The State Of Anglicanism or Why I Became A Catholic

"Raised in a nominal Anglican family, early on he sensed the inconsistencies and lack of solid authority and doctrinal beliefs in Anglicanism."

The above quote comes from the back cover of Sir Joseph Pope's conversion story, Why I Became A Catholic. I read this book last week and was amazed at both how similar my thoughts were to his in thinking of converting, and also how eerily relevant it is to today's time. Sir Joseph Pope wrote this book back in 1921 and he talked about events that happened almost fifty years before then.

This book is a must read for all Anglicans who take their faith seriously and even for all non-Catholics who do likewise. I would also highly recommend it to any Catholic who wants assurance of the Catholic Church or for anyone who wants to read a great story from a great man.

In the book, Sir Joseph asks:

"What can be more absurd than the idea that a man should belong to a church simply because he has been born in it?"

He also describes the church that he was born into (which isn't too far off from that state of Anglicanism today, especially in Canada where he is from):

"Creeds and sacraments were very secondary and might even be harmful, as tending to obscure the one thing needful. The idea of grace being conferred sacramentally was characterized as a figment of superstition. Baptismal regeneration was formally denied. There was no mystery about the Eucharist, which was simply a solemn service commemorative of the death of Christ. The idea of the real, objective presence of our Lord in the elements was looked upon as idolatry. The only ‘real presence’ was that of the Saviour in the heart of the worthy communicant. Episcopacy was regarded as a convenient form of church government, but no power of forgiving sins or of offering sacrifice was imparted by bishop’s hands, and consequently the status of the clergy of the Anglican Church did not differ in any essential particular from that of their Presbyterian or Methodist counterparts."

Pope decided to study the history of his denomination. Here is what he found:

"As I pursued my enquiries, I discovered in the works of such eminent historians as Hume, Hallam, Maitland, Lecky, Arnold and many others, opinions of the Reformers couched, it is true, in more restrained language than that which I have quoted , but still clearly unfavorable to the men whose names I had been brought up to revere. And what added enormously to the weight of this testimony with me was that it came from exclusively Protestant sources. At the period of my life I am here considering, and for some time afterward, I had never read a line of theological disputation written from the Catholic point of view or indeed of any Catholic work whatsoever. Of Roman controversy I was entirely ignorant.

My reading of Macaulay, Hallam and other historians of the period convinced me that episcopacy was retained by the Tudor sovereigns merely as a convenient form of church government. There was no thought of the transmission thereby of sacramental grace.

Cranmer himself, head of the Anglican hierarchy (says Macaulay in his History of England), avowed his conviction (if the word can be used of such a man) that in primitive times there was no distinction between bishops and priests, and that the laying on of hands was altogether superfluous. According to the same authority, Cranmer stated that the king might in virtue of his authority make a priest, and that the priest so made needed no ordination whatever. Cranmer also held that his spiritual functions were delimited by the life of the Crown, and when Henry VII died, he and his suffragans took out fresh commissions.

The primate’s views on this subject were very generally shared by his fellow reformers. For example, in the reign of Henry VIII, certain questions were put by the king to the bishops and other divines upon theological points. Among other things, they were asked whether bishops or priests were first; and if priests were first, whether the priests made the bishops.

William Barlow, bishop of St. Asaph, answered, ‘At the beginning they were all one.’ Asked whether ‘in the New Testament be required any consecration of a Bishop or a Priest or only appointing to the office be sufficient’, he answered, ‘Only the appointing.’

He also declared, ‘If the King’s Grace being supreme head of the Church of England did choose, denominate and elect any layman being learned to be a Bishop, that he so chosen should be as good a Bishop as he is or the best in England.’ No mention is made of orders.

These are two men upon the validity of whose consecration and action the orders of the Anglican Church depend!"

