Putting the Roman in English "Roman Catholicism"

Father Dwight Longenecker writes for the National Catholic Register:

Since King Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church to found the Church of England, you would imagine that Anglicans would never claim to be Catholic. But they do.

When I lived in England I often heard members of the Church of England say, “We’re Catholic too; we’re just not Roman Catholic.”

The theory is that the English Church was always Catholic, but in the 16th century it was “reformed”: The popular idea is that jolly old King Henry VIII saw that the monasteries were full of fat old monks and he went through and tidied things up a bit. The Church had become fat, old and corrupt, and Henry and his children, Edward and then Elizabeth, straightened things out, streamlined a few things and got everything shipshape.

This is not only a complete whitewash of the depredations, iconoclasm and wholesale destruction of the Catholic Church, but it is also a misreading of English Catholic history. Along with this view of the English Reformation is a strange idea that the Church in England was, from the beginning, separate from Rome and that only in the Middle Ages onward was it under Rome’s thumb.

While I usually don't like the use of the term "Roman Catholicism"--it ignores the Eastern Rite communities in the Catholic Church--in the case of this article, it makes perfect sense. Reading Father Longenecker's article, I was reminded of a book I read six years ago, The English Church and the Papacy in the Middle Ages, which I reviewed here:

Introduction by C.H. Lawrence
Chapter 1: The Celtic Church and the Papacy, by Kathleen Hughes
Chapter 2: The Anglo-Saxon Church and the Papacy by Veronica Ortenberg (new for the 1999 edition)
Chapter 3: From the Conquest to the Death of John by Charles Duggan
Chapter 4: The Thirteenth Century by C.H. Lawrence
Chapter 5: The Fourteenth Century by W.A. Pantin
Chapter 6: The Fifteenth Century by F.R.H. DuBoulay
Index

The first chapter is refreshingly free of the Thomas Cahill-type conflict between Celtic and Roman Catholicism in which the Roman Catholic Church is rigid and evil and the Celtic Church all humane and wonderful. Instead, Kathleen Hughes surveys the interaction between the Papacy and Celtic bishops and culture without that polemic edge, while still covering the issues about the of Easter and discipline throughout the Church.

In the second, new chapter for the 1999 edition, Veronica Ortenberg describes the very close relationship between the Catholic Church in England  and the Papacy during the Anglo-Saxon era, including of course, Pope St. Gregory the Great sending St. Augustine of Canterbury to Kent. She demonstrates how devoted Catholics in England at that time were to the Popes as the successors of St. Peter, how regularly bishops and laity travelled to Rome on pilgrimage, and how much correspondence, usually requesting and offering papal guidance, was exchanged.

As expected from the title, the third chapter covers, although with the assumption of the reader's prior knowledge of the outline of events, the conflicts between Henry II and St. Thomas a Becket, and John and Innocent III, noting that in the latter case, at least, once the crisis was resolved John gained a great deal of support from the pope, especially after making England a vassal of Innocent III.

Father Longenecker's argument accords with the material presented in this book as he concludes:

Was the Anglican church founded on some pure, serene and ancient apostolic church that existed in Britain for 600 years before the arrival of St. Augustine sent by Pope Gregory? There’s no evidence for it.

Instead, the British Church was started by Romans, converted the locals, and remained linked to Rome even after the legions departed from Britain. After that, the missionary efforts to the British Isles were of Roman origin.

Another Reason for Newman's Canonization

John Allen writes about Blessed John Henry Newman's inspiration for Catholics today:

There are many reasons why religion continues to thrive, but high on the list has been the capacity of a handful of influential religious thinkers to make their ancient traditions relevant to the contemporary situation — to put those traditions in creative conversation with the questions asked by modern women and men.

In that universe, few Catholic figures have packed a stronger punch over the past century than Cardinal John Henry Newman, the 19th-century British convert from Anglicanism whose carefully reasoned journey to Catholicism continues to inspire and provoke.

One might describe Newman as Catholicism’s “patron saint of relevance,” in that one can agree or disagree with his conclusions, but it’s impossible to dismiss them as the relic of a medieval mind.

