Sometimes – not very
often – I have GREAT THOUGHTS; about the sweep of history, about
the place of the Church in the present age, and where history is
leading us.
I grew up in Plymouth
(England): whence the Pilgrim Fathers set of for the New World; and
whence Francis Drake, after finishing his game of bowls, went off to
finish the Armada. His statue on Plymouth Hoe bears the inscription
“He blew with his wind, and they were scattered” - claiming that
the defeat of the Armada was proof of God's love for England and the
Church of England. All this I gladly accepted: with the caveat that
the Church of England was really the Catholic Church of this land,
just 'with it's face washed'. We were truly Catholic; had not the
Archbishop said that “The Church of England has no Doctrine of its
own,only the Doctrine of the Catholic Church”?
And that Archbishop
was Fisher, the headmasterly pontiff who was no friend of
Anglo-Catholicism.
Little by little, my doubts about this 'catholic' Church of England began to grow.
Throughout the nineteenth century the ideas of the Tractarians had
taken hold, despite a Protestant backlash. By the mid twentieth
century, we were in serious conversations with the Roman Catholic
Church; but by the time I was a member of the General Synod I saw
back-tracking. Instead of the ARCIC agreements, the bulk of the CofE
seemed happier with the Lima accord. We were all baptized, so we were
all the same really. Then came Porvoo and the agreements about the
interchangeability of ministry with Scandinavian Lutherans.
But the rapprochement
with the Catholic Church still had an impact; from York Diocese the
Archbishop sent a little delegation to Mechlen/Brussels, to remember
the Malines Conversations, and I was a participant. Perhaps the tide
was still flooding towards Rome?
Then, the Ordination of
Women to the priesthood was approved in Synod with the necessary
majority of two-thirds, though it was a close-run thing. A Cardinal
had been invited to speak about how Rome regarded what we were doing;
he warned us that our choice would either be for a Catholic Future or
a Protestant one. The majority opted for the Protestant course.
I was asked by George
Carey to help in holding things together. I would only do so if what
the C of E was doing in ordaining women was reversible. Synod had said
that nothing could be final until the whole Church, Eastern and
Western, agreed. Since that awaited the Greek Kalends, I became
Bishop of Richborough. It was a battle. In the parishes, I was well
received; after all, the people had asked for me to be their chief
Pastor. In the House of Bishops it was very different; and the Dean
of Westminster, where I had been consecrated, expressed his outrage
that I continued to be opposed to women's ordination.
He had thought
my job was to persuade reluctant Anglo-Catholics to join the
majority. Not so - in my innocence, or foolishness, I still believed
that the Church of England was what it claimed to be, part of the
One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church – and that the task of
Anglo-Catholics was to convince other Anglicans that our church was
NOT Protestant.
Since my retirement
that has become increasingly impossible. The Church of England has
decided that it can determine the doctrine of Ordination, and despite
the protestations of Rome and Constantinople it believes all doctrine
is at the disposal of a General Synod of the Church of England.
Indeed, the law has declared that is exactly where the Church of
England stands. It is perfectly capable of altering any doctrine, not
just concerning Holy Orders but even about the Holy Trinity or any
other part of theological belief. Synod is sovereign.
So from the
Nationalisation of the Church by Henry VIII and Elizabeth the State
Church has veered ever further from its catholic origins. Meanwhile
Catholicism in England has battled, and grown, and flourished.
Persecution and penal laws gave way to a grudging tolerance in the
19th Century. In the twentieth a reigning monarch even
made an official visit to the Pope. From a trickle of converts in the
1840s there has become a flood in the present age. I am told (can it
really be so?) that a quarter of the Catholic Clergy in England began
as Anglicans. Now as a Catholic priest I can say a mid-week Mass when
there are forty or fifty Communicants – not in the middle of some
great city, but in a little country church. Yet such numbers would be
thought wonderful at a Sunday celebration in many large Anglican
churches.
What began with the
Caroline Divines in the 17th Century, blossomed with
Newman in the 19th, and looked ready to recall the Church
of England to her catholic origins has come to a grinding halt.
Perhaps all that was necessary to prepare the way for a great
Catholic Revival in England. How much longer will the Established
Church be able to hang on to its heritage of buildings? How long
before Parliament sees that it would only be reasonable to share out
the proceeds of the Reformation once more? There seems to be a great
appetite for History, evidenced by TV programming. When our
compatriots come to understand that “we wuz robbed”, that the
great Abbey and Cathedral Churches of England were designed and built
by Catholics for Catholic Worship, and would be better used by
Catholics today, then perhaps some of the blessings of the
Establishment might be shared rather more fairly.
It is said the Queen
used to refer to Cardinal Hume as “My Cardinal”. How long before
an English monarch really does acknowledge the Catholic Church as the
authentic church of this land? In the sweep of history we have only
been a nominally Protestant Nation for five hundred of our two
thousand years of Christianity.
