The Fiction of Corporate Reunion.

807

THE FICTION OF CORPORATE REUNION.

T is perfectly natural that Anglican fallacies about “ Reunion ”
should be best apprehended by English Catholics. They
only who have lived in England all their lives, who have followed
the vicissitudes of Anglicanism, and who know the mental habits
of English Protestants, can accurately value the shifting attitudes
of a conscience which has been trammeled from childhood by
Protestant prejudice. For this reason it seems a pity that French
Catholics, who know little or nothing of the Anglican mind, should
come forward as teachers or dictators on the deeply vexed ques­
tion of “ Reunion.” The Abbé Portal has no doubt meant amiably
in his conciliating attitude towards the Ritualists, but he does not
know the scope of their misapprehension. In the same way the
writers in the “ Revue Anglo-Romaine ”—a review which is now
in its thirty-sixth number—do not see that by obscuring the duty
of submission they are indefinitely postponing Reunion. The
“ case ” for Reunion stands thus : The Abbé Portal is aware,
though he keeps the fact in the background, that Reunion de­
mands, primarily, the recognition of the Papacy as a divinely ap­
pointed institution ; whereas Lord Halifax, and most of his brother
Ritualists, insist on the recognition of the validity of Anglicanism,
ecclesiastically, authoritatively, doctrinally. The two claims are
not only irreconcilable, they are hopelessly opposed and antago­
nistic. To put the case differently, the Catholic Church says : If
you would come inside the Church, you must anathematize your
schism and all your heresies, and must submit with all your heart
to the Holy See in doctrine, devotion and practice ; whereas the
Ritualists say we will participate in Catholic Sacraments, and con­
sent to a fraternal intercommunion, on condition that we retain our
present formularies and beliefs and whatever habits we esteem to
be orthodox. “Corporate Reunion ” on such terms as the Ritual­
ists’, would be as much a mockery of truth as of sincerity. It
would be indeed a much worse form of error than the insisting on
being faithful to private convictions ; for to be “ in good faith,”
even in error, is a much better state of mind than to assert that
truth and error are convertible.
The advocates of Corporate Reunion are fond of appealing to
a memorable precedent, which they conceive to be in some re­
spects parallel. In the time of Queen Mary there was Corporate
Reconciliation; why should there not be in these days ? It was
in the year 1554 that, at Westminster Palace, there was a public,

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American Catholic Quarterly Review,

a national reconciliation of all England to the Catholic Faith ; and
it is urged that the reconciliation, while corporate in modern sense,
was nevertheless grounded on the principle of “ give and take,”
many concessions of vast import being made to “ Anglicans,” even
to the extent of the recognition of schismatical bishops and of new
dioceses created by schismatics. Now here we have a grave mis­
apprehension. In every case where the Papal Legate made con­
cessions, there was a previous grant of absolution to penitent
clergy who had confessed to the crime of their past schism, so that
in no single instance was installation or promotion permitted by
the Catholic authority without full recantation or disavowal and
without sacramental absolution. At this point, however, we have
to allude to a difficulty which is obscured by not a few controver­
sialists. In the early days of Queen Mary there was an insupera­
ble impediment to the harmonizing of the spiritual and the tem­
poral, parliament not being summoned and the queen not being
crowned, and the statute-law remaining consequently in full force.
Thus Mary had to be called “ the Supreme'Head of the Church,”
'a title of which she said to Cardinal Pole’s envoy: 'T will not
have it, even though by accepting it I could gain three other king­
doms equal to those I possess ” ; but she could not prevent those
who drew up her writs from obeying a law which was not repealed.
In regard to the six bishops-elect, who were consecrated before the
reconciliation, we know that they were absolved in foro externo,
their proxy going humbly upon his knees, confessing heartfelt
sorrow and repentance, and utterly abjuring their acts of schism
and other errors, in which spirit they were required to go to con­
fession to a Catholic confessor and fulfil the salutary penance
which should be given. And so, too, the members of both
Houses of Parliament went on their knees, and did “declare them­
selves very sorry and repentant for the schism and disobedience
committed in this matter against the Apostolic See.” Contrast
such a spirit as this with the spirit of most modern Ritualists.
And that we may say one word more as to the a concessions
made by Rome,” be it remembered that no concession as to doc­
trine was ever either granted or asked for. The ratification of
newly created dioceses, and of judicial sentences schismatically
pronounced, was so far from being a “concession” as to their
validity that the Legate decreed that “ all such things attempted
in any way that was null during the aforesaid schism should re­
ceive the vigor of the apostolic sanction, so that they should be
considered by all to have been made, not by the preceding
temerity, but by that authority which he then gave unto them.”
The concessions, therefore, were not admissions of validity ; on the
contrary, they were assertions of invalidity.

