Christina Rossetti, RIP

The Anglo-Catholic, Tractarian, Pre-Raphaelite poet Christina Rossetti died on December 29, 1894. The Poetry Foundation describes her religious and poetic inspirations:

Caught up in the Tractarian or Oxford Movement when it reached London in the 1840s, the Rossettis shifted from an Evangelical to an Anglo-Catholic orientation, and this outlook influenced virtually all of Christina Rossetti’s poetry. She was also influenced by the poetics of the Oxford Movement, as is documented in the annotations and illustrations she added to her copy of John Keble’s The Christian Year (1827) and in her reading of poetry by Isaac Williams and John Henry Newman. For more than twenty years, beginning in 1843, she worshiped at Christ Church, Albany Street, where services were influenced by the innovations emanating from Oxford. The Reverend William Dodsworth, the priest there until his conversion to Catholicism in 1850, assumed a leading role as the Oxford Movement spread to London. In addition to coming under the religious influence of prominent Tractarians such as Dodsworth, W. J. E. Bennett, Henry W. Burrows, and E. B. Pusey, Rossetti had close personal ties with Burrows and Richard Frederick Littledale, a High Church theologian who became her spiritual adviser. The importance of Rossetti’s faith for her life and art can hardly be overstated. More than half of her poetic output is devotional, and the works of her later years in both poetry and prose are almost exclusively so. The inconstancy of human love, the vanity of earthly pleasures, renunciation, individual unworthiness, and the perfection of divine love are recurring themes in her poetry.

As this site shows, she wrote several poems for Advent and Christmastide, through to Candlemas, the traditional end of the 40 days of Christmas. One of the most familiar is called "A Christmas Carol" but we know it as "In the Bleak Midwinter":

In the bleak mid-winter
  Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
  Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
  Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
  Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
  Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
  When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
  A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty
  Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him whom cherubim
  Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
  And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him whom angels
  Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
  Which adore.


  May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
  Throng'd the air,
But only His mother
  In her maiden bliss
Worshipped her Beloved
  With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
  Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
  I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
  I would do my part,--
Yet what I can I give Him,
  Give my heart.

Remember that today is also the feast of St. Thomas a Becket, and of Blessed William Howard, martyrs.

A Hymn by One of the Knox Brothers

In this Marian month (dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary), the Church of St. James, Spanish Place in London posted a verse from a poem/hymn to the Blessed Virgin Mary, "Through the Streets of Heaven" on its Facebook page. The lyrics are by Wilfred Knox, one of the Knox brothers, which included Ronald Knox the Catholic convert, Dillwyn Knox the wartime code-breaker, and Edmund Knox, the editor of Punch--not to forget their sister, Winifred, the author and historian. Wilfred was a High Church Anglo-Catholic, while their father was a prominent Evangelical, Low Church Anglican bishop.

The Marylebone Ordinariate community posted some information about this hymn in the context of the Ordinariate's Anglican patrimony in 2012, complete with a video and lyrics:

In the video below [on their blog], you can hear the last verse and a half of this rare but beautiful hymn being sung upon the occasion of the Annual Dedication Festival of St Mary's Bourne St (we described the background to that service here). Typical of the 1920s Anglo-Catholicism in which context it was written, it is a hymn to the Virgin in a mixture of English and Latin. You will note from the video that this very much matches the Bourne St service, where a rite of Benediction is given in Latin, interspersed with English.

The video contains what might even be an example of reverse Anglican patrimony (let's face it, apart from the use of great Anglican hymn tunes for O Salutaris and Tantum Ergo, there isn't much outwardly Anglican about the shape of the ritual seen in the video), in that the prayer before Tantum Ergo is the Book of Common Prayer's General Thanksgiving. This is not something I ever recall happening in my Bourne St days, although it was certainly the usual practice in my time at Pusey House in the early 1990s.