Anyone who reads Newman today, and scores still do, immediately recognizes a very modern voice. It’s no accident that one of his best-known works is called precisely Tracts for the Times.

And Father Dwight Longenecker writes for Aleteia:

A saint, however, is not a saint because of his intellectual accomplishments. Should he be declared a saint, John Henry Cardinal Newman will undoubtedly be up there with St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, St. Bonaventure, St. Edith Stein and St Thomas More as one of the intellectual heavyweights. The galaxy of saints, however, contain stars who are not so bright intellectually. St. John Vianney, St. Joseph Cupertino, St. Therese of Lisieux and many others were not famous for their intellectual prowess or academic accomplishment. If John Henry Newman is a saint, then there is something else about him that we need to consider.

A saint is an ordinary person who has, by God’s grace, reached their full human potential. Therefore if John Henry Newman is to be a saint we must ask whether, by God’s grace, John Henry Newman had become all that John Henry Newman was created to be.

When we look at his life we see that he was gifted with a brilliant mind, a tender heart, and a deep love for God. Each one of those characteristics was fulfilled in his life. It is arguable, therefore, that John Henry Newman used his vast intellectual and spiritual gifts fully to the glory of God. Whether this beautiful soul and beautiful mind are granted the final formal recognition of being a saint is not so much a question of “if” but of “when.”

Since I have read and studied the life and works of Blessed John Henry Newman since I was a sophomore in college, this day of not if but when Newman is canonized is very exciting to me! I'm going to start the month of February off with the daily prayers and meditations from the CTS publication displayed above.

More Bad News about England (and me?)

Father Dwight Longenecker and Joseph Pearce just led a Catholic pilgrimage to England. Father Longenecker writes on his blog:

One of the most impressive things about this pilgrimage to England was the remembrance of a Catholic England that was not only brutally destroyed, but a destruction which, to this day, is covered up by a smokescreen of ignorance, propaganda and lies. Henry VIII is still presented in tourist information boards, cathedral guides and church leaflets as “the charismatic young King who reformed a corrupt church system of the Dark Ages.” His depredations, robbery, iconoclasm and cruelty is totally glossed over. Time and again the pilgrims were astounded to see how Mary Queen of Scots [and] Catherine of Aragon were ignored or sidelined–how Mary Tudor was still presented as “Bloody Mary” and Elizabeth I as “Good Queen Bess”. Happily our guide at the Tower was probably a Catholic and stressed how Elizabeth’s persecution of Catholics was far more severe and long lasting and pervasive than Mary’s persecution of Protestants ever was.

That this misrepresentation still continues with films like the two Elizabeth movies and the recent TV series Wolf Hall is shameful. Revisionist historians like Eamon Duffy, Jack Scarisbrick and Christopher Haigh have done their work and any researcher now has no excuse not to know the true history of the period, but of course that history doesn’t sell. So the blood of the English martyrs is ignored. The true horror of Tyburn Tree, Topcliffe’s torture chambers and 300 years of Catholic persecution in England–the longest and harshest in history–is swept under the carpet. Chief among the culprits, of course, are the Anglicans. They continue to present their laundered view of history–despite knowing full well what happened, and still (to my knowledge) there has been no formal attempt of repentance and sorrow for what happened similar to Pope St John Paul II’s famous Ash Wednesday service of repentance in the year 2000.

Reading this made me sad. I've tried on the popular level with my book, articles, this blog, radio interviews, a 13 week radio show (!), presentations, etc, etc, and so forth, for the past six years to tell this story. Duffy, Scarisbrick, and Haigh all wrote on an academic level to lay the foundation for a more accurate view of the history of the English Reformation, of course, but Father Longenecker is right that history does not sell or at least that historical revisionism doesn't sell. It's so much more easy to accept the common lies, the Black Legend, the party line, either because of prejudice or because it's hard to think about it a different way.

