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© Copyright Peter Crawford 2013
Anglo-Catholics and the Revision of the Book of Common Prayer
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Yet, under the ‘Travers baroque’, in a lime-washed whiteness,
The fiddle-back vestments a-glitter with morning rays,
Our Lady’s image, in multiple-candled brightness,
The bells and banners – those were the waking days
When Faith was taught and fanned to a 'golden blaze'.
John Betjeman
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By the 1920s, the Anglo-Catholic movement was in the ascendant within the Church of England.
Historians have used grandiose phrases such as 'golden age'; or 'triumphal period' to describe the achievements of the era.
Those bishops of a Centre-High inclination had begun to favour the more temperate 'Prayer Book Catholic' or 'English Catholic' liturgical style as an ideal expression of worship for a via media Church.
The 'English Use' methods of Percy Dearmer and the Alcuin Club were gradually becoming acceptable in key churches and cathedrals.
High Anglican hymnody was now standard in non-partisan parishes due to the popularity of the 'English Hymnal' (1906).
The 'six points' of the 'English Church Union', the main Anglo-Catholic body, were almost accomplished as the party benefited from the boom of sacramental yearning caused by the Great War, during which prayers for the dead, reservation for the sick and daily communion had become permissible.
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| Reservation on the Altar - Anglican Baroque Sanctury |
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| Anglo-Catholic Baroque Monstrance |
During the Liturgy of the Eucharist the elements of bread and wine are considered, in some branches of Christian practice, to have been transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
In many Christian churches some portion of the consecrated elements is set aside and reserved after the reception of the Holy Eucharist, referred to as the 'reserved sacrament'.
The reserved sacrament is usually stored in a tabernacle, a locked cabinet made of precious materials and usually located on, above or near the high altar.
Common reasons for reserving the sacrament include for it to be taken to the ill or housebound, for the devotional practice of Eucharistic Adoration, for viaticum for the dying, and so that Communion may still be administered if a priest is unavailable to celebrate the Eucharist.
Following the Great War, bishops Winnington-Ingram of London, Wakefield of Birmingham and Ridgeway of Chichester had tentatively begun to sanction permanent or 'perpetual' reservation in some parishes.
The gains of the era were sealed with the appointment of W. H. Frere, a moderate Anglo-Catholic, to the episcopal bench in 1923.
Walter Howard Frere, CR (1863–1938) was a co-founder of an Anglican religious order, the Community of the Resurrection and later bishop of Truro (1923–1935). He was twice Superior of the order 1902–1913 and 1916–1922 and returned to it after resigning his see of Truro. He was a noted liturgical and historical scholar; he was also a High Churchman and a supporter of catholic ideas. He was a major figure in the proposed revision of the Church of England Book of Common Prayer in 1928 which was later rejected by Parliament and was responsible for the service book for the Guild of the Servants of the Sanctuary.
Walter Howard Frere, CR (1863–1938) was a co-founder of an Anglican religious order, the Community of the Resurrection and later bishop of Truro (1923–1935). He was twice Superior of the order 1902–1913 and 1916–1922 and returned to it after resigning his see of Truro. He was a noted liturgical and historical scholar; he was also a High Churchman and a supporter of catholic ideas. He was a major figure in the proposed revision of the Church of England Book of Common Prayer in 1928 which was later rejected by Parliament and was responsible for the service book for the Guild of the Servants of the Sanctuary.
Following the tribulations and incarcerations of the nineteenth century, the acceptable face of the movement was finally developing a central role within the Anglican establishment.
Anglo-Catholicism was losing its label as a 'fringe' or 'protest' movement' and fast developing opportunities to become a major factional power-broker in the Church.
Although the Anglo-Catholic party was pre-eminent during the period, the historiography of the movement is remarkably inadequate.
While the early Oxford Movement and late nineteenth century ritualism have been the subject of extensive studies, inter-war Anglo-Catholicism - the nadir of Tractarianism - remains obscure.
In many ways, the Anglo-Catholic movement, despite its diversity, seemed remarkably united in the 1920s.
The experiences of legal prosecution in the nineteenth century had given Anglo-Catholics a siege mentality, and a desire to demonstrate unity in the face of adversity.
This gave Anglo-Catholicism a considerable measure of unity as many preferred to see the grouping as a progressive movement, with a vanguard, a centre and a rearguard, rather than a
splintered party.
Notably, the Anglo-Catholic Congress, although dominated by advanced members, was attended by Catholic Churchmen of all degrees and grades of practice and belief, however, despite their considerable advances, difficulties remained for the Anglo-Catholic party.
Disunity and factionalism had been an ongoing problem during its years of success.
Although the triumphant Congress jamborees gave some impression of a cohesive movement, internal tensions had beleaguered the party for some time.
Anglo-Catholicism was made up of three broad factions by the 1920s: English Catholic, Western Catholic and Anglo-Papalist.
During the early twentieth century, a rivalry had developed between the moderate, High Church Anglo-Catholics and Ultramontane, continental-minded priests.
The movement began to polarise between the English Catholic and Western Catholic schools.
Claude Beaufort Moss, a prominent English Catholic, wrote that 'this divergence was always latent at the Anglo-Catholic Congresses, and in spite of all efforts to keep it out of sight, it often comes to the surface'.
This developing atmosphere of factionalism was the context in which the Anglo-Catholic movement responded to the proposals to revise the 'Book of Common Prayer'.
The 'revision project', as it was known, was an attempt to make a conclusive settlement with Anglo-Catholics and limit the movement within set liturgical boundaries.
Arthur Headlam, Bishop of Gloucester, wrote to a liberal Evangelical 'you must realise that for the Anglo-Catholics the situation created is more difficult than for any other section. Those of other sections have not had their individual freedom interfered with at all, but the Anglo-Catholics are perfectly aware that the whole aim of revision is to prevent some of the extremer ones from doing things which they wish to do'.
The Centre-High bishops were offering a compromise to Anglo-Catholics, agreeing to allow moderate practices, but intending to regulate extreme ritual.
Thus, the revision controversy brought to the surface the issues of authority and identity for the movement.
The bishops proposals required Anglo-Catholicism to face up to its own ambiguity within the Church, and to choose between party principle and episcopal loyalty.
Crucially, the controversy would underline the factionalism within the party during the 1920s.
There are various signals indicating the extent of factionalism within the Anglo-Catholic movement in the early twentieth century.
The competition between the English Catholic and Western Catholic schools was most visible at the altar, the battleground at which the various ideologies and practices of Anglo-Catholicism collided.
The modest, antiquarian and traditional 'English altar' stood in stark contrast to the extravagant baroque and Italianate designs of