Using this prayer during Benediction is something that has become a hallmark of practice in the Ordinariate, including at the Ordinariate's own Anniversary Evensong and Benediction at the beginning of this year. Since some of our Bourne St friends attended that event, and indeed some of them perhaps read regularly of what is going in the Ordinariate, it is intriguing but definitely very pleasing to see this influence, adding to the Catholic influence that gave rise to the form of service in the first place. After all, not only are we borrowing a Bourne St hymn and bringing it into the Catholic Church, we as former Anglicans have brought the classic Anglo-Catholic service of Solemn Evensong and Benediction into the Ordinariate . . .

Please read the rest there. I highly recommend Penelope Fitzgerald's group biography of her father and her uncles, The Knox Brothers.

Happy Birthday, Dorothy L. Sayers!!

Dorothy Leigh Sayers, novelist, translator, and Anglo-Catholic Christian apologist, was born on June 13, 1893; she died on December 17, 1957, one year and three days before I was born. She was born at the Christ Church Cathedral headmaster's house in Oxford because her father was chaplain. She attended Somerville College, the women's college in Oxford and received an MA degree in 1920. Sayers worked in the advertising field as a copywriter for several years, working on Guinness and Colman's Mustard accounts. She also worked in publishing, at Blackwell's of Oxford.

The Dorothy L. Sayers Society provides more detail about her life and works and her alma mater is proud of its influence on her life and work.

Although she is better known for her Lord Peter Wimsey series of mystery novels, I have always appreciated her more for the translation of Dante's Divine Comedy (particularly her introductions to Hell and Purgatory) and her Christian apologetics and other works. Like C.S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot, she stands high in my short-list of 20th century Anglo Catholics. 

I am very sorry that Penguin diverted her from completing the translation of Paradise to translate The Song of Roland! I know that her translation of the Divine Comedy, left incomplete at her death, is not considered the best--but I thought her introductions displayed an excellent understanding of Catholic doctrine and medieval culture.

Creed or Chaos, The Mind of the Maker, and The Whimsical Christian all offer good orthodox Christian doctrine and a valid theological viewpoint. Her emphasis -- her insistence -- on the importance of doctrine and the Creeds of the Church, especially the Athanasian Creed, called Blessed John Henry Newman's Oxford Sermons to mind. Real Words; Strong Meat.

I went through a Dorothy L. Sayers phase when I was working for Eighth Day Books after being laid off from an advertising firm in the 1980's--I read the mysteries, the essays, the translations, nearly everything she wrote--and books about her and her achievement.

Stile Antico in Oxford at St. John the Evangelist

I've noted this new release on Amazon.com but can't find any information yet about whether it's a new release or a compilation of previously released material yet. Neither the Harmonia Mundi website nor the Stile Antico website provide any hints. It isn't out until June.

The Stile Antico website did lead me to the Oxford Early Music Festival website since Stile Antico will be performing "Music for Compline" at the Church of St. John the Evangelist on May 17:

Internationally renowned vocal ensemble, Stile Antico, celebrate their tenth anniversary with this performance of works written for the monastic Office of Compline.

As the darkness folded around the pillars of their churches, mediaeval worshippers gathered for the service of Compline, commending themselves to God’s protection through the long watches of the night. It was an occasion that inspired the great English composers to some of their most intimate and uplifting music. Tonight’s programme features music by the great composers of the Tudor era, including Byrd, Tallis and Taverner.

Stile Antico is firmly established as one of the world’s most accomplished and innovative vocal ensembles. Working without a conductor, its twelve members have thrilled audiences throughout Europe and North America with their fresh, vibrant and moving performances of Renaissance polyphony. Its bestselling recordings on the Harmonia Mundi label have earned accolades including the Gramophone Award for Early Music, the Diapason d’or de l’année, the Edison Klassiek Award and the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, and have twice received Grammy® nominations.

The Church of St. John the Evangelist was once the home of an Anglican religious order for men:

From 1866 to 1980, this complex of buildings was the mother house of the Society of St John the Evangelist (the ‘Cowley Fathers’). Established in 1866 by Richard Meux Benson whilst vicar of St James’ church, Cowley, it was the first religious community for men founded in the Church of England since the Reformation. With two other ‘mission priests’ he planted his community in the fast developing suburb between Cowley village and Oxford town. The community eventually spread to the United States of America, India and Japan. The English province of the Society still maintains a presence at St Edward’s House, Westminster, close to the Abbey and Westminster School.