When I taught my class on St. Thomas More in May, I referenced George Weigel's comment from First Things on the commonly accepted view of the English Reformation and how the revisionist view still hasn't replaced the Whig version:

And because Britain’s literary high culture is still in thrall to the Whig view of British history, and seems oblivious to the deep transformation that’s taken place in English Reformation studies since Eamon Duffy’s extraordinary book, The Stripping of the Altars, was first published in 1992. There, Duffy demonstrated beyond cavil what Simon Schama alluded to in his Financial Times article on the BBC version of Wolf Hall: that Henry VIII was a proto-totalitarian who, with his Protestant heirs, imposed his version of Christianity on England against the will of the great majority of plain folk, who stubbornly clung to the old faith until the overwhelming power of the state extinguished most of English Catholic life, and “anti-popery” got set in cultural concrete as modern nation-building went forward in Britain—often funded by expropriated Catholic properties.

As I told the little group of friends cum students (including Rex the dog), reading that made me sad. Of course, I've been doing all this on a part-time basis, but I'm disappointed that the project and the message I think so important has been ignored. Thanks to all of you who follow my blog, have read my book, listened to interviews, liked my facebook page, followed me on twitter, etc. Your comments and encouragement are always welcome. 

The Fossilized Church of England

From Father Dwight Longenecker, with my comments:

Since the Oxford Movement in the nineteenth century members of the Church of England have tried to claim that the Church of England was “Catholic”. As a sideline it is interesting to note that for about 350 years before the Oxford Movement the Church of England was quite clear that it was NOT Catholic. They were a Protestant church. They resisted all signs of papacy, Catholic worship or Catholic theology. There were riots if a priest wore a surplice–much less Eucharistic vestments. If a priest put candles on the alter (sic) he could be ousted for being papistical.

Then in the mid nineteenth century John Henry Newman and his chums started to read the church fathers and lurched toward Rome. Newman–who was the brainiest among them followed the logic and became Catholic. Many others remained in the Anglican Church and pretended to be Catholic. Note that during the Ritualist movement that followed the Oxford movement, the response was the same: "There were riots if a priest wore a surplice–much less Eucharistic vestments. If a priest put candles on the alter (sic) he could be ousted for being papistical." Remember Arthur Tooth's arrest and Bishop Edward King's troubles.

When I say they pretended to be Catholic, they did a damned good job of it. They promoted Catholic spirituality. They were expert liturgists. They revived the ancient choral tradition. They built beautiful churches. Or maintained the beautiful Romanesque and Gothic churches and cathedrals built by Catholics before the Reformation that had survived different periods of iconoclasm. They started religious orders, did missionary work, started seminaries and for a hundred years really did seem to be bringing the Church of England around to being Catholic once again.

This passage reminded me of one of the articles we discussed at our Chesterton reading group meeting last Friday, "My Six Conversions: The Religion of Fossils" in The Well and the Shallows. Chesterton writes about six times he could have become Catholic--except that he already had. This first time was when he realized that the Protestant churches were fossils:

The whole point of a fossil is that it is the form of an animal or organism, from which all its own animal or organic substance has entirely disappeared; but which has kept its shape, because it has been filled up by some totally different substance by some process of distillation or secretion, so that we might almost say, as in the medieval metaphysics, that its substance has vanished and only its accidents remain. And that is perhaps the very nearest figure of speech we can find for the truth about the New Religions, which were started only three or four hundred years ago. They are Fossils.

It is easy to see the sense in which they are now dying. But in a much deeper sense, they have long been dead. The extraordinary thing about them was that they really died almost as soon as they were born. And this was due to a fact not always emphasised, but which always strikes me as the most outstanding fact of the mysterious business; the incredible clumsiness of the Reformers. The real Protestant theologians were such very bad theologians. They had an amazing opportunity; the old Church had been swept out of their way, along with many things that were really unpopular, and some things that were deservedly unpopular. One would suppose it was easy enough to set up something that would at least look a little more popular. When they tried to do it, they made every mistake that they could make. They waged an insane war against everything in the old faith that is most normal and sympathetic to human nature; such as prayers for the dead or the gracious image of a Mother of Men. [This reminded me of Sir Kenneth Clark's comments about the Reformation in Civilisation.] They hardened and fixed themselves upon fads which anybody could see would pass like fashions. Luther lashed himself into a sort of general fury, which obviously could not last; Calvin was logical, but used his logic for a scheme which humanity manifestly would not long find endurable. Perhaps the most successful were those who really had no ideas to offer at all; like the founders of the Anglican Church. They at least did not exasperate human nature; but even they showed the same blindness, in binding themselves instantly to the Divine Right of Kings, which was almost immediately to break down.

