite another story. In former days every one admitted the present Anglican Church to be the child of the Reformation. It was, to quote the Protestant historian, Child, "as completely the creation of Henry VIII., Edward's Council, and Elizabeth as Saxon Protestantism was of Luther." But now? Oh! now, "nous avons change tout cela," and history has received a totally different setting. A certain section of Anglicans, in these modern times, are labouring hard to persuade themselves and others that they can trace their Church back to the time of St. Augustine. They will by no means allow that they started into being only in the sixteenth century. In fact, it is quite pathetic to watch the strenuous efforts they make, and the extravagant means to which they have recourse, in order to lull themselves into the peaceful enjoyment of so sweet and consoling a delusion.

A delusion which a candid study of past history must sooner or later ruthlessly dispel, and which has not a shred of foundation in fact to support it. But we promised to point out WHY, in spite of its absolute absurdity, these good men, like the Bishop of London, persist in repeating and restating with ever-increasing vehemence that there has been no break in the continuity, and that the present Church of England is one with the Church of St. Bede, of St. Dunstan, of St.

Anselm, of St. Thomas, and of other pre-Reformation heroes; though they must surely know that there is not one amongst these glorious old Catholic saints who would not a thousand times sooner have gone to the stake and been burnt alive, than have accepted the Thirty-nine Articles, or than have joined the present Bishop of London in any of his religious services. Why do Anglicans make such heroic efforts to connect their Church with the past? Why do they advance an impossible theory? Why will they stubbornly affirm what history utterly denies?

Why do they a.s.sert, and with such emphasis, what no one but they themselves have the hardihood to believe? Why? For precisely the same reason that will induce a drowning man to grasp at a straw. In short, because even if they did not realise it before, they are now beginning to see that their very position depends upon their being able to make out some sort of case for continuity. They realise that to admit that the Church of England began in the sixteenth century is simply to cut the ground from underneath their feet. Therefore, purely in self-defence, they feel themselves constrained to cling to the continuity theory. It may be absurd, it may be unhistorical, it may be impossible and utterly repudiated by every impartial and honest man.

That cannot be helped. Impossible or not impossible; true or false, it is necessary for their very existence, so that, just as a drowning man catches at a straw, though it cannot possibly support him, so do these most unfortunate and hardly-pressed men clutch at and cling to the hollow theory of continuity. Sometimes, when off their guard, and in a less cautious mood, they will confess as much themselves. And what is more, we can provide our readers with an instance of such a confession. Many will well remember a well-known and distinguished Anglican divine, named Canon Malcolm MacColl. He died a few years ago, and we do not wish to say anything against him. Well, he wrote to _The Spectator_ in 1900. His letter may be seen in the issue of 22nd December for that year. In the course of this letter he makes the following admission: he declares that "to concede that the Church of England starts from the reign of Henry VIII. or Elizabeth is to surrender the whole ground of controversy with Rome. A Church," he continues, "which cannot trace its origin beyond the sixteenth century is obviously not the Church which Christ founded."

The late Anglican Canon MacColl is, of course, perfectly right, and his inference is strictly logical. A Church, however highly respectable and however richly endowed, which came into existence only 1,500 years after Christ, came into existence just 1,500 years too late, and cannot by any intellectual manoeuvring or stretching of the imagination be identified with the one Church established by Christ 1,500 years earlier. Consequently every member of the Anglican community finds himself, _nolens volens_, impaled on the horns of a truly frightful dilemma. For either he must frankly confess that his Church is not the Church of G.o.d, _i.e._, not the True Church, which (human nature being what it is) he can hardly be expected to do; or else he must a.s.sert that it goes back without any real break to the time of the Apostles; which though absolutely untrue, is the only other alternative. In a word, he finds himself in a very tight corner.

He knows, unless he is able to persuade himself of the truth of continuity, the very ground of his faith must slip from under his feet, and that he must give up pretending to be a member of Christ's mystical body altogether.

No wonder there is consternation in the Anglican camp. No wonder that sermons are preached, and history is re-edited and facts suppressed, and pamphlets are circulated to prove that black is white and that bitterness is sweet, and that false is true. No wonder there are shows and pageants and other attempts to prove the thing that is not. Poor deluded mortals! It is really pitiable to witness such straining and such pulling at the cords; as though truth--solid, imperturbable, eternal truth--could ever be dislodged or forced out of existence! No!