In 1859, a new parish was created out of St James Cowley and St Clement’s: Cowley St John. Fr Benson established the ‘iron church’ on Marston Street. He was joined in 1865 by Fr Grafton and Fr O’Neill.

In 1866 the Society of St John the Evangelist was constituted and placed under the care of the Bishop of Oxford.

From a quick glance at it's North American website, the order is definitely High Church and Anglo-Catholic: the sacramental and liturgical life is emphasized. In the U.K., the order has become a charity and there is no community:

In 2012 the last monastery of SSJE in England, St Edward’s House, Westminster, closed and the three remaining monks moved, continuing their Religious life as Solitaries. The noviciate is closed in England.

More on Richard Meux Benson (any relation to the famous Benson family?) here.

An Anglican Hymn for All Saints

The words of this hymn were written by an Anglican bishop, Walsham How, and first sung to the tune Sarum; most commonly, the hymn is now sung to a Ralph Vaughn Williams's melody, Sine Nomine!

1. For all the saints, who from their labours rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

2. Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

3. For the Apostles’ glorious company,
Who bearing forth the Cross o’er land and sea,
Shook all the mighty world, we sing to Thee:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

4. For the Evangelists, by whose blest word,
Like fourfold streams, the garden of the Lord,
Is fair and fruitful, be Thy Name adored.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

5. For Martyrs, who with rapture kindled eye,
Saw the bright crown descending from the sky,
And seeing, grasped it, Thee we glorify.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

6. O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

7. O may Thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold,
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
And win with them the victor’s crown of gold.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

8. And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

9. The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

10. But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on His way.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

11. From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
Singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

William Walsham How (Walsham), 13 December 1823 – 10 August 1897, wrote several other hymns:

Lord Jesus, when we stand afar

O Jesu, thou art standing

O my Saviour, lifted from the earth for me

It is a thing most wonderful

For all the Saints, who from their labours rest

"Thou art the Christ, O Lord"

To Thee, Our God, we fly

Jesus! name of wondrous love

Soldiers of the cross, arise

We give thee but thine own

He was the first bishop of Wakefield in the north of England from 1888 until  his death (that Anglican diocese was absorbed into Leeds). Although neither biography I've found (Wikipedia and here) states it directly, he must have been Anglo-Catholic. He wrote a book on devotion to Holy Communion; founded an order of deaconess sisters to serve the poor, and obviously, wrote a hymn to celebrate All Saints! Happy All Saints Day!

Book Review: Father Ray Ryland's Memoir

Father Ray Ryland died on March 20th this year after a fall on the steps on his way to Perpetual Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. The Coming Home network honored him, their chaplain, in their June newsletter and offered his memoir as a premium for a donation to their work helping Protestant clergy and their families on their "Journey Home" to Rome.

As the publisher, Emmaus Road, describes the memoir:

A fascinating autobiography in the spirit of Bl. John Henry Newman, Drawn from Shadows Into Truth: A Memoir is the intriguing story of how a married minister in the Disciples of Christ eventually came to be an ordained priest in the Catholic Church. This captivating narrative of Father Ryland’s quest for Jesus Christ and the One Church He founded is a spiritual and intellectual adventure—from a poor Oklahoma farm boy to a naval officer to a Protestant minister to a Harvard lawyer to a married Catholic priest with five children, twenty-two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Pick it up, and you’ll be unable to put it down!

Father Ryland's conversion and his memoir were both obviously inspired by Blessed John Henry Newman--the title of the latter confirms this influence, as it echoes the motto carved on Newman's gravestone: Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem. Ryland even follows Newman's path from Bible Christianity (Disciples of Christ in Ryland's childhood), to personal conversion, to rationalism (and in Ryland's case Unitarianism), to the via media of Anglo-Catholicism, to the one true fold of Christ, the Catholic Church. Father Ryland provides details about his childhood religion in Crescent, Oklahoma, his college days, his service in the Navy during World War II, including his consistent, though undecided, call to ministry. He finally does, however, decide to become a minister, but soon realizes that since he does not believe that Jesus Christ is God, his ministry would be a utilitarian effort to help people understand Jesus's teachings and way of life. With his wife Ruth, Father Ryland continues to study theology and grow in his understanding of Jesus and His Church. He was a very well educated man.