Pope quotes a man by the name of Sergeant Bellasis who "stood in front rank at the English parliamentary bar. That great lawyer delved into this question when a Protestant, sifted the evidence for and against with all the skill for which he was celebrated, and arrived at the following conclusion:

Under all these circumstances, considering the openly expressed opinions of both Cranmer and Barlow that consecration was not necessary, -that the opinion would be pleasing to King Henry,- that there is no record of any consecration of Barlow by Cranmer or any one commissioned by him, or by any one at all, -that the documents relating to the election of his successor at St. Asaph speak of Barlow as having been ‘Bishop elect’ only, and use words to describe the cause of the vacancy altogether unusual and implying something short of a regular ‘translation’,- I think it is in the highest degree probable, if not certain, that Barlow never was consecrated at all; and if so it follows that he had no power to consecrate others, and therefore that Parker’s consecration, so far as it depends upon Barlow, was no consecration at all."

Pope goes on to say,

"It was becoming increasingly evident to me that these men intended to sever the church in England from the Ancient Religion, to root out and destroy belief in the sacraments -especially in the Sacrifice of the Mass, in the transmission of orders by the imposition of hands, in confession, in the intercession of saints (particularly devotion to the Blessed Virgin), and generally in all that body of belief commonly known as Catholic doctrine.

I was sufficiently acquainted with history, even at eighteen, to know that Catholicism was almost entirely suppressed in England during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the first portion of the nineteenth century. In fact, the Reformers did their work so thoroughly that very little religion of any kind was left in the Anglican Church throughout the eighteenth century. I knew that it was not until the year 1833 that the Oxford Movement, under Newman, Keble, Pusey and their associates, caused religion in that communion to revive. For these names I had and have nothing but regard and respect. I do not doubt that they were, one and all, animated by the highest motives of blotting out the shameful past, of undoing, as far as lay in their power, the evil of the Reformation.

It is a fact that fifty years ago and, possibly to a lesser extent, to this day, the great majority of the Anglican Church, both clerical and lay, regarded the work of the Reformation in England with the highest approbation. The Archbishop of Canterbury at the period through which I was passing (Tait), together with a majority of his Episcopal brethren, repudiated the idea of an indelible grace transmitted by the imposition of hands and that they possessed the power to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass or forgive sins.

In defiance of the plainest evidence to the contrary, I was asked to belive that the Anglican Church was the same Church that existed in England before the Reformation, not merely legally but ecclesiastically and spiritually.

By such considerations as these was I led to fear that the communion to which I belonged had no part with the Ancient Church but had been set up by men who had separated themselves therefrom, by men who had revolted against the divine authority. In that case it was, despite its retention of the Episcopal form of government, a heretical body, and I was in schism or worse.

Now, from a child, I had been familiar with the Holy Scriptures, and in recalling with what severity St. Paul regarded ‘sects’, I found new reason to suspect the so-called Reformation was not only the work of brutal and immoral conspirators but a formal rejection of the first principles of Christianity as expounded by its earliest teachers.

Take St. Paul. No prophet, priest, or pontiff, I found, ever went beyond this gentle and amiable ruler in merciless denunciation of sects and of all who make or join them. There is no danger of misinterpreting his words. No ingenuity could assign to them two meanings. Let anyone try to do so in the following examples.

The disciples in Galatia were troubled by what St. Peter calls ‘self-willed teachers’. These were Jewish converts who supposed that the rites of the Mosaic Law were still binding. It was no doubt a grave error, but it seems to have been shared, at least for a time, by many sincere Christians. Heresy has seldom presented itself, I suppose, in a milder form. Yet St. Paul speaks of such heretics as if they were almost beyond the reach of mercy! Such teachers, he tells the Galatians, pervert the gospel of Christ. If an angel from heaven, he continues, should introduce any variation of doctrine, let him be accursed. He desires to be accursed himself if he should ever commit such a crime. I would, the tender apostle adds, they were even cut off which trouble you. And then he explains this mysterious vehemence by the announcement that heresies or sects, whatever their pretext, origin or character, are as manifestly works of the flesh as are idolatry, witchcraft, murder, etc., the worst crimes of which human nature is capable.

St. Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth that he had heard and ‘partly believed’ -an expression in which we may perhaps see a proof of his exquisite delicacy- that there were divisions among them. The report he considers credible, ‘for there must also be heresies among you that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.’ To have anything to do with heresy and schism was, in the judgment of St. Paul, one of the evident tokens of reprobation.

He is always giving the same warning and always in the same language. ‘Is Christ divided?’ he asks. He could hardly have taught in a more impressive way the incomparable guilt of heresy and schism.