They may disguise the truth for a time, they may hide it for a brief period; just as a child, with a box of matches and a handful of straw, may, for awhile, hide the eternal stars. But as the stars are still there, and will appear again when the smoke has blown away, so will the truth reappear and a.s.sert itself, when men grow calm, and put aside pride and pa.s.sion and prejudice and self-interest. "Magna est veritas, et prevalebit!"

It has been said: "Mundus vult decipi"; the world wishes to be deceived; certainly the Anglican world does. But no one else is taken in. The Dissenter, the Nonconformist, and others who have no axe to grind, know well that "fine words b.u.t.ter no parsnips," and are far too shrewd to be deluded. Why, even the old Catholic cathedrals with their holy-water stoups, their occasional altars of stone, still remaining, their Lady chapels, and their niches for the images of the saints, as ill befit the present occupiers, and their modern English services, as a Court dress befits a clown.

That the sublime grotesqueness of the whole contention is clearly visible to other besides Catholic eyes is clearly proved by the occasional observations of the non-Catholic Press. Here, again, we will offer the gentle reader a specimen. The _Daily News_ is one of London's big dailies. It has a wide circulation. It is representative of a large section of the English people. Let us select a pa.s.sage from one of its leaders. Speaking of the arrogance of the Anglican Church, which, as compared to the Catholic Church, is but a baby, still in long clothes, it gives expression to its views in the following caustic lines. One might almost imagine it were the _Tablet_ or _Catholic Times_ that we are about to quote from, but, nothing of the kind, it is the Nonconformist organ, the _Daily News_. It writes: "The Anglicans may still persist in patronising the Roman Catholics as a new set of modern dissidents under the old name. It is the sort of vengeance which, under favourable circ.u.mstances, the mouse may enjoy at the expense of the elephant. If he can mount high enough by artificial means, the smallest of created things may contrive to look down on the greatest, and to affect to compa.s.sionate his want of range. For purposes of controversy, the Anglican could talk of himself as a terrestrial ancient-of-days, and regret the rage for innovation, which led, not, of course, to his separation from Rome, but to Rome's separation from him! So the pebble, if determined to put a good face on it, might wonder what had become of the rock, and recite the parable of the return of the prodigal to the Atlas Range"; and so forth. The fact is that every unprejudiced man, who has so much as a mere bowing acquaintance with the facts of history, knows perfectly well that before the sixteenth century the Church in England was united to the Holy See, and rested where Christ Himself had built it, _viz._, on Peter, the rock. Whereas, after the sixteenth century, it became a State Church, dependent, not on Peter, but upon Parliament, and as purely local, national, and English as the British Army or the British Navy. Bramhall tells us that, "whatsoever power our laws did divest the Pope of, they invested the King with" (_Schism Guarded_, p.

340).

We dealt in the last chapter with the relation between the pre-Reformation Archbishops and Metropolitans and the Pope, and we saw how each in turn swore obedience to the Vicar of Christ as his spiritual sovereign. We will now conclude the present chapter by transcribing a typical address presented by another representative body of men to the Pope, in past times. It is the year 1427. Now Chicheley, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had been accused at Rome of some fault or indiscretion, so the other Bishops of the province met together for the purpose of defending him. With this end in view, they address a letter to Pope Martin V. It begins as follows:--

"Most Blessed Father, one and only undoubted Sovereign Pontiff, Vicar of Jesus Christ upon earth, with all prompt.i.tude of service and obedience, kissing most devoutly your blessed feet," and so forth.

They then proceed to defend their Metropolitan, and in doing so declare that "the Archbishop of Canterbury is, Most Blessed Father, a most devoted son of your Holiness and of the Holy Roman Church". Nay, more; they go on to testify that "he is so rooted in his loyalty, and so unshaken in his allegiance especially to the Roman Church, that it is known to the whole world, and ought to be known to the city (_i.e._, Rome) that he is the most faithful son of the Church of Rome, promoting and securing, with all his strength, the guarantees of her liberty".