For awhile, both Ryland and his wife are comfortable as Anglo-Catholics in the Episcopal Church, although his High Church liturgical practices are not always acceptable to his parishioners. When they recognize, like Newman, that the Church of England/the Episcopal Church is not the true Church founded by Jesus, they do explore Eastern Orthodoxy. Ryland carefully explains why they could not find their religious home there and how they finally came to the Catholic Church while serving the Episcopalian Church in Oklahoma, where he was born and raised. Becoming Catholic meant the loss of friends, estrangement from family, and being without a job or livelihood. Catholic friends help with the latter and begin to replace the former, but the family relationships take longer to heal.

Father Ray explains how he begins his new life as a Catholic. He was ordained as a Permanent Deacon and practiced law. Then he became the second priest ordained under the Pastoral Provision established by St. John Paul II, the antecedent in a way to the Anglican Ordinariate established by Pope Benedict XVI. His life story really ends there as he describes his teaching career at the University of San Diego and then at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio and his work with the Coming Home Network. In the last seven chapters of the book, Father Ryland explores several themes from his life: the authority of Jesus and His Church, an explanation of the doctrine that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, and the essential discipline of priestly celibacy among them.

It is a very readable book. It did need another set of eyes as some errors slipped by the proofreader and editor. Father Ian Ker's name, for example, is misspelled on the back cover (Kerr). The few typos are minor errors in view of Father Ryland's great intellectual gifts to the Church and his magnificent example of faithfulness to the Truth.

John Mason Neale, RIP

John Mason Neale died on August 6, 1866. If The Portal, the monthly magazine of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham has not included him among their "Anglican Luminaries" thus far, I'm sure they will (there is no searchable index, and I don't have time to search each issue in the archive!). According to this biography (a few excerpts):

Re: His birth and early life:
JOHN MASON NEALE was born on January 24, 1818, in London. His father, Cornelius Neale, Senior Wrangler in 1812, a strong Evangelical, was ordained priest in 1822, but died in the next year at Chiswick. His widow moved to the village of Shepperton. When he was eleven, John Mason was sent to a school at Blackheath, and writes to his former tutor at Shepperton to thank him 'for the very pretty Greek Testament,' out of which, he informs him, 'we have learnt a verse every day,' an early beginning indeed! At fifteen he went to Sherborne. There ' a tall, shy, sallow-faced boy, with thick, dusky hair tumbled above a broad forehead, and dark blue, short-sighted eyes, he moved a solitary figure among the young, happy herd.' He was no athlete, and had no qualifications for schoolboy popularity. But all his life he was an indefatigable walker, and acquired later a great love for mountains; he was also a fearless horseman. Sherborne introduced him to the real country, which, Cockney-born, he was to inhabit for the greater part of his life.

From Sherborne Neale went to Trinity College, Cambridge. Here, again, he remained largely a solitary, though recognized as the most gifted undergraduate of his time, as Keble was at Oxford. A friend and contemporary says of him: 'He was soon marked out as the cleverest man of his year, but neither his father's powers nor his teachers' instructions ever influenced him so as to give him the slightest taste for mathematics. He had through life a rooted dislike to that study. This dislike proved disastrous to his hope of graduating with distinction, for the iron rule (since obsolete), which compelled all candidates for the Classical Tripos to take mathematical honours first, resulted in his being unable to secure the prize which was universally adjudged to him by those who knew his powers.' Yet he won the Members' Prize in 1838, and soon after taking his degree was appointed assistant tutor at Downing College. Always gifted with a talent for poetry, he won the Seatonian Prize for a sacred poem no less than eleven times. He read very widely, and steeped himself in the classics and in mediaeval Latin, which laid the sure foundation for his subsequent fame as a hymnologist. Dr. Overton, in the Dictionary of Hymnology, says of him: 'It is in this species of composition that Dr. Neale's success was pre-eminent, one might almost say unique. He had all the qualifications of a good translator. He was not only an excellent classical scholar in the ordinary sense of the term, but he was positively steeped in mediaeval Latin.' Again, 'Dr. Neale's exquisite ear for melody prevented him from spoiling the rhythm by a too servile imitation of the original; while the spiritedness, which is a marked feature of all his poetry, preserved that spring and dash which is so often wanting in a translation. Unfortunately, his translations have suffered from frequent 'improvements.' But the English Hymnal, which contains a large number of them, preserves them intact.