The Fiction of Corporate Reunion.

809

While on this point of the Marian Reconciliation, it is almost a
platitute to remark that, the whole nation being traditionally Cath­
olic, there could be little need of individual conversions. We
may say confidently that five-sixths of the adult population were
still profoundly Catholic-at heart. Excepting only those who had
benefited by Henry VIII.’s spoliation of church property, the na­
tion abhorred the innovations, so that, as Mr. Froude tells us, in
the last year of Edward VI. there was what might be called a
reign of terror, “the prisons being full to overflowing with Catho­
lic recusants who would not relinquish the Mass.” One of the
Protestant missionaries to Ireland thus describes the enthusiasm
with which the return to the old faith was welcomed in the
Cathedral of Killarney : a They rang all the bells in that cathe­
dral ; they (the clergy) flung up their caps to the battlements of
the great temple, with smilings and laughings most dissolutely ;
they brought forth their copes, candlesticks, censers and crosses ;
they mustered forth most gorgeously all the town over, with
Sancta Maria ora pro nobis and the rest of the Latin Litany.”
Now, it is obvious that a Reconciliation in those days and a Re­
conciliation in a three-centuried Protestant England must be very
different processes indeed. If we put together what we may call
the party of Lord Halifax and the more advanced of the members
of the Church Union, and even wish to believe in the ardent aspi­
rations of the majority of the Ritualist laity, we still count only a
small minority of English Protestants who could be expected to
rejoice in “ Reunion.” Under Edward VI. it was by the sheer
strength of the executive that royal injunctions were enforced
against Catholics; in these days royal injunctions against Protes­
tants would meet even with more strenuous opposition. What the
nation now wants is conversion—a very different thing from Recon­
ciliation. And if we are to accept the leading organs of the vari­
ous parties as indicating the bent of the national will, there seems
to be a restless desire for compromise, but very little repentance
for schism.
II.

It is in regard to the disposition of the English people, as de­
monstrated by their proposed terms of reconciliation, that the
Abbé Portal has been seriously misled, trusting rather to his char­
ity than to his knowledge. We should say, first, that the pop­
ular use of the word Reunion shows how completely the whole
subject is misapprehended. There cannot be Reunion where there
never was Union; and it is certain that between the new Protest­
ant religion—first invented by Henry VIII., and subsequently de­
veloped by Elizabeth—and the religion of the Catholic Roman

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Church, there never was, never could be, real union. The two
religions were opposed on first principles, as to authority, worship,
and devotion ; nor was it ever possible to speak of them as being
united, any more than of a negative as being identical with a posi­
tive, or of nego and credo as being sympathetic. Let us, then,
discard the word Reunion, and use a much truer word, Reconcilia­
tion. Now the Abbé Portal, and the “ Revue Anglo-Romaine,”
in their earnast longing to bring about Reconciliation, do not like
to insist on the hard, stubborn fact that what is called the Church
of England is a sect. It is not a Church nor an integral part of
the Church, but a purely political organization. It follows, there­
fore, that each individual Anglican is necessarily in schism and in
heresy. And this being so, it is idle to talk of a “ corporate” re­
conciliation, as if the fact of a multitude of dissidents agreeing to
“ shake hands ” with the Catholic Church could in the slightest
degree undo their schism and their heresy. They would all re­
main precisely what they were before, Protestants so far as they
chose to be Protestants, and Catholic in their own sense of Cath­
olicity. Reconciliation would mean, I will not obey you. Sub­
mission would mean, I do not believe in you. The only practical
outcome of such a fictitious fraternization would be that truth and
error would have “ shaken hands ” as good friends on the very
ground that no one could know what was the truth.
i( Conversion ” to the Church is, in reality, the exact opposite of
this fiction of “ corporate reunion.” It means the accepting what­
ever the Church teaches, and the abhorring whatever she con­
demns. And the grace of God alone can give to each individual
soul the full light which is necessary for conversion. “ The gift
of faith ” is not given in its fulness until after the receiving of the
divine sacraments—a gift which so purifies the intellect that it ap­
prehends the necessary truth of Catholic teaching ; but the grace
to apprehend the primary duty of submitting to the divine au­
thority of the Church will be given to every soul who asks for it ;
so that it must be always a man’s own fault if he goes on wor­
shipping his own opinions, instead of asking God to enlighten
him. Now who does not see that a “ corporate conversion ” is a
sort of contradiction in terms ? Certainly, God could, if He willed,
give the grace of conversion at the same moment to a whole na­
tion, or to a whole Protestant sect ; but this is not His ordinary
way. Ordinarily, He acts separately on each soul, in His own
time, by special calling ; and each soul is responsible for himself.
“ Corporate ” conversion would shirk personal responsibility ;
would shift the burden on to the shoulders of a whole commu­
nity ; whereas, personal conversion is in the order of Divine Prov­
idence, and consistent with all we know of the Divine ways. The