Now, what we wish to know is, how in the world can a man be "the most faithful son of the Church of Rome," so rooted in his loyalty to her that "his allegiance is known to the whole world," and yet not be a Roman Catholic? The Bishops then add that "they go down upon their knees" to beseech the Pope's favour for the Archbishop, and in doing so declare that they are "the most humble sons of your Holiness and of the Roman Church".

Then Archbishop Chicheley follows up their letter, by writing one himself, in which he says: "Most Blessed Father, kissing most devotedly the ground beneath your feet, with all prompt.i.tude of service and obedience, and whatsoever a most humble creature can do towards his lord and master" (_i.e._, domino et creatori--literally "creator," in the sense that the Pope had made or "created" him archbishop) and so forth. Then he goes on to explain that "Long before now, were it not for the perils of the journey and the infirmities of my old age, I would have made my way, Most Blessed Father, to your feet, and have accepted most obediently whatsoever your Holiness would have decided" (see Wilkins, vol. iii. pp. 471 and 486). Surely, no Archbishop or Bishop could use language of such profound reverence and of such perfect loyalty and obedience, unless he recognised the Pope as the true representative of Christ upon earth, invested with His divine authority ("To Thee do I give the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven"). There is a whole world of difference between such men and the Anglican Prelates of to-day who take the oath of homage to the King, and say: "I do hereby declare that your Majesty is the only supreme governor of this your realm, in spiritual and ecclesiastical things, as well as temporal".

CHAPTER IV.

KING EDWARD AND THE POPE.

In a previous chapter, we promised to tell of a famous letter written by one of our greatest kings to the Pope of his day. Let us then introduce this interesting historical incident without further preamble or delay.

The King of whom we are about to speak is King Edward III., who reigned over this land for more than fifty years, that is to say, from 1327 to 1377. The historian Hume tells us that, in general estimation, his reign was not only one of the longest, but that it was considered also "one of the most glorious that occurs in the annals of our nation" (vol. ii., p. 297). It is important to remember, further, that Edward was no timid weakling, ready to yield to others through weakness or fear. Quite the contrary. He was strong, war-like, and courageous. Hume informs us that "he curbed the licentiousness of the great; that he made his foremost n.o.bles feel his power, and that they dared not even murmur against it, and that his valour and conduct made his knights and warriors successful in most of their enterprises"

(_id._, p. 497). Yet, in spite of his strong, independent and man-like character--or shall we not rather say because of it?--he ever showed himself to be a most loyal child of the Catholic Church. He considered it no indication of weakness to acknowledge the spiritual supremacy and jurisdiction of the Sovereign Pontiff, and to subscribe himself as a most obedient son of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, as we shall now proceed to prove, in spite of all the frogs and jackdaws that the Bishop of London appeals to as witnesses to the contrary.

Now, it so fell out that, in the second decade of his reign, certain persons, with perhaps more zeal than discretion, began to lodge sundry complaints against the King. They carried stories to Rome, and sought to prejudice the Pope, Benedict XII., against King Edward. In the course of time the King got wind of what was going on, and found that the suspicions of the Pope had been raised against him. Now, what did Edward do? If he had been a modern Anglican, he would have snapped his fingers at the Pope. Forgetful of Our Lord's words, "Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the Kingdom of heaven," he would have proudly declared that no Pope or foreign Bishop could claim any jurisdiction in England, for that he himself was, in his own realm, the supreme authority in things ecclesiastical as well as in things temporal. Such would have been the natural and obvious course for him to have taken. That is to say had he been a modern Anglican.

But since he was not a modern Anglican, but a genuine Roman Catholic to his very backbone, like all the rest of his kingdom, he did not act in that imperious, off-hand way, but was very much distressed and concerned, as a loving son would be, who had incurred the displeasure of a generous father. Finally, in the thirteenth year of his reign, that is to say, in 1339, he determined to address a letter to the Sovereign Pontiff, firstly to protest against these accusations, secondly to a.s.sure the Pope of his innocence, and thirdly to beg him to take no notice of those who had been calumniating him.

The doc.u.ment is a very remarkable one, and from the point of view of continuity (of which it completely disposes) it is of very considerable interest.

