Breaking with the Past Part 1

Breaking with the Past.

by Francis Aidan Gasquet and John Cardinal Farley.

PREFACE

THE Rt. Rev. Francis Aidan Gasquet, Abbot-General of the English Benedictines and Chairman of the Commission appointed for the revision of the Vulgate or Latin Bible, gave a course of sermons at the High Ma.s.s in St. Patrick's Cathedral on the Sundays of Advent, 1913, on "Catholic Principles abandoned at the Reformation."

These sermons attracted very wide attention. The subject chosen, while seemingly a familiar one, proved most interesting to the vast congregations, drawn by the fame of the preacher as a historian of the Reformation period. His manner of treatment had much to do with the profound interest manifested by his listeners. All attempt at pulpit oratory was cast aside, and the preacher confined himself to a clear unvarnished tale of the causes that led up to the so-called Reformation.

He showed himself a complete master of the question. As announced in his opening sermon, the Rt. Rev. Abbot did not seek to be controversial, but purely historical, and this purpose he followed to the end, basing all his statements on doc.u.ments whose authenticity could not be called in question. He made clear what Cardinal Manning has so often repeated, that England did not give up the Catholic faith of centuries, but was simply robbed of it.

It was my pleasure to be present at all the sermons, and to be held under the spell of his simple eloquence, and to experience the appeal his strong arguments must have made. The main thesis which the learned Abbot sought to establish was that the doctrines of the Church in England had been reconstructed under Lutheran and Calvinistic influence, and the cultural beliefs held by the Church from the time of Christ had been rejected. This was especially true of the priesthood. By Act of Parliament a new form of ordination, carefully and systematically excluding every word that could be interpreted to mean that the candidate was to be a sacrificing priest, was introduced.

In these days when there is a strong movement on foot without the fold, to restore the unity of the Christian faith, we can indulge the hope that the four lectures of the distinguished Abbot will prove fruitful.

They are on subjects so vital to unity; _i. e._ the Supremacy of the Pope, the Sacrifice of the Ma.s.s, the Eternal Priesthood, the Universal Church. We pray that these sermons will attract the attention of many outside the Church, and make them meditate on the bitterness of breaking from their "Father's House." May G.o.d's holy grace prove stronger than prejudice, as it has so often in the past, and may it soften the hearts which have been hardened by cruel legislation rather than by wilful disobedience.

JOHN CARDINAL FARLEY, _Archbishop of New York_.

NEW YORK, The Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, 1913

I

THE POPE'S AUTHORITY

TO-DAY we begin the work of Advent. During these weeks of preparation for the great feast of Christmas it is usual and useful to turn our thoughts to some of the great principles upon which our faith as Catholics is grounded, in order that we may realise more fully all that our Blessed Lord's coming into this world has done for mankind in general and for our individual souls in particular. It will not therefore be altogether foreign to this purpose if during these Sundays of Advent I ask your consideration of certain Catholic principles which appear to me to have been deliberately abandoned in the great religious revolution of the sixteenth century, known as the Reformation, but to which our Catholic forefathers in England and in Ireland clung with heroic constancy and for which they suffered loss of worldly goods and even laid down their lives.

And first, I should at the outset like to disclaim any desire to enter into mere matters of controversy. In these days, when so many aspirations and prayers for a return to Christian Unity are being uttered and which in the face of the common enemy find an echo in the heart of every Catholic, the bitterness engendered by the controversial spirit is, to say the least, wholly foreign to the work of Union. But as a first step to that Christian Unity we all pray for, it is surely necessary to recognise the points of departure, out of which our differences have grown. We cannot proceed far along the path towards agreement unless we understand how we first began to differ, and therefore, not in any spirit of bitterness or controversy. I desire to speak of facts as they seem to me, and to point out what was really done at the time of the Reformation in England, which still has obvious consequences in all English-speaking countries. As far as I am concerned at present those who hold that what was done in regard to religion in the sixteenth century was well done may continue to hold this belief.

All I desire at this time is to ascertain _what_ was done.