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811

Abbé Portal, in his desire to smooth over the thorny and trou­
blous path of conversion, seems to shrink from the suffering which
it involves, as though the sufferings were not the price to be paid.
As in the early pagan times, the ordinary price of conversion was
martyrdom, imprisonment, or at least ostracism, so, in our own day,
there is no buying the pearl of great price without being willing
to sell all that we possess. Imagine that the same counsel which
has been approved by the Abbé Portal, in recommending a “ cor­
porate ” conversion, had been given to the first converts to Chris­
tianity : “ Do not suffer martyrdom, but wait till imperial preju­
dice shall have given way to more kindly amenity, and then you
can all become Christians together, without risking the torture or
the lion’s mouth.” This was not the counsel of the Apostles or
their disciples, who insisted on individual sacrifice, and left “ cor­
porateness ” to take care of itself. As Cardinal Vaughan has
happily expressed it, with that straightness and ingenuousness
which may be said to be characteristic of his teaching : “ Every
day is making it clearer that the Providential way of bringing
about Reunion, at least in England, is by the powerful grace of
God acting on the intelligence, the independence, and the good­
will of individual units, as in the past ; and that no hope or con­
fidence is to be placed in the idea of corporate reunion.”
But this thoroughly Catholic meaning of “ conversion ” is either
obscured or minimized into unmeaningness by the French writers
and orators we have referred to. The reason, as we have said, is
that they do not know the Anglican temperament, and do not
realize the havoc made by false traditions. That a defined article
of faith cannot be denied without heresy, and that the authority of
the Holy See cannot be rejected without schism, are known to
them to be axioms of Catholicity; but living always among Cath­
olics, they utterly fail to apprehend how Anglicans can habitually
think the contrary. And so they try the courtly experiment of
soothing and caressing, with which many sanguine Ritualists are
much pleased. A much wiser method would have been to inquire
of Cardinal Vaughan what was really the present attitude of the
Ritualistic mind, and so to have avoided making mistakes which,
though doubtless quite natural, may put back many conversions
for many years.

III.
There is another curious delusion, at least implied by the Abbé
Portal, to which it is desirable to refer. This delusion is that the
Catholic Church would gain so much by “ corporate union ” with
all the contending communities which make up Anglicanism, that
she should strive for it on purely interested grounds. And it is
i

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American Catholic Quarterly Review.