This was not pleasing for a member of the Anglican Church, such as I was at the time. Our internal divisions were too flagrant to admit of denial. There was hardly a point relating either to the nature of the Christian Church on which the leaders if the High and Low Church parties did not differ, hopelessly and fundamentally. They differed on almost everything upon which it was possible to differ. If one of these two sections of the same church professed the religion of Christ, it was clear that the other largely denied it. Had our Lord appointed priests in His Church or only ministers? Was the Sacrifice of the Altar the most solemn mystery of our religion or a ‘blasphemous fable’? Were the sacraments intended by Him as mystical channels of divine grace, or were they purely symbolic and commemorative? Was the apostolic succession a fact or a fiction? Was schism a revolt or a privilege? Was truth itself one or manifold? Upon all these questions they were at opposite poles.

Let me give one illustration of this divergence of religious belief in the Anglican Church of those days, drawn from my own locality.

The doctrine of the Real Presence of our Lord in the Eucharist has ever been regarded as a crucial article of belief among Christians. It is surely one of supreme importance. In my native town there were, as I have said, two Anglican churches. A revered dignitary of the Low Church school had occasion to make a sick call with the object of administering Holy Communion. He found the patient so weak as to be unable to swallow, and after making several ineffectual attempts to administer the sacrament he departed, leaving the Sacred Species in a spoon by the bedside.

This of course was a hideous profanation of holy things, for on the very lowest grounds the elements this ‘steward of the mysteries of God’ treated with such disrespect were memorials of his dying Saviour’s love. I did not see this with my own eyes, but I was so informed at the time by several persons, including at least two members of the English church. Knowing the clergyman as I did, I am bound to add that I see no inherent improbability in the story. Not that he meant to be profane. On the contrary, he was a trusted exponent of what is styled ‘evangelical Christianity’. St. Paul says in so many words of the very bread this clergyman consigned -to put it as mildly as possible- to secular uses, that it is the ‘communion of the body of Christ’. The same clergyman is said to have refused to hear the confession of one of his lady parishioners who went to him in great trouble, on the ground that he ‘would not be a sink for her iniquities’.

Within half a mile from the scene of this gentleman’s ministrations, there stood another Anglican church. There, one day, owing to an unfortunate accident during the administration of Holy Communion, a particle of the Sacred Species fell to the floor, or rather in the carpet before the altar. The clergyman himself, at an appropriate time, on his knees, reverently removed the Sacrament, washed the spot where it fell and afterward cut out the piece of carpet on which it had rested. He later burned the piece of carpet. As before, I did not actually see this event myself, but I was so informed at the time by his own brother, and, knowing George Hodgson as I did, I have no hesitation in believing that what I narrate actually happened as I have here set down.

Is it not obvious that these men differed toto coelo in regard to the most solemn of Christian rites? Yet both were dispensers of the same mysteries, both were ministers of the same church, and both derived from the same source their authority for the administration of the sacraments.

I had been taught to believe that the Catholic Church was composed of three branches, the Roman, the Orthodox, and the Anglican. Now it was notorious that, so far from there being any approach to unity among these three bodies, the great Roman Communion would not recognize us in any form. Further, the Orthodox Eastern Church, despite a recent interchange of civilities between it and the heads of the Anglican body, prompted (there is good reason to think) less by regard for the Anglicans than by dislike of the pope, considered us outside the true fold, to which entrance must be sought by individual submission, even as in the case of Rome."

I had been taught the same regarding the Catholic Church being composed into three branches. Like Sir Joseph Pope, as soon as I did some research I found it to be as far from the truth as possible. In fact in the current day Rome's ties with the Orthodox are ever growing, while the apostasy of several Anglican provinces have suspended Rome's talks with the Anglicans indefinitely.

"Looking then at our position, whether from within or without, I could not help asking myself, ‘Is such a system worthy of our Divine Lord? Could He possibly have had such a body in mind when He said, “Upon this Rock I will build my Church”?’ St. Paul’s words ‘Is Christ divided?’ often recurred to me as I grew more and more concerned as to the tenableness of my position as a member of the Anglican Church."

With these discoveries, Pope had no other choice but to convert. With that, the decision was still a hard one.