Re: his interest in ecumenism, or more properly, reunion of Christianity:
It is as a hymnologist and controversialist that Neale has mostly been remembered. But his work for reunion was of the first importance. The word 'Catholic' was one he treasured deeply, and he would even apply it as a term of approbation to such things as woods and fields which struck him as being perfect.

Neale's three years in Madeira gave him the opportunity to start his great History of the Holy Eastern Church. To equip himself for this, he added Russian to his already profound knowledge of Greek. He also added Syriac and Georgian. While in Madeira he acquired a fluent proficiency in Portuguese. By the end of his life he had gained a knowledge of no less than twenty languages. A distinguished contemporary scholar once startled an audience with the remark: 'I'm afraid my Armenian is rather rusty!' It is just the sort of remark Neale might have made. In Madeira he became closely acquainted with Montalembert, the great Catholic writer. Besides his History Neale introduced us to the magnificent hymns of the Eastern Church by his unique translations, as also to its liturgies. His work brought him an appreciative message from the then Tsar, together with a present of £100. It also brought him into touch with Philaret, the famous Metropolitan of Moscow, as also with several Oriental scholars. In his correspondence were discovered letters from France, Russia, Holland, and Spain. In 1860, on receipt of a magnificent present of Icons, he writes: ' I had no idea until now how big a man I was in Russia.' Philaret sent him a rare book, and wrote in it: ' God's blessing and help to those who investigate the truth in the ancient books and traditions of the Church, for the peace and ultimate union of the Churches of God.' This work, so ably helped on by Neale, has indeed made great strides, and we shall not easily forget the man who so early aided them to realization.

and:
Neale was so strongly convinced of the Catholicity of the English Church that he was inclined to be anti-Roman. His experience of the Church in Madeira did not tend to impress him, and he writes in a letter from there in 1844: 'I cannot make, as Montalembert does, visible union, or as the British Critic sometimes seems to wish to do, the desire for visible union with the Chair of St. Peter the keystone, as it were, of the Church, at least not in the sense in which the Western Church has sometimes done. We Orientals take a more general view. The Rock on which the Church is built is St. Peter, but it is a Triple Rock: Antioch where he sat, Alexandria which he superintended, Rome where he suffered. You would be astounded at the weight of evidence in the Doctors of the Western Church.' When Newman left the English Church, Neale regarded it as a reaction from his former strong bias against Rome. He writes on the eve of this departure: 'I hope and believe that Newman will not leave us, but I should not despair if he did. My sheet anchor of hope for the English Church is that you cannot point out a single instance of an heretical or schismatical body which after apparent death awoke to life. The Donatists might have done it, the Copts might have done it, the Nestorians might have done it, but they have not. Why should there be such a startling anomaly to all past experience first of all exhibited in the nineteenth century?' Let us remember that the Donatists were Newman's undoing. In a letter in which Neale speaks of meeting Pusey he remarks: 'He is just the man I fancied. ... I could not wish a man to be more aesthetic than he is. How different from Newman!' Neale believed profoundly in the words of one of his poems that 'England's Church is Catholic, though England's self is not,' and he shows the bright hope of the Catholic Movement in the words: 'I am sure that, in spite of three hundred years' be-calvinization of England, there is yet a chord in most people's hearts that vibrates to Catholic truth.'