Before you read it, and ponder over its contents, let me remind you that the writing of a letter in those days was a very serious business. There was no post such as we have now, and special couriers had to be despatched from London to Rome. Paper had not as yet been invented, so the message had to be carefully written, by paid scribes, on vellum or parchment. Further, a letter from a King to the Pope was not a thing to be dashed off on the spur of the moment, but to be carefully thought out, and expressed with great accuracy. The King would summon his advisers, and his Secretary of State, and probably consult some of the Bishops and weigh each word before committing his message to parchment. In short, the doc.u.ment would represent his own deliberate convictions as well as those of his official advisers and counsellors.

After addressing the Pope in the usual respectful and filial way, he says: "Let not the envious information of our detractors find place in the meek mind of your Holiness, or create any sinister opinion of a son" [observe the King calls himself a son of the Pope], "who after the manner of his predecessors" [so previous Kings were as loyal as he] "shall always firmly persist in amity and obedience to the Apostolic See. Nay, if any such evil suggestion concerning your son should knock for entrance at your Holiness's ears, let no belief be allowed it till the son who is concerned be heard, who trusts and always intends both to say and to prove that each of his actions is just before the tribunal of your Holiness, _presiding over every creature, which to deny is to maintain heresy_." Nothing could be stronger than this last sentence; but we will return to that later.

Then the King goes on to speak of others, who are dependent upon him, and proceeds as follows: "And further, this we say, adjoining it as a further evidence of our intention and greater devotion, that if there be any one of our kindred or allies who walks not as he ought in the way of _obedience towards the Apostolic See_, we intend to bestow our diligence--and we trust to no little purpose--that leaving his wandering course, he may return into the path of duty and walk regularly for the future".

From these words it is clear that the King of England, not satisfied with obeying the Pope himself, likewise insisted upon all under his authority obeying him likewise. Indeed, he would have made short work of those who should refuse to do so. Then, alluding to some reproach, admonition or censure which he had received from the Pope, he goes on to express himself in words strangely out of harmony with the whole tone and spirit of modern Anglicanism. They are as follows:--

"That the Kings of England, our predecessors, those ill.u.s.trious champions of Christ, those defenders of the Faith, those" [listen!]

"_zealous a.s.serters of the rights of the Holy Roman Church, and devout observers of her commands_, that they or we should deserve this unkindness, we neither know nor believe. And though, for this very reason many do say--though we say not so--that this aiding of our enemies against us, seems neither the act of a father nor of a mother towards us, but rather of a stepmother; yet this notwithstanding, we constantly avow that we are" [remember, it is still the King of England speaking], "and shall continue to be, to your Holiness and to your seat, a devout and humble son, and not a step-son".

Can any one imagine greater reverence or greater loyalty to the Vicar of Christ than is shown forth in these words? Can you, dear readers, by any stretch of the imagination, conceive any one who is not a Roman Catholic giving vent to such sentiments as are here expressed? Have words lost their plain meaning for the Bishop of London, and for those who (we must in charity suppose, _blindly_) follow him?

The letter is a long one, and we need not transcribe the whole of it, but we will offer for your consideration just one more paragraph. The King writes: "Your Holiness best knows the measure of good and just, in whose hands are the keys to open and to shut the gates of heaven on earth, as the _fulness of your power_ and the excellence of your judicature requires.... We being ready to receive information of the truth, from your sacred tribunal, _which is over all_," etc.

Observe these words were written over five hundred years ago, long before the present Anglican Establishment was so much as dreamed of; yet, even if King Edward III. had actually foreseen the craze that would seize Anglicans of to-day to prove that he, and his subjects were not loyal Roman Catholics, he could not have expressed his Catholicity and his loyalty to the Vicar of Christ in more unmistakable or in more explicit terms.

Whom shall we believe? King Edward III. himself, who, in the above words, declares he is a staunch Roman Catholic, and an obedient son of the Pope, ready to defend his rights against all, or the present Bishop of London, who declares he was not?

There is one sentence in the King's letter which is especially worthy of consideration, as it is so pregnant with meaning. We refer to the following: knowing that "your Holiness presides over every creature, _which to deny is heresy_".

You will observe that the King not only believes, but that he here practically makes an explicit profession of faith in the spiritual supremacy of St. Peter and his successors, the Popes. In fact, he not only admits and confesses the Pope's supremacy to be true, which is one thing, but he declares it to be a _revealed_ truth, taught by Our Blessed Lord Himself, which is a great deal more. How does he do this?