"To someone who has always been a Catholic, it may appear singular that a fact so glaringly obvious as the fallacy of the Anglican position did not at once produce certitude in my mind and lead directly to its natural consequences. Those, however, who have trodden the path will know the manifold difficulties of the position. To begin with, a change of faith is always a momentous step, to be undertaken only after the gravest consideration. In my case it involved telling my clergymen, whom I respected and loved, that they were in error on the most vital of all subjects: that they themselves were assuming a character they did not possess, exercising functions they were not authorized to perform, and offering me sacraments that were not real. This surely was a grievous thing to do."

Even with the necessity for converting, Joseph Pope (as do I), still recognized that there is alot of good that comes from the Anglican Church.

I view the Anglican Church under a twofold aspect. Its claim to be considered a portion of the Church Catholic I cannot acknowledge. At the same time, even as regards its spiritual character, I cheerfully recognize that it teaches much truth. It is vastly better than its founders. It stands as a breakwater against greater evils. It contains within its ranks many whose sincerity and piety cannot be questioned. I do not believe that it possesses the apostolic succession, but most heartily do I concur in the opinion that if excellence of purpose and purity of life could make a man a priest, the Anglican Church would number many such.

It is a grievous thing, no doubt, that the ancient English sees should be occupied by those whom we cannot but regard as intruders. It is equally painful to behold those glorious cathedrals, erected by the piety of our forefathers for Catholic worship, devoted to their present uses. On the other hand, it is surely better for their rightful owners that Westminster Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral should remain in the keeping of cultivated gentleman who are not insensible to the sacred influences of those hallowed spots than that they should once again be overrun by men without reverence for the past, respect for the present, or regard for the future. Better a thousand times that these noble temples should continue to resound with what is, after all, an echo -faint though it may be- of the olden worship than that they should be profaned by the uncouth diatribes of an itinerant preacher or given over to the purposes of socialistic propaganda.

So far, I have been speaking of the Anglican Church in relation to its spiritual pretensions, but surely it has another and a stronger claim to the consideration of all patriotic Englishmen, without reference to creed. I regard it as a bulwark of the Crown and a pillar of the State, as one of the fundamental institutions of our country, whose teachings and example are ever on the side of loyalty to the sovereign, respect for tradition and, in temporal concerns, obedience to constituted authority. These are great qualities, commanding, I care not by whom manifested, my sympathy and regard. And then I cannot forget those many sincere devoted souls, of whom my friends Messrs. Hodgson and Wood were archetypes, who ought to be with us but who for one reason or another do not see their way to take the step that alone can satisfy their spiritual longings and fill them with contentment."

In the end, he called for the true unity of all Christians against the evils of his day. Today, it holds as true as ever! With the rise of immorality, relativism, the war not only on Christmas but Christianity itself, and the mindset of the world today that it is okay to kill an innocent unborn child, we as Christians need to come together and speak out against the evils of the world!

"In this, of course, I am only giving expression to my own deep and earnest personal desire that some way not inconsistent with the faith might be found to surmount the present obstacles to reunion. For never was union more necessary than now. Never was there greater occasion for all who profess and call themselves Christians to stand shoulder to shoulder than at the present moment, when in many quarters Christian faith is growing cold, when disregard of authority and a spirit of unrest and dissatisfaction with the existing order pervade the whole world; when all things, save only the Catholic Church, seem to be shaking to their foundation; and when uncertainty and doubt prevail in every quarter. To our High Church friends, what a satisfaction it would be to exhange their present state of dreary and hopeless division for the usre ground of Catholicity, to know what they believe and why, to possess a common centre of authority, and to apprehend the full significance of the divine promise ‘On this rock I will build my church.’"

I leave you with the words of another great convert who inspired Sir Joseph Pope as well as myself.

"From the day I became a Catholic…I have never had a moment’s misgiving that the communion of Rome is that Church which the Apostles set up at Pentecost, which alone had ‘the adoption of sons, and the glory, and the covenants, and the revealed law, and the service of God, and the promises,’ and in which the Anglican Communion, whatever its merits and demerits, whatever the great excellence of individuals in it, has, as such, no part."

-John Henry Newman