Summing up:
Neale was so many-sided that it is difficult to cram him into a pint pot. He lived in the stirring times of the Gorham Judgment and the Jerusalem bishopric question, the question that settled Manning. He wrote vigorous and telling pamphlets, but he made it a rule never to let them be sullied by lack of Christian charity. The occasions were ephemeral, but the pamphlets contain, of course, really solid and permanent matter. We have not the space to deal with them in detail. One saying of his on an important question still current may be quoted: 'Depend upon it, you are not wrong in resisting laydom. I believe with you that it will come in; but the more we resist, the less obnoxiously shall we be infested with it. ... I doubt if it is not a greater departure from discipline than the denial of the Chalice. If we are to give up everything in which we seem likely to be beaten, where shall we stop?'

There now remains all too short a space in which to deal with one of the lasting gifts Neale left to the Church, the Community of St. Margaret, East Grinstead. Like the Sisterhood at Plymouth, it arose out of the necessities of the sick. The rule was founded on the original rule of the Visitation of St. Francis de Sales, before that order became enclosed. Neale deliberately chose a grey rather than a black habit, as being more cheerful for sick people. St. Vincent de Paul provided much inspiration. Carter of Clewer and his famous Sisterhood, together with Butler of Wantage and his, supplied encouragement and example, as also did Father Benson of Cowley. Butler writes with regard to rules: 'My impression is that you have too many, especially for a beginning. Rules should shape themselves as the work grows and need occurs. With good people, such as Sisters of Mercy are likely to be, one can risk a little, and wait to buy experience.' The community started with two Sisters in 1854. They did not live in community till the next year. In June, 1856, a house close to Sackville College was taken, and the Sisters moved into it. Dr. Neale's daughter is still the Rev. Mother of the community, which now has three daughter houses (one of which is St. Saviour's Priory, Haggerston) and sixteen dependencies, including the Free Home for the Dying at Clapham, a college, school, and orphanage in Ceylon, and a house at Johannesburg. Naturally, this venture of faith added greatly to Neale's work. He writes to a Sister saying that he now gets up at five, and hopes to manage four!

Excessive work killed this remarkably gifted son of the Church at the early age of forty-eight, in 1866, very shortly after the death of Keble.

Read more here. I've often featured his hymns and translations on this blog. In this biography, it's clear to me that Neale was one of those who hoped for, as Aidan Nichols commented in his book on the Anglican Ordinariate, the conversion of the Church of England to "Catholicism". Neale didn't yet have to face the choice Nichols cites after the "rupturing of the apostolic succession by the ordination of women rendered that outcome impossible": "Would they [Anglo-Catholics] be an ecclesiola, a 'little church', within a body now theologically alien to them though culturally familiar, or would they become an ecclesiola within a body that was culturally unfamiliar to them but theologically congruent?" (pp. 18-19)

The Church of England Says "NO" to Female Bishops

In rather surprising news, the Church of England rejected the cause of female bishops this week:

The Church of England's governing body blocked a move Tuesday to permit women to serve as bishops in a vote so close it failed to settle the question of female leadership and likely condemned the institution to years more debate on the issue.

The General Synod's daylong debate ended with the rejection of a compromise that was intended to unify the faithful despite differing views on whether women should be allowed in the hierarchy. But backers failed to gain the necessary majority by six votes.

"There is no victory in the coming days," said Rev. Angus MacLeay. "It is a train crash."

The defeat was a setback for Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who retires at the end of December, and his successor, Bishop Justin Welby. Both had strongly endorsed a proposed compromise that would have respected the decision of those who objected to the ordination of women bishops.

Instead of ending decades of debate on the issue in the church, the narrow defeat opens the church, which has around 80 million members worldwide, to further years of internal discussions. It also forms an uncomfortable backdrop to the start of Welby's leadership. He is due to be enthroned in March.

Passage of legislation to allow women to serve as bishops must be approved by two-thirds majorities in the synod's three houses: bishops, priests and laity. Some took heart in the fact that both the bishops and the clergy voted overwhelmingly in favor. But among the laity, the vote fell short, with 132-74.

On his blog, Standing on My Head, Father Dwight Longenecker provides background on the decision here and on the divisions within the Church of England here.