even urged that the Catholic Church is suffering from her loss of
“ the Nations of the North,” suffering “ from the lack of the
Teutonic element, while the Anglican Church is increasing in
strength.” We have here a misstatement both of principle and of
fact which we must venture to call hardly excusable. As to prin­
ciple, the suggestion that the Catholic Church, which now num­
bers two hundred and twenty millions of souls, would gain
strength by the corporate adhesion of twenty-five millions of An­
glicans, none of whom are quite sure as to their own belief, it may
be dismissed as, to say the least of it, uncatholic. The Anglican
communion, as a matter of fact, scarcely includes one-half of the
people of England ; while in the British dependencies it is in a
painful minority. And we all know that when a man says he is
an Anglican or a Protestant we are no nearer to concluding what
he thinks he believes than if he had made no profession of faith.
What advantage then to the Catholic Church could accrue from
the fraternization of such a host of conflicting opinionists ? If such
a “ corporate reunion” were possible, it would be an'injury at
which every Catholic would shudder. Happily it is utterly im­
possible.
But, as a matter of fact, the growth of Catholicity far exceeds
the growth of so-called Anglicanism. As to the “ Teutonic ele­
ment,” the number of Teutonic Catholics within the fold exceeds
by many millions the whole number of Anglicans throughout the
world. But let us go a little more deeply into this question of
statistics, since it is urged as being of weighty importance.
There may be a difficulty in obtaining the exact truth in regard
to numbers, but we may fairly trust authorities which are known
not to be addicted to exaggerating Catholic claims. Thus the
“ Economiste Français ” assures us that, from the year 1800 to 1890
—a period almost embracing the present century—the number of
Catholics in Germany has gone up from six to sixteen millions.
This does not look as if the “ Teutonic element ” can be spoken of
as being lost to Catholicity. And now, as to the “ Nations of the
North,” the number of Catholics in England and Scotland, in the
first year of this nineteenth century, was only 120,000. In the
year 1890 it had gone up to 1,690,921. (We believe this to be far
below the mark, but it is better to keep on the safe side.) Russia
is a good country for comparisons, for we all know bow Catholics
have been persecuted. The advance of Catholicity in the ninety
years was (Poland being left out of the calculation) from 20,000 to
2,935,5 r9t° the United States the increase in the same period
has been given as from 61,000 to 7,977,270. And what do we
learn about Africa ? 47,000 have grown to 3,000,000. As to
China the increase is given as from 187,000 to 576,000 ; while in

The Fiction of Corporate Tieunion.

813

Indo-China it is from 310,000 to 690,772. Turkey in Asia and
Europe would not be a promising empire, yet the number of
Catholics has gone up from 631,000 to 1,298,475. Switzerland has
increased her number threefold. Canada has changed 120,000 into
2,000,000. Oceanica has advanced from the very small beginning
of 2800 to 2,000,000. Holland also has converted 350,000 into
1,448,852. And so in proportion in most other countries. And
it must be remembered that within the last five years—from 1890
to 1896—the progress of Catholicity throughout the world has
been swifter than it ever was before. So that viewing this progress
as a whole, we may say that, in non-Catholic countries, the in­
crease of Catholics has been fivefold. And in the old Catholic
countries there has been this improvement, that there are now very
few “ indifferent ” Catholics; the great bulk of Catholic peoples
being solidly Catholic, and the minority being noisily infidel.
There is scarcely any Protestantism in Catholic countries. That
is a weed which is an accident of British fervor;.but it is too
shallow a compromise to capture intellects. As a rule, the French,
Italian and Spanish peoples are logical, keen-witted, and also hu­
morous ; and they know the difference between being taught by
divine authority and being taught by individual opinion.
Now it is obvious that a growth in Catholicity is not like a
growth in Church of Englandism, or indeed in any kind of Protest­
antism. Every Catholic believes the same thing, so that the
Catholic Church is a compact and perfectly united army; not
united only in rejecting what is false, but in affirming what is in­
fallibly true. So that the Catholic one-third part of Germany is a
much stronger power than the two-thirds of German Rationalist
speculators ; and the same must be said of all other countries.
What the Abbé Portal calls the “ Teutonic element ” and the “ Na­
tions of the North ” are steadily returning to the Catholic faith ;
not by “ corporate reunion ”—such a fiction is untenable—but by
the individual apprehension of the duty of obedience, aided by the
spectacle of divided Protestantism.
We have to enquire, in the face of this steady advance of Catho­
licity, whether the prospects of a " corporate ” reconciliation appear
to be lessened or increased ; and whether the new phases of Prot­
estantism are better adapted than the old ones for “ corporate ”
submission and conciliation ?
IV.
It must be accepted as axiomatic that the only possible recon­
ciliation must be preceded by individual submission. And indi­
vidual submission in the case of Protestants—and as much in the
case of Anglicans as of Nonconformists—would mean, not the

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American Catholic Quarterly Review.