Suffer us to explain.

To deny any truth of religion is wrong and sinful, but it is not necessarily and always heretical. Heresy is not the denial of any kind of truth: it is the denial only of a special form of truth. It is the denial of those truths which have been taught by Jesus Christ and the Apostles. But the King explicitly declares in his letter to the Holy Father that to deny the Pope's spiritual supremacy over all is not only wrong, not only sinful, but that it is to be guilty of the specially horrible sin of heresy. His words are: "It is to maintain heresy". Yet Anglicans still fondly cling to the delusion that the Church in England in the time of Edward III. is in unbroken continuity with the Church of England in the time of King Edward VII.!

But, to continue. It is interesting to note that the Pope, Benedict XII., in due course replies to this letter from his "devout and humble son," as Edward describes himself. He begins by expressing his satisfaction that His "most dear Son in Christ King Edward of England"

should thus "follow the commendable footsteps of your progenitors, Kings of England who," he goes on to say, "were famous for the fulness of their devotion and faith towards G.o.d and the Holy Roman Church".

Will the present Bishop of London, we wonder, be good enough to explain how Pope Benedict XII. could possibly tell a renowned King of England that his progenitors, that is to say, the Kings of England who had preceded him, were famous--mark the word--"_famous_ for the _fulness_ of their devotion and faith towards G.o.d _and the Holy Roman Church_," if they were all the while cut off from the Roman Church, and denounced as heretics by that Church, if, in short, they were of one and the same faith as the Anglicans are to-day? We pause for a reply. Of course we know that Anglicans are very hard pressed, and in a quandary, and that some allowance must be made for drowning men when they stretch forth their trembling hands to clutch at straws. But really the claim to continuity, however vital to them, should hardly be put forward in the face of such clear and overwhelming evidence of its falsity. The ultimate effects of such vain efforts to prove black to be white can only be to make them ridiculous, and to discredit them in the eyes of honest men.

In conclusion, we are persuaded that some may feel curious or interested to see and read King Edward's letter for themselves, and in its entirety. Some may even wish to satisfy themselves that we are stating actual facts, and not romancing; so let us inform any such persons that the letter quoted belongs to the thirteenth year of King Edward III.'s reign (An. Regni xiii. Ed. Rex III.). The original, if not at the Vatican, should be either at the Record Office or at the British Museum. The English version, of which we have made use, may be found on pages 126-30 of _The History of Edward III._, by J. Barnes, Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and published in 1688. Had this history been composed in more modern times, this famous letter to Pope Benedict would probably have been quietly suppressed or omitted.

But in 1688 the theory of continuity had not been invented by the father of lies, to bolster up a lost cause, so the letter actually appears in Barnes' History, to tell its own unvarnished tale: and to bear its uncompromising testimony to the truth.

In the meanwhile, time wears on, and the end draws near when each man will have to give an account of his life and conduct to the Supreme Judge of the living and the dead. And it will go hard with us if we turn our back upon the truth. G.o.d is speaking in this England of ours, and shedding His light, and many are finding their way back to that glorious Faith of which they were cruelly robbed at the "Reformation".

"To-day, if you shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts," but lend an attentive ear to His invitation, and pray that you may have courage enough to join hands once again with Bede, and Dunstan, Anselm, and Thomas a Becket, and with Edward III. and his royal predecessors, all faithful sons of St. Peter and the Holy See, and to enter that Church which was built by G.o.d Incarnate on Peter, and upon no other foundation; which still rests securely upon Peter, and which (if there be any truth in G.o.d's promises) will continue to rest on Peter till the end of time. "Upon this Rock (Peter) will I build My Church, and the gates of h.e.l.l (_i.e._, the powers of darkness) shall never prevail against it."

=Also by Rt. Rev. JOHN S. VAUGHAN, D.D.,= =Bishop of Sebastopol.= =To be had of all Catholic Booksellers.=

1. CONCERNING THE HOLY BIBLE: ITS USE AND ABUSE.

With a Letter from H.E. Cardinal LOGUE.

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H.E. Cardinal LOGUE writes to Bishop Vaughan: "You are to be congratulated on the success with which you have treated your important subject."

_N.B.--The volume has already been translated into French and Italian, and is now being translated into other foreign languages._