Now the first point of attack made on the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church was upon the spiritual jurisdiction of the Pope. We Catholics hold and believe that our Lord came down on earth and became man to redeem us, not as a mere historical fact, which was once done and completed by His death upon the Cross, but that the work of this redemption was to be applied to the individual soul, through the work of the Church He established on earth. This Church was to minister to souls through the Sacraments He inst.i.tuted, the grace He had purchased for them by His Pa.s.sion and Death, and it was to be the fount of all truth and teaching. We Catholics further believe and hold that our Lord established this His church upon the authority of St. Peter and his successors, as the necessary basis of unity of faith and discipline. To us this seems so certain that it is inconceivable that our Lord, who was G.o.d and had all knowledge of the working of the human heart and mind, should not have provided some such an authority as that of the Pope, as the necessary bond of unity of the Faith. Mind, I am not proving this in any way: I am but stating it as the firm and unchanging belief of Catholics.

Up to the time of King Henry VIII., and indeed till the end of the first half of his reign, this, which is our belief, was that of England and Ireland in common with all other parts of Christendom before the revolt of Luther a few years before in Germany. Of this I do not think there can be much doubt, except perhaps in the minds of professional controversialists. Let me give a few examples of English teaching on the subject. In the University of Oxford, up to the Reformation, there was no more honoured theological authority in the schools, than the celebrated Duns Scotus. This is what he taught as to papal authority: "It is of faith that the ever Holy Roman Church, which is the pillar and ground of all truth and against which the gates of h.e.l.l cannot prevail, admits of no error and teaches the truth. Hence they are excommunicated as heretics who teach or hold anything different from what She teaches and practises." This is clear enough teaching: and no less clear is the declaration made by the representatives of England and Ireland in the Council of Florence, which was held in A. D. 1417, a century and more before the breach with Rome. At that Council there were present more than a hundred British Bishops and Prelates. Peculiar circ.u.mstances called for a declaration of their loyalty to the Universal Church, and this is one clause in that declaration: "Moreover the Kingdom of England, thanks be to G.o.d! has never swerved from its obedience to the Roman Church: it has never tried to rend the seamless coat of Our Lord: it has never endeavoured to shake off its loyalty to the Roman Pontiffs."

Ten years later again, in 1426, Pope Martin V. in a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, states as a recognised fact, that not only had the Roman Pontiffs supreme authority as a fact, but that this authority was derived as of divine inst.i.tution from our Lord Himself and he tells the archbishop that he is bound to protect "the rights and privileges of the Roman Church and the Apostolic See, which Christ Himself gave by His divine Word, and not men." This is the distinct claim put forth by the Pope, and Archbishop Chicheley in his reply, made on behalf of the English Church, fully and frankly admits this claim, and makes it quite clear that the traditional teaching of the English Church in regard to the Papacy was that it was of divine inst.i.tution and not that its authority was of ecclesiastical inst.i.tution, and still less that England or Ireland had ever given its obedience to the Pope on grounds of national policy or expediency and not on a dogmatic basis. The matter is put clearly enough to remove all doubt in the letter addressed to the Pope by the University of Oxford at the same time as that of Archbishop Chicheley in behalf of the English Bishops. "We recognise in your beloved person (that of. Pope Martin V.) the true Head. We profess without doubt and from our hearts (that you are) the one Supreme Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ on earth and the true successor of St.

Peter."

That this remained the firm and unshaken faith of the Church and people of England and Ireland right up to the final breaking away from Rome we have ample and positive proofs. Out of many I will cite one testimony.

When the teachings of the reformer, Luther, began to find adherents in other lands, King Henry VIII., with the help of Bishop Fisher, himself composed a book in defence of the Sacramental teaching of the Church.

This volume was taken to Rome by one of the English Bishops and presented to the Pope in full Consistory on October 2, 1521. On behalf of Henry, the envoy in the presence of all the Cardinals and Amba.s.sadors made public declaration of the entire loyalty of the English nation to the Holy Roman Church and its Supreme Pontiff. "Of other nationalities,"

he says, "let others speak. But a.s.suredly my Britain--my England, as in later times she has been called--has never yielded to Spain, never to France, never to Germany, never to Italy, never to any nearer nation, no, not even to Rome itself, in the service of G.o.d and in the Christian faith and in the obedience due to the Most Holy Roman Church; even as there is no nation which more opposes, more condemns, more loathes this monster (_i. e._ the Lutheran apostasy) and the heresies which spring from it." It was for the volume then presented and for the declaration then made that Henry received the t.i.tle of "Defender of the Faith" from the Pope.

