THE RECENT ANGLO-ROMAN PASTORAL

THE English Episcopate has recently addressed a joint pastoral to the clergy and laity of the Church of England, insisting on the duty of obedience to episcopal pronouncements. The bishops of the Roman obedience in England have also addressed a pastoral to their flocks on the same subject.

Both pastorals raise issues of great importance, and both seem not unlikely to have results very different from those which their respective authors probably intended.

The pastoral published by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and their suffragans, though more immediately concerned with the question of obedience to the recent opinions put out by the Archbishops in regard to the ceremonial use of incense and the Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament, raises questions of much greater importance than those which attach to any mere detail of ritual considered in itself, or even to such a matter as Reservation of the Holy Sacrament for the use of the sick and dying. A bishop might for particular reasons, or in a particular case, forbid the ceremonial use of incense, or the Reservation of the Holy Sacrament, and the Church be none the worse. It is not so, however, with questions touching the claims and authority of the Church herself. The nature of episcopal authority, the sanctions to which it must of necessity appeal, the methods of its exercise, and the principles which it postulates in order to justify its claims to obedience, are some of the questions raised by the pastoral of the English bishops. Other questions of no less importance are also involved in it. Has a national Church the right to separate itself in regard to doctrine and practice from the accepted teaching and usage of the rest of the Catholic Church of which it professes to be a part? To give an nstance: in view of the teaching and practice of the Church, East and West alike, has any national Church the right to forbid the use of the Hail, Mary,' or 'the Invocation of Saints,' in the sense of asking for their prayers?

Again, what is the extent of the obligation which may be supposed to attach to particular changes in regard to doctrine and

practice actually made by the authorities of a national Church, especially if forced upon a local Church under the very exceptional circumstances which in the sixteenth century and since have determined the history and character of the Church of England?

These are all questions involved in the recent pastoral of the English Episcopate and the opinions of the Archbishops for which it claims obedience. Having been raised, these questions must be faced, and if they are honestly faced, the result can hardly fail not only largely to affect the character and shift the ground of existing religious controversies in England, but to exercise an important influence on the future of Christendom at large.

It is, however, foreign to the purpose of this article to discuss the pastoral of the English bishops. That has recently been done with very great completeness by Canon MacColl in the new edition of his book on the Reformation Settlement, and by the Rev. W. J. Scott in an article on 'The Crisis in the Church, from an Extreme Point of View,' published in the April number of this Review. The object of the present article is to draw attention to the joint pastoral recently issued by Cardinal Vaughan and the Roman Catholic Episcopate in England, to the nature and extent of the authority claimed by that pastoral for the rulers of the Church, and to the grounds on which it demands assent, exterior and interior, to the utterances of ecclesiastical authority.

Such a discussion may not be without its bearing upon existing controversies within the limits of the Church of England. It may indirectly suggest reflections, and help to clear up difficulties as to the nature and extent of ecclesiastical authority, and as to the methods by which such authority should be exercised amongst ourselves; and, more remotely, like the raising of the questions provoked by the pastoral of the Anglican bishops, it may be at least a step towards indicating some of the obstacles which at present hinder that reunion of Christendom so imperatively demanded by the needs of the Church of Christ.

If an excuse is wanted for one outside the Roman Communion attempting such a discussion, it is to be found, first, in the fact that the questions raised by the pastoral of the Roman Catholic Episcopate in England affect not merely the Roman Communion, but the whole Church; and, secondly, in the conviction that the authors of the pastoral were not entirely uninfluenced, so far, at least, as portions of the pastoral are concerned, by a consideration of the existing controversies and present circumstances of the Church of England. Be this as it may, in the eyes of those who believe that Christ has entrusted to His apostles and their successors authority to feed and govern His Church, the unhappy schisms which divide Christendom, and have driven the members of the Episcopate in England into two rival camps, cannot divest the utterances of any portion of the one

Episcopate of that right to a respectful attention which is due from all who recognise the sacred character of the episcopal office.

The pastoral of the Anglo-Roman bishops begins with the statement that for 300 years no religious tribunal capable of teaching with unerring certainty, or of binding the conscience in the name of God, has been recognised by the English people.' The result has been to substitute the principle of private judgment for the principle of obedience to religious authority.'

Those who are known as 'Liberal Catholics' are then unsparingly condemned. They take leave to discuss theology and the government of the Church with the same freedom of speech and opinion' as they do other matters. They are wanting in filial docility and reverence,' and 'the rights and liberties of the Church have to be defended against them.'

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The pastoral next asserts the presence and authority of a Divine Teacher' . . . ' on earth,' and declares that God Himself is the Divine Teacher of whom we speak.' It then lays down the relations of the Ecclesia discens to the Ecclesia docens, and, contrasting the spirit of the Liberal Catholic,' 'which strips itself of all the instincts of faith and obedience,' with that of the docile disciple of Christ,' which in all matters of faith, whether positively defined or only felt to be the general mind or approved sentiment of the Church, reposes trustfully in the care and guidance of the Divine Teacher,' goes on to point out to the clergy 'the absolute necessity of thoroughly instructing converts on the ground and motive of faith before receiving them into the Church. Unless they believe that they have found in the Catholic Church the Divine Teacher, they must not be admitted into her pale, no matter how many articles of the Catholic faith they may assent to.' The warning is to be commended for its honesty and straightforwardness, and hints not obscurely at the fact that proselytising zeal in the past has not been always accompanied by discretion, but that the desire to increase the roll of Rome's recruits' has, at least in certain cases, led to conversions in haste that have been repented at leisure.