In the former, he notes:

The crisis in the Church of England occasioned by today’s rejection of women in the episcopate is likely to be long, drawn out and bitter. The liberals have campaigned for women bishops for twenty years. The majority of bishops and clergy voted in favor of the measure. It lost in the House of Laity by only six votes. The rest of the British people don’t understand the fuss. They’ve had women priests for twenty years in the Church of England and for most people this is simply a common sense question of equal rights for women.

. . . the negative vote may well have even more serious implications for the freedom of religion in England. If the Members of Parliament decide to over rule the General Synod there may be a constitutional crisis involving the established status of the Church of England and a crisis over religious freedom which will tumble over into serious implications for the relationship between the state and other religious bodies like the Catholic Church.

And in the latter:

The divisions between Liberal, Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical are, in many respects, only superficial and historical. The real division is between those Anglican Christians (no matter how they dress or worship) who believe that the Christian faith is a revealed religion, established by God and therefore unchanging, and those who believe the Christian religion is a human construct developed out of the circumstances of a particular historical and cultural setting.

Those who believe the Christian religion is revealed by God supernaturally also believe that the Church is essentially not of this world. They exist in this world to challenge the ways of this world. They are not supposed to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed. Those who believe that the Christian religion is revealed by God for the eternal salvation of souls see this world as needing repentance and forgiveness and salvation. They don’t mind if the world rejects them. They expect that. When asked to compromise the faith and change the faith to adapt to the world they assume the martyr’s stance. “Offer incense to idols? Bring on the roaring lions, the coliseum and the crowds.”

The second category of Christian are those who believe the religion is a human construct. They think it is the result of certain historical and cultural conditions and accidents. As it was produced by a cultural context, so Christianity has always adapted to the culture in which it finds itself. They see this as a good thing. This is their method of evangelization. They follow the lead of the current cultural climate because they see that as the way of being relevant and connecting with the people in their culture. They do not view the world as full of souls to be saved so much as a wayward child that needs educating and a little bit of discipline in order to reach his full potential. Christianity is for them, a method of personal growth and a system for societal change. It is for them more of an ideology than a theology.

The clash therefore is between those who believe the Christian religion is revealed and those who think it is relative.

Father Longenecker sent me a copy of his new book, Catholicism Plain and Simple for my review, an I'll post it here, of course. I already love the cover, with one of Rembrandt's portraits of Jesus. Looks like perfect reading for the Year of Faith. From the Introduction:

This book presents the basics of the Catholic faith in simple, straightforward language. You will not find here complex philosophical arguments, insider churchy talk or complicated theological language. I have avoided hi-falutin' references and obscure quotations. There aren't any academic notes or quotes in Greek, Latin and Aramaic. This is meat and potatoes religion. This book does not answer all the questions or make all the arguments. It simply starts by explaining why we believe God exists, and then goes on, step by step to explain who Jesus Christ is, what his life and death mean and how the Catholic Church came about. It explains what it means to be a Catholic and how one lives the Catholic faith. This book is an excellent text book for someone who is in RCIA or confirmation class. It also provides an excellent back-up and refresher course for Catholics to know their faith better.

Bishop Edward King and the Ritualist Crisis

Edward King, Anglican Bishop of Lincoln from 1885, died on March 8, 1910. He was prosecuted for ritual abuses by Edward White Benson (father of Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson) from 1888 through 1890, with his case being heard before the Privy Council on appeal.

His grandfather was Bishop of Rochester and his father an Archdeacon; Edward King attended Oriel College (Newman's own) at Oxford and was one of the leaders of the Anglo-Catholic movement after the end of the Tractarian Movement. He was Regius Professor of Pastoral Theology at Oxford and Canon at Christ Church Cathedral, and founded St. Stephen's House, the Anglo-Catholic theological college at Oxford. King was a close friend of E.B. Pusey at Christ Church. He was known at Oxford and would be known at Lincoln as a holy and devout man, pastoral and caring.