surrender of the same errors in all Protestants, but of different
errors in each separate Protestant. No two Protestants, whether
Anglican or Nonconformist, believe or disbelieve in the same way ;
and while one and all misapprehend the Catholic faith, each one of
them misapprehends it quite differently. A “corporate” sub­
mission would therefore involve the surrender of ten thousand dif­
ferent “objections” of various minds, these “objections” being
entertained in varying spirits, and impossible to be formulated or
defined. If then the submission of even one Protestant must in­
volve his complete surrender of many heresies, what would be in­
volved in the submission of a mighty host of deeply differing con­
flicting opinionists ? But “ surrender ” is just that very difficulty
which the corporate reconciliation ists will not face. They wish to *
retain all their private ideas, while “submitting^’ only to an exter­
nal fraternity. And this is the not submitting at all. For exam­
ple, the Rev. Piers L. Claughton, who is the Rector of Hutton, and
an advocate of corporate reunion, says that “ on the Anglican side>
there must be the acceptance of the infallibility of the Pope, who
ruled over the English Church all through the Middle Ages, and
was only renounced for the political exigencies of Henry VIII.
. . . . There must also be the acceptance of the doctrine of the
Immaculate Conception.” Now this seems to come very near to
“ submission,” and we scarcely expect any difficulty. But pres­
ently we read that there are “ conditions ; ” and the first is that
“ on the Roman side the validity of our orders and sacraments
must be recognized as we recognize theirs, and (2) it must be con­
ceded that the secular clergy may marry,” So that here we have
an Anglican who actually acknowledges the infallible authority of
the Pope, and yet at the same time insists that that infallibility
must be instructed as to the essentials of the validity of Holy Or­
ders. Probably there are not many of the High Church party who
would combine such contradictory attitudes ; but the example
serves to show how diversified are the units which are now advo­
cating a “ corporate” reunion.
To take another extreme case—extreme in a very painful sense.
Father Ignatius, the Anglican monk, writes of a publication by
Dean Fremantle as “ the very greatest scandal that has ever oc­
curred in our venerable and orthodox Church of England.” He
says : “For myself I can truly say that the very fact of this awful
man being a dean in our beloved Church causes me sleepless nights
of mental agony........... We need from the Church of England a
plain and explicit expression of her mind, such as shall make clear
her determination to hold at all cost to the truth of Revelation,
which is her only ground of existence. But the Church of Eng­
land is silent ; our archbishops, bishops and convocations are, as

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£

815

Canon Gore says, ‘accomplices’ of Dean Fremantle.” Now, see­
ing that the “ heresies ” which are so strongly assailed were pro­
fessed and published eight years ago, and that since their publica­
tion the Hon. and Rev. W. H. Fremantle has been promoted to the
Deanery of Ripon, we cannot conclude that “ the archbishops,
bishops and convocations” have taken them very seriously to
heart. Father Ignatius says that the Bishop of Ripon “ has thor­
oughly and without a word of protest welcomed as dean into his.
cathedral a man who is a publicly professed unbeliever in the
Christian religion, and a notorious defamer of the Scriptures and
the creeds.” Whether this accusation is wholly just, we need not
now stay to inquire. What we are considering at this moment is
the practicability of a “corporate” reconciliation which should in­
clude the Rector of Hutton and the Dean of Ripon, and all the
innumerable “shades of opinionists” which lie between them.
Imagine such a coincidence as that Dean Fremantle and the Rector
of Hutton should both together sue for “ corporate” reconciliation.
Join with these two suitors Father Ignatius, the well-known zealous
Anglican monk. And that we may have a thoroughly represent­
ative deputation, let us add the Editor of the Ritualist “ Church
Times” and the President of the Protestant Alliance. Every one
of these gentlemen, be it remembered, is equally a member of the
Church of England, equally entitled to speak on her behalf, equally
competent to dictate the terms of reconciliation, the conditions of
the proposed “ give and take.” It is manifest that, in the ante­
room, before their admission to the presence of the Papal Legate,
Dean Fremantle, the Rector of Hutton, Father Ignatius, the Edi­
tor of the Ritualist newspaper and the President of the Protestant
Alliance would have preliminaries to settle which it might take’a
number of years to bring within a “ corporate ” agreement. And
if it be answered, “yes, but it is the Ritualists alone who really
desire reconciliation ; the whole of the rest of the communion, in­
cluding the Archbishop of Canterbury, and probably three-fourths
of the clergy, being as indifferent to corporate as they are to indi­
vidual submission,” we must rejqin : then there is an end of all
corporateness ; for to say that, within one and the same Church of
England, the Ritualistic section may be reconciled to the Catholic’
authority, while all the other sections remain in hostility equally
with Catholicity and Ritualism, is to suppose a babel of different
creeds in the same Church, even more embarrassing than that
which now exists. It would only be adding a semi-Catholic Ritu­
alist sect to the existing semi-Protestant Ritualist sect; and there
would be no more corporateness than is possible between members
of the same family and the strangers who knock at their gate for
hospitality.