According to Chesterton, the founders of Church of England, as a whole, did not make some of the same mistakes the 16th century reformers did: they maintained order and ritual, beauty and devotion--but these are accidents, according to Chesterton's metaphysical analogy. As Father Longenecker notes, the Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England from the 19th century until today have tried to build upon those accidents to claim that their Church was Catholic, somehow a branch of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ, and that reunion was somehow possible between the Church of England and the Catholic Church or between the Church of England and the Orthodox Church. With the ordination of female priests and now a female bishop, however, even the accidents are gone--the fossil that remains never really was what they thought it was. Fortunately, for those who seek the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is there to welcome them home.

Book Review: Catholicism Pure and Simple

Books are marvelous things: there just cannot be too many of them (although my husband might demur) because each one of them is a human voice speaking human thoughts to another. There are many books of Catholic apologetics, many books that explain what the Catholic Church teaches--some are basic, some are detailed and advanced, some are encyclopedic and designed for quick reference--and each serves a purpose for different readers. Father Dwight Longenecker states his purpose and the outline of his book Catholicism Pure and Simple clearly:

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.

Although he does not use "complex philosophical arguments", Father Longenecker does begin with common philosophical issues--religion and human nature; suffering and free will; human longing for meaning and love; happiness, morality, creation and order, the meaning of life--and addresses the reader directly in discussing these issues in the first section, "Is Anybody There?" He then reviews the history of Revelation from the Old Testament to set up his presentation on Jesus in Section Two, "The God Man."

After an introductory chapter in which he addresses God's plan to go beyond the prophets and kings of the Old Covenant by sending His Son to bridge the divide between God and man, Longenecker begins the story of Jesus with His mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary--who, in her Immaculate Conception, "was simply all that a human woman should be." He makes an excellent connection between her free will "Yes" to the angel's message of the Annunciation and God's preserving her from all sin so that she would be able to make that decision: "this fulness of God's grace meant that Mary was fully human and fully free."

In the next four chapters, Father Longenecker describes Jesus's life and death, His teachings and actions, the miracles and healings; His revelation of the Father, His Passion and Death, and of course, His Resurrection and appearance to His followers.

Section Three, "The Fire of Life" covers the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the transformation of the Apostles, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity--and the meaning of these actions in our lives with our Baptism and the indwelling of the Holy Trinity in our souls; our transformation; our cooperation with God's work in the world; the gifts and the fruits of the Holy Spirit; and the Church.

Section Four, "The Great Battle" lays out the struggle between good and evil in the world, and our individual role in battling against evil (and working for good)! This brings Father Longenecker to the Sacraments and Prayer, The Holy Bible, saints and the Church--with a special chapter on the Holy Eucharist in the chapter aptly titled "The Ultimate Weapon"!

Section Five, "Welcome Home" is focused on the Catholic Church, from the viewpoint of the Parish, Church History (including the Great Schism and the Reformation), the hierarchy and the Magisterium, and the uniqueness of the Church as both Divine and human, Holy and sinful, Perfect and wounded, Infallible and yet capable of personal error. Finally, Longenecker addresses the Four Last Things: Heaven and Hell, Death an Judgment, providing a very coherent overview of Purgatory.

Father Longenecker sent me a free copy of his book in return for my honest opinion and review. His vocation as a pastor and as a father (he is a former Anglican minister, a married man who was ordained a Catholic priest under Blessed John Paul II's "pastoral provision" for former Anglican ministers) shines forth in every page on this book as he anticipates and addresses common concerns and issues. He blogs here and his website is here.