Like Arthur Tooth, whom I've mentioned in a post before, Edward King was a Ritualist--using lighted candles, facing East, mixing water with the wine at Holy Communion, praying the Agnus Dei--but he was not arrested and held in jail. A few parishioners turned him in and he was allowed by the Church Court to continue with some of his practices. A page on the Edward King Centre in Lincoln describes the issue thus:

On one occasion he was caught up in the controversies of his day. Different parties within the Church had come to regard various ceremonial usages as a mark of where the user stood theologically, and in 1887 Bishop King was denounced as celebrating the Liturgy with practices not permitted by the directives in the Book of Common Prayer and elsewhere governing Anglican worship. None of the practices is particularly controversial today. King was tried by a Church Court presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The decision of the Court forbade some of these practices, but permitted others while specifying that they had no theological significance. Thus, lighted candles were to be permitted on the altar, but only when needed for purposes of illumination.

The Church of England honors him on its Kalendar today: O God, our heavenly Father, who didst raise up thy faithful Servant Edward to be a bishop and pastor in thy Church and to feed thy flock: Give abundantly to all pastors the gifts of thy Holy Spirit, that they may minister in thy household as true servants of Christ and stewards of thy divine mysteries; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The March issue of the Our Lady of Walshingham's magazine, The Portal, features an article about Bishop King.

Evelyn Underhill, Anglo-Catholic Mystic, RIP

Evelyn Underhill died on June 15, 1941. She was an Anglo-Catholic author and mystic. From her biography you might note that she wanted to become a Catholic but her husband objected and therefore she remained an Anglican. Underhill was much influenced by Baron Friedrich von Hugel. This year is the centennial anniversary of the publication of her great work, Mysticism. More on her life and works at the Evelyn Underhill Association.

Happy Birthday to Dorothy Leigh Sayers

Dorothy Leigh Sayers, novelist, translator, and Anglo-Catholic Christian apologist, was born on June 13, 1893; she died on December 17, 1957. She was born at the Christ Church Cathedral headmaster's house in Oxford because her father was chaplain. She attended Somerville College, the women's college in Oxford and received an MA degree in 1920. Sayers worked in the advertising field as a copywriter for several years, working on Guinness and Colman's Mustard accounts.

The Dorothy L. Sayers Society provides more detail about her life and works.

Although she is better known for her Lord Peter Wimsey series of mystery novels, I have always appreciated her more for the translation of Dante's Divine Comedy (particularly her introductions to Hell and Purgatory) and her Christian apologetics and other works. Like C.S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot, she stands high in my short-list of 20th century Anglo Catholics.

I am very sorry that Penguin diverted her from completing the translation of Paradise to translate The Song of Roland! I know that her translation of the Divine Comedy, left incomplete at her death, is not considered the best--but I thought her introductions displayed an excellent understanding of Catholic doctrine and medieval culture.

Creed or Chaos, The Mind of the Maker, and The Whimsical Christian all offer good orthodox Christian doctrine and a valid theological viewpoint. Her emphasis -- her insistence -- on the importance of doctrine called Blessed John Henry Newman's Oxford Sermons to mind.

As she notes, the "Dogma is the Drama"; it is in the Truth of Christianity that she found the dramatic tension that informs my favorite work of hers, the series of BBC radio plays called The Man Born to be King. Because she acknowledges the doctrine of the Incarnation and acknowledges the theological implications of that doctrine she has drama on her hands. How can God be Man?--"From the purely dramatic point of view the theology is enormously advantageous, because it locks the whole structure into a massive intellectual coherence. . . . A loose and sentimental theology begets loose and sentimental art-forms; an illogical theology lands one in illogical situations; an ill-balanced theology issues in false emphasis and absurdity." I take the latter to mean that a dramatic presentation of Jesus Christ according to any of the Christological heresies of the early church--for instance, Docetism or Arianism--would be false and absurd. (Think of The Last Temptation of Christ!)

In the same introduction to the published version of the BBC plays, Sayer notes: "Dogma is the grammar and the vocabulary of [the writer's] art." The drama comes when depicting the reality of the Creed--the tension between the phrases in the Nicene Creed "God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God" and "He suffered under Pontius Pilate." (What Sayers does with the latter phrase is brilliant, when Pilate's wife reports her dream before the Crucifixion.) I highly recommend the plays and just wish a recorded version was available.