The rest of the pastoral deals with the theory of development, points out how much the teaching-office of the Church is needed to meet present dangers, insists that any attempt to minimise in the sphere of received doctrine and practice is to be condemned, defends the action of the Roman Congregations-as, for example, the Congregation of the Index-and winds up with an appeal to the loyalty of Catholics very similar to the concluding paragraphs of the pastoral put out by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and the English Episcopate, which speak of those who are regardless of our authority,' and exhort them to return to that obedience which alone can expect the blessing of God.'

At a time, therefore, when Leo the Thirteenth is stretching out

his hands to those who are wandering far away from the fold of Christ,' and inviting them frankly to 'retrace their steps one and all,' it is only to meet the spirit of the joint pastoral half way if those to whom more especially the Pope's invitation seems to be addressed should ask a few plain questions, lest they too should come under the same condemnation as those too hastily welcomed proselytes of whom there is complaint. Let us know clearly, such persons might say, to what conception of authority we are asked to give our adhesion, that we may look before we leap.

It is, of course, the somewhat chaotic state of Church government amongst ourselves that turns the eyes of the more impatient and fearful towards the contrasted organisation of the Roman Church, and makes them hanker for peace at any price. But 'peace at any price' is an intolerable principle of conduct, and therefore such persons have a right to know more exactly at what price this peace is to be purchased, and whether in flying from the ills they know to those they know not they may not be exchanging temporary and possibly remediable anarchy, if anarchy it be, for permanent and irremediable absolutism. Following roughly the divisions of the pastoral, there are at least two points on which such persons might desiderate far clearer and more definite answers than have hitherto been accorded to them, or can be gathered inferentially from the document before them. They are the precise limits, first, of the infallible teachingauthority claimed for the Pope; then, of the non-infallible teachings of the Pope, bishops, congregations, and other components of the Ecclesia docens. It is not the fact of authority that is obscure, but its nature and limits. For the inspired words quoted by the bishops in defence of ecclesiastical, papal, and episcopal authority indifferently must be taken either absolutely au pied de la lettre, or else with limits. If with limits, they are uninstructive until we know exactly what those limits are; but such limitation is not very clearly suggested by the language of the pastoral. Yet it is impossible to suppose that the words 'He that heareth you heareth Me,' 'As the Father hath sent Me, so send I you,'' All power is given to Me in heaven and on earth; go ye, therefore '—it is impossible to suppose that these words are to be applied absolutely and without limit, either to the bishops, or to the Pope, or to both collectively. Christ, as man, possessed complete lordship over the powers of nature; he was, moreover, King of kings and Lord of lords, the source of all temporal sovereignty; he was a revealer of new truths, an institutor of divine mysteries and sacraments. Now, no Roman theologian claims such powers for the Pope or the episcopate as these. Hence we may assume as granted that Christ delegated to his Church, not all, but only some of His powers and offices; that the vicarious office of Pope or bishop is limited in many ways. In what ways? is the whole question. We look, however, in vain for any hint of limitation in

such a passage as this, 'Now God Himself is the Divine Teacher of whom we speak. When our Lord Jesus Christ was upon earth, God spoke through the lips of His Sacred Humanity. After He had ascended into Heaven, the Divine Teacher spoke through the mouth of Peter and the Apostles, and He now teaches and will continue to teach through their legitimate successors until the consummation of the world.' It is impossible not to infer from this that God speaks through the mouth of the Pope, just as He spoke through the mouth of Christ, which, of course, would mean that the Pope, like Christ or St. Peter, was a source of revelation-that he was not merely infallibly assisted, but simply inspired. Consistently with this false transition from one sense to another, the Church is spoken of throughout as 'the Divine Teacher'; in fact, we are told that God Himself is the Divine Teacher now on earth of whom we speak.' The implied argument is that the Pope is Peter, Peter is Christ, Christ is God; therefore the Pope or the Church is God. Now the Church is not God; she is at most a 'divinely assisted' teacher, not a 'Divine Teacher' in the sense of the passage just quoted, which is meant to prove that God has guaranteed to mankind the presence and authority of a Divine Teacher who shall remain on earth until the end of time.' This is true within limits; but, again, what are those limits?

Similarly we read, That Divine Teacher claims unreserved allegiance, love and obedience, whether He speaks through the Sacred Humanity, or through the Vicar of Christ and the Bishops. who are the successors of the Apostles and "ambassadors for Christ." Before their death the Apostles handed on their ministry to others,' &c.

Is there, then, no difference at all? Is the Church really better off now than when she had but one Christ in her midst and only twelve Apostles? Surely some tempering of a proposition is required here which if taken absolutely is plainly false, and if taken with limits means nothing till it is stated what those limits are.'

Whatever other texts may legitimately be extended in their reference from the Apostles to the Church of the subsequent ages, those at least cannot which bear upon their unique and intransmissible office of eyewitnesses and firsthand hearers of the deeds and words of Christ. Yet the pastoral quotes such texts as throwing light upon the authority of the living Church of to-day: 'Ye shall give testimony, because ye are with me from the beginning'; 'He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I have said unto you.' The italicised words are sense

'Cf. the statement in the pastoral, 'One and the same is the Lord and Teacher who gave the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai and who now instructs and rules the hierarchy of the Church.' And in the same way? Else what force has this statement ?