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American Catholic Quarterly Review.

We have still, however, another grave difficulty. The Church
of England never was corporate in any sense, historical or sound.
It was from the first a political sect, held together solely by royal
tyranny and compacted by iniquitous laws. It was “ corporate ”
only in the sense in which prisoners are corporate, within a jail
from which they cannot escape. Henry VIII. deprived the nation
of their true corporate Church, which was theirs by inheritance
and by choice; and because the Pope and the whole Church in
England were faithful to their whole Catholic duty he created, not
a church, but a schismatical sect, of which he made himself supreme
head. The story of a how it was done ” is as simple as it is des­
perately wicked. The nobles and the upper classes were bribed
by rich gifts of church lands, church abbeys and money; the
burgher class were the dependents of the nobles, and the poor
were at the mercy of both. At one blow, as it were, Henry de­
stroyed the monasteries, the homes, schools and hospitals of the
poor ; he punished the now friendless peasantry as vagrants, and
thus created the two great evils from which the country has ever
since suffered, a national vagrancy and pauperism. To call such
a new religion a “corporate” church would indeed be a trifling
with words. And when Elizabeth, driven wild with the Pope’s
rejection of her claims, abolished the Mass, repudiated five sacra­
ments out of seven, and completely stripped Christianity of its
doctrine and discipline, of its authority and divine jurisdiction,
she did not make a new church; that was impossible; she estab­
lished a new sect, which was only corporate in the sense that it
was the treason of law against God.
Nor can it be assumed that the Church of England is corporate
in the sense of its Common Prayer Book or its Formularies. As
to the Prayer Book, it was drawn up by the boy-king Edward
VI., was ratified by Elizabeth, and ratified once more by Scotch
James. So that to regard the Prayer Book as in real sense repre­
senting the ecclesiastical totality of the nation would be as absurd
as to speak of it as Roman Catholic. And as to the Thirty-Nine
Articles—which declare that “ General Councils may err,” that
Transubstantiation is “ repugnant to the plain words of Scripture,”
and that “ the Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm
of England ”—they were so grotesquely at issue with the beliefs
of the nation, with all the traditions of a thousand years, as well
as with the dictates of common sense, that they could no more
be said to “ corporately ” voice the nation in its doctrinal and su­
pernatural credo than they could be said to reflect justly its intelli­
gence or its educatedness, its truthfulness, sobriety, or morality.
We must dismiss, then, the whole idea of a corporate reconcilia­
tion in its relation to the history of the State Church, and all its
forms of worship and unbelief.

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817

V.
Yet happily, the very impossibility of a corporate reconciliation
renders the duty more imperative, and the task more easy, of in­
dividual submission to the Church. And has it not always been
a habit of English Protestants to talk of “ every man being an­
swerable to God in his own conscience/’ and of his “ not wanting
the guidance of others?” It is exactly this condition which should
lead each separate Protestant to pray to God to illumine his intel­
ligence, so that, detaching himself from the crowd of contending
teachers, who can teach him nothing but their own private opin­
ions, he may obtain the grace of faith sufficient to make his sub­
mission, and so to enjoy the divine sacraments of the Church.
There is no intention of alluding in this present paper to the
supernatural side of the subject; it belongs to theologians to speak
of the supernatural; and an ordinary lay Catholic would be out
of his groove were he to go outside ordinary lay reasonings. It
is only in the region of common sense that a layman can talk
about “ submission”; and Englishmen rather pride themselves on
their common sense; indeed, they sometimes seem to claim a
monopoly.
Now common sense can establish these three positions: (i)·
That divine truth can be known only by divine authority ; (2) that
the Church of England has no divine authority whatever ; and
(3) that, therefore, each separate Anglican must search for divine
authority before he can discover divine truth. This is the making
individual responsibility not only the best rule but the only rule.
It is an absolute folly for any Anglican to wait until half a dozen
other Anglicans, or half a dozen thousand other Anglicans, have
chatted over the ‘‘terms” on which they will consent to be ad­
mitted into membership with the one Church of God; it is the
inversion of common sense, since the only motive of being ad­
mitted into the Catholic Church must be the conviction that she
is the only true teacher. If outsiders can make conditions with
the Pope, or, like the amiable Rector of Hutton, who would ac­
knowledge his infallibility provided only his own Orders were
acknowledged—it follows, logically, that the divine authority of
outsiders must be equal to, if not greater than, that of the Pope.
Imagine a man saying in his prayers, “ I have no objection to
obeying Almighty God, provided he will acquiesce in my views
yet this is exactly what the Rector of Hutton must say when he
affirms that he will accept infallibility provided he, the Rector of
Hutton, may define its limits and the scope of the truths to be
determined. Common sense is a quite sufficient theologian to
apprehend that he who possesses infallibility must alone possess
the knowledge of its limits; and that to dictate to the Infallible
vol. xxi.—52

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American Catholic Quarterly Review.

what it shall allow or not allow, is the same thing with saying:
“ You are no more infallible than I am, since it is for me to point
out to you what you should do.” Undoubtedly, as to certain na­
tional customs, as to certain matters of discipline or of modus vi­
vendi., it is perfectly lawful for Anglicans to beg for concessions,
and a variety of such concessions might be made. But in all mat­
ters of faith—and the question of Anglican Orders, though not in
itself a question of faith, involves questions which are closely
allied with the faith—is just one of those enquiries on which the
magisterium of the Holy See must make final judgment and pro­
nouncement. Now to say to the Holy See, “ J am rather attached
to my Anglican Orders, and I really cannot allow your infallibility
—or, as it would be in the present instance, your magisteruim—Xx)
upset my fondly cherished convictions,” is to acknowledge a prin­
ciple while denying its operation ; to admit a law while denying its
obligation. It is an attitude which common sense must ridicule, and
which Christian piety must condemn. The Holy See is either set
in this world to give judgment on points, which are disputed, or it
has no more prerogative or special gift than has any one of the
fourteen hundred Catholic bishops. To admit the prerogative, the
magisterium, and yet to affect a superiority over its exercise, is a
good deal more like the want of the spirit of concession than like
the earnestness which desires concessions.
Have we not seen then that the fallacies of corporate reunion are
as obvious as is the paramount duty of individual submission to
the Church ? And this paramount duty, as has been said, is con­
sistent with the exercise of private judgment—the most treasured
of the privileges of Protestantism. There is no need to consult
with High Churchmen or Low Churchmen ; no need to wait for
the harmonizing of a score of dissident “ views as to reunion ; ”
no need to take counsel with the Archbishop of Canterbury, with
Father Ignatius, with the Rector of Hutton, or with the mem­
bers of the Protestant Alliance; the only rule is to be sincere and
in earnest, and to ask God every day for the gift of faith. This
course will be common sense and true piety. If the Church of
England—that heterogeneous muddle, which no intellect could
ever define, and no soul could ever look to for infallible teaching
—affirmed that she possessed divine authority, we might naturally
say, ask her to tell you whence she derives her divine authority,
and what does that divine authority teach. But the Church of
England repudiates divine authority; she assures you that all
churches, all councils “have erred;” she teaches that "erring”
is the grand credential of orthodoxy, and that every one who does
not err must be in error. We cannot avoid the paradox ; it is not
ours, it is Anglican. But every Anglican should rejoice in the

The Fiction of Corporate Reunion.

819

paradox, because it clears the way for individual submission. No
Anglican has any one whom he can consult; he has no one to
obey, no one who can teach him anything about anything ; his
“ Church ” is in the same position as himself, knowing just so
much of truth as can be gathered from the private impression of
what the Roman Catholic Church has always taught. This “pri­
vate impression” is equally the privilege of all Anglicans; of
Cranmer, of Laud, of John Wesley, of Lord Halifax, and of the
Protestant Alliance. Away then with the too puerile fiction of
obedience to a “ Church ” which does not exist ! Every Anglican,
when seeking the truth, must begin by turning his back on the im­
poster which affirms that “ all churches may err.”
In a few months what is called the Pan-Anglican Synod will
meet at Lambeth for the discussion of—what? We are emphati­
cally warned that the more than two hundred Anglican .Bishops
will not settle doctrinal disputes, will not affirm or condemn. We
knew beforehand that they would not attempt to do so ; and that
if they made the attempt, there would be one universal exclama­
tion, “ risum teneatis amiciT Now this one curious anomaly, the
Pan-Anglican Synod, should clear the way for “ individual sub­
mission.” We can imagine an Anglican, who is really anxious to
be reconciled to the Catholic Church, sitting outside the Synod
Hall at Lambeth, and waiting for the decisions of the Synod,
“ Will you tell me,” he asks eagerly of the bishops, “ whether I am
in the Church or out of it ? If I am in the Church, of course you
can define for me what is the true doctrine of the ‘ communion
service ; ’ whether I ought to adore the Consecrated Host, or to
believe only in a spiritual Real Presence?” No answer. “Will
you tell me whether the Anglican clergy for the last three centu­
ries have been priests ; whose duty it was to hear confessions, and
whose power it was to give absolutions ; and have they therefore,
for three centuries, incurred the anathema of the Church, for never
doing what it was their duty to do, and for always preaching
against the powers which they possessed ? ” No answer. “ Will
you tell me whether the Roman Catholic Church in this country
is in schism, and if so, from what Church it is in schism, and by
whose authority it is proved to be in schism ? ” No answer.
“Will you tell me what is the Living Authority in the world, to
decide for me on all matters of faith ; so that, for example, between
the teaching of the Tsar’s Church, of the English Ritualists, and
of the Protestant Alliance, I maybe guided infallibly to choose the
truth ; and will you specially mention w/ry the Roman Catholic
Church, which is the only Church in the world which claims
to teach, and the only Church in the world which does now
teach, is to be the one only communion to.which I am to refuse

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American Catholic Quarterly Review.

my obedience, under penalty of the Anglican anathema ?” No
answer,
Individual Submission is the clearest duty of free will within a
“ Church ” which is neither docens nor discens. If we had to live a
thousand years, instead of ten years or one year, we might wait a
day or two longer before making quite sure whether we were in­
side or outside the Church of God. But to risk dying without
confession and absolution, without Holy Communion, without Ex­
treme Unction, and without the aid of the Communion of Saints,
is what common sense must pronounce to be the wildest act of
folly which is so much as even possible to the human mind.
A. F. Marshall.

A DAUGHTER OF THE DOGES.
HE Venetian family of the Cornaro had made its name illus­
trious by the several doges it had given to the state from
the fourteenth century onward, and by one of its noble daughters,
Caterina, queen of Cyprus. This young woman, daughter of a
rich merchant, was given in marriage to James de Lusignan on
his being made king.of Cyprus, when that island was wrested from
the Greeks. Proud though the Venetians were of the wealth
brought by their enterprising merchants to the ancient city, it was
deemed scarcely fitting that the new king should wed a wife with­
out a title, although her family was one of the oldest in Venice, so
the republic adopted the youthful Caterina ; it pronounced her a
daughter of St. Mark, and became her guardian. And nobly it
fulfilled this self imposed trust, for later, when her royal husband
was killed in the defence of his kingdom, Venice watched over
the welfare of the widow and her infant child. Finally, her posi­
tion becoming most precarious, Caterina cast aside the unsafe bur­
den of sovereignty and abdicated in favor of the republic ; later
she retired to Asolo, where she kept up a mimic court for many
years. Pietro Bembo, afterwards cardinal, wrote about the inno­
cent but rather unreal life led there, with its fantastic pastimes and
revels.1. The story of Caterina has fascinated more than one

T

1 It is probable that this book was among those printed by the famous Aldus ; for
Cardinal Bembo, both before and after his elevation to the Sacred College, was a
f riend and patron of Aldus.