Suddenly and almost as a bolt from the blue, difficulties between the King of England and the Pope began to show themselves. Grave events often spring from slight causes, and, whatever may be said by professional controversalists, there can be no doubt that it was a mere love affair of Henry VIII., which initiated the royal policy and finally dragged England into schism and heresy. [1] To some, people, indeed, in these days the action of the Pope in refusing to allow Henry to have his own wilful way in putting aside his wedded wife, Katherine, and to marry another woman, with whom he had had illicit relations, may appear to have been the height of unwisdom. Certainly as a result it has had the most disastrous consequences to the English Church. But this at least all must confess: that the Pope's courageous action is a manifest proof of the impossibility of ecclesiastical authority interfering without right reason with the indissoluble sanct.i.ty of a true Christian marriage.

[1] This statement was challenged in the press. It is difficult to see how it can be questioned by anyone who has read the history of this period. Those who are interested may be referred to an excellent article in _America_ for Dec. 20, 1913, "What to say and how to say it."

To obtain the support of Parliament the King suggested that the nation had incurred the extreme penalties of _praemunire_ by admitting the legatine powers of Cardinal Wolsey, even though this had been done with his royal knowledge and authority. His lay subjects were at once pardoned for a mere technical offence against the statute laws, but the clergy were excluded, in order to hold the penalties _in terrorem_ over them. With his royal hand on the throats of his ecclesiastical subjects he demanded a recognition of his Headship over the Church in England, and finally Convocation, after a debate which extended over two and thirty sessions, gave an unwilling a.s.sent to a clause admitting the King as "the Protector and Supreme Head" of the English Church. This was the thin edge of the wedge by which the cleavage from Rome and the Pope was subsequently effected. At the time, there can be no doubt that the inward meaning of the acknowledgment was not understood. Dean Hook says that the statement was not "regarded as inconsistent with the legitimate claims of the papacy," and as Froude admits, it is certain that "the t.i.tle was not intended to imply what it implied when, four years later, it was conferred by Act of Parliament, and when England virtually was severed by it from the Roman Communion."

In 1532 by an Act ent.i.tled "The Submission of the clergy" the king received their pledge not to legislate in ecclesiastical matters in Convocation without his royal leave. By this "Submission" the English Church deprived itself of all corporate action; and in the same year the aged Archbishop Warham died. "We cannot doubt," writes the late Dr.

James Gairdner, the most competent judge of the events of this reign and himself not a Catholic, "We cannot doubt that the event (_i. e._ the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury) at once suggested to the King a new method of achieving his end" and divorcing Queen Katherine. He obtained from the Pope the appointment of Thomas Cranmer, a priest who in defiance of the canons had secretly married in Germany the niece of Osiander, the German Reformer, as a second wife.

Having secured this appointment from the Holy See, the King directed Cranmer to consider the divorce question, and the decree having been p.r.o.nounced by the subservient archbishop, Henry made Anne Boleyn his Queen on June 1, 1533. Six months later the Convocations of Canterbury and York, under strong royal pressure formally accepted the declaration that "the Bishop of Rome has not in Scripture any greater jurisdiction in the Kingdom of England than any foreign bishop." Finally in March, 1534, the severance of England from Rome ecclesiastically was effected by the _Supreme Head_ act which styled the King the only "Supreme Head in earth of the Church of England" and granted him the most ample powers of ecclesiastical Visitation. Then the final touch was given to the work by the _Act of Verbal Treasons_, by which it was declared to be high treason to "imagine" any bodily harm to either the King or Queen or "to deprive them of their dignity, t.i.tle, style," etc.

The change had now been effected: England was cut off from the jurisdiction of Rome. Some men, like the Venerable Bishop Fisher, Blessed Sir Thomas More, the heroic Carthusians and others, refused to burden their consciences by taking the required oath and preferred imprisonment and death. For the most part the clergy and monastic houses gave way and did what was required of them. But there can be little doubt that the nation at large disliked the King's proceedings. In spite of the act for _Verbal Treasons_, which was wide enough to catch anyone guilty of a mere expression of opinion, "on no other subject during the entire reign have we such overt and repeated expressions of dissatisfaction with the King and his proceedings," as Dr. Gairdner with the fullest knowledge of this period declares. For, as he says, "the ecclesiastical headship was without precedent and at variance with all tradition:" . . . "It was a totally new order in the Church."

My purpose does not lead me to speak of the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction by the King, in virtue of this new Headship over the Church. As, by virtue of his authority, he had bidden Archbishop Cranmer to p.r.o.nounce the sentence of divorce, which the Pope had refused, so in the dissolution of the religious houses, he p.r.o.nounced the monks and nuns in his kingdom freed from the vows they had made to G.o.d. In the exercise of the royal supremacy in matters ecclesiastical he appointed Thomas Crumwell, a layman, his Vicar General, and in this capacity, Crumwell presided at all meetings of Bishops and regulated all discussions upon spiritual affairs.

There were various other religious changes initiated during the remainder of this reign, like the destruction of shrines and the prohibition of devotion to the saints, but it is one of the perplexing problems of this time why there was not a more radical reconstruction of religion in England upon the lines of the Lutheran principles of the Reformation. The fact is that, though for his own purposes Henry was willing enough to get rid of the Pope, he was never a Lutheran at heart.

He had defended Catholic principles against the German Reformed doctrines in his work on the Seven Sacraments. He never wholly lost his Catholic instinct, and to the last he maintained with a strong hand the ancient Catholic Sacramental teaching, and in particular in regard to the most Holy Eucharist and the doctrine of Transubstantiation. In this regard the reforming party, as long as he lived, was kept in check and had to wait for the King's death to secure further changes.

To us Catholics, by the act of cutting England from Rome, the principle of Christian Unity was rejected and sacrificed. The branch cut from the tree no longer feeds upon the sap of the parent stock, and disintegration is merely a matter of time. We who look back over the centuries, which have pa.s.sed since the severance of the English Church from Union with Rome was effected, can see how the disintegration as to doctrine, has gone on ever since. Few can deny that it is still proceeding at a rate, which is rightly alarming those who still cling even to the shreds of the religious formularies evolved in the Reformation settlement. Hundreds of religious bodies, all claiming to be Christian and all differing on vital and essential matters of belief, can be seen round about us to-day. The process of division is still going on and it must continue where there is no authority to speak with a divine commission. We Catholics, as we review this chaos, may well thank G.o.d that our English and Irish forefathers have fought and suffered to maintain for us the Christian principle of a Supreme authority in religion.

II

II

THE HOLY Ma.s.s

TO-DAY I propose to speak about the Most Holy Eucharist. The Sacrifice of the Ma.s.s is the central doctrine of our religion. In it, as we Catholics firmly believe, there is renewed on the Christian altar the sacrifice of Calvary, and by G.o.d's power, at the words spoken by the priest, the bread and wine is changed into the very Body and Blood of our Lord. The word used by the Church to express this change of substance is Transubstantiation; and in the mystery of our Faith we hold that we have, under the outward appearances of bread and wine, the true and real presence of our Blessed Lord. As truly and as really as our Saviour, G.o.d and man, walked this earth in the days of His pilgrimage, blessing the sick, curing diseases at His touch, and teaching the way of life to the mult.i.tudes, so do we firmly believe and hold, that He is amongst us to-day under the Eucharistic forms, ready to help and encourage the weary, to console the afflicted, to bring the a.s.surance of His pardon to the penitent.

I am not proving this. I am only stating it, as the firm faith we hold as Catholics. Moreover, not only is the Ma.s.s our Christian Sacrifice; but in the Holy Eucharist we have the food of our souls and the proper sustenance of our spiritual life in this world. We hold and truly believe that in Holy Communion we receive really and in fact, and not in any mere figurative sense, our Blessed Lord Himself--Body, Soul and Divinity. This is our faith to-day as it was the unbroken belief of the Catholic Church from the earliest tunes. All round about us now we see other religious bodies, claiming to be Christian which do not share our teaching, and it is good to try and understand how this has come about.

The key to the explanation lies in the teaching of Reformation principles in the sixteenth century.

When Henry VIII. died, on January 25, 1547, for the first time in history the king had made himself supreme not only in affairs of State but in religion. Many minor changes, besides the destruction of the religious life and the suppression of the monasteries, naturally marked and followed upon the rejection of the Catholic principle of papal authority and the a.s.sumption by the king of Supreme Headship over the Church in England. The hopes, entertained by the German Reformers of being able to obtain the adherence of the king and people of England to their reformed doctrines, were disappointed during Henry's life. On his death their hopes revived. Edward VI., a boy, only nine years of age, succeeded to the throne, and the supreme power in the State was seized by those whose sympathies were known to be on the side of the German Reformation. The Lord Protector, Somerset, became the highest authority in the State, and Archbishop Cranmer, for years a Lutheran at heart, was the chief ecclesiastic in the realm.

As one of the first acts of the reign, all the bishops were compelled to take out fresh Commissions from the Crown for the exercise of their episcopal offices. In this Cranmer set a willing example of obedience; and in the preamble of the new Letters Patent the royal power was set forth as the source of all jurisdiction, civil and ecclesiastical.

Within a month of Edward's accession, the images of saints in the London churches were dishonoured and mutilated, and sermons were preached, without punishment or rebuke, against the observance of Lent and other Catholic practices. Other changes in the line of the Reformation followed quickly one upon another. Images, shrines and pictures of Our Lady and the Saints were ordered to be destroyed, and the Litany of the Saints, hitherto said in procession, was made into a prayer to be said kneeling. All this was a sufficient indication of the trend of mind in the men now in power towards the Reformation doctrines of Luther and the other continental heretics.

For objecting to these changes some of the bishops were lodged in prison, and in the course of a general Visitation of churches in the diocese of London, whilst the Bishop was in prison, the images in St.

Paul's and other city churches were pulled down and broken up; the painted pictures and frescoes upon the walls--"the books of the poor and unlearned" as they were called--were covered with whitewash, and in their place the Ten Commandments were written upon the plaster.

The first Parliament of this reign met in November, 1547, and the important matter--from a religious standpoint--discussed and settled was the introduction of Communion under both kinds--or as some modern writers put it "the restoration of the cup to the laity." This change, significant as it was, might mean little more than the rejection of a disciplinary law of the Church, which had been introduced many ages before for wise and obvious reasons. But to those who will study the history of the controversies of the sixteenth century, the reintroduction of Communion under both kinds was an outward manifestation of the rejection of the Catholic Eucharistic doctrine, which taught that our Blessed Lord was present, whole and entire, Body, Soul and Divinity in each and every portion of the Most Holy Sacrament.

And, as St. Thomas teaches in his dogmatic hymn of the Holy Eucharist, in every part and portion, "_integer accipitur_"--is received whole and entire in Holy Communion. The history of the pa.s.sage of this measure through Parliament makes it clear that many of the Bishops and other prominent ecclesiastics were opposed to this departure from existing Catholic usage and that it was in reality imposed by the authority of Parliament upon the Church under the plea that it was "conformable to primitive practice." The Bill was but the beginning of other and more important changes. The replies made at this time by Cranmer and other innovating prelates to certain questions upon the nature of the Ma.s.s leave no doubt as to the lengths they were prepared to go ha the direction of Lutheran Eucharistic doctrine. The archbishop declared that "_oblation and sacrifice_" were terms improperly used about the Ma.s.s, and that it was only a "memory and representation of the sacrifice of the Cross." In other words, Cranmer and the four other English bishops who agreed with him, rejected the Sacrifice of the Ma.s.s as it had hitherto been received in England as in every other part of the Catholic world.

To carry out the new order of Communion a form, founded upon the celebrated work of Herman the Archbishop of Cologne, which had just appeared in an English translation, was issued and ordered to be inserted in the Latin Ma.s.s. The process of spoliation of the Church begun in the reign of Henry VIII. was continued. A bill, strongly opposed by churchmen, was pa.s.sed in the House of Lords, giving to the Crown all colleges, free chapels and chantries as well as the property of all guilds and fraternities. By this measure the gravest injustice was done to the members of the guilds, which were the charitable a.s.sociations, insurance societies, burial and sick clubs of Catholic England. The funds thus confiscated for the most part represented the savings of the poor. Moreover, religion suffered the gravest injury by the confiscation of the chantry funds and the revenues for anniversary prayers for the dead. These were in many cases at least intended to supply the services of additional curates for the work of larger parishes and for annual gifts to the poor.

In the second year of the King's reign Cranmer intimated that the Council had ordered the discontinuance of the old Catholic practices of blessed candles, blessed ashes and blessed palms, as well as the Good Friday ceremony of honouring the crucifix, known as "creeping to the cross."

All these changes were, however, only indications of the more serious attack on the Catholic doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, which was being engineered by the now almost openly avowed English Reforming party, headed by Cranmer. On December 14, 1548, a draft of a new Prayer Book in English to supersede the ancient Missal and Breviary was introduced into the House of Lords and there followed a long debate upon the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament, contained in the service, which was intended to take the place of the ancient Ma.s.s. This part of the new Book of Common Prayer has a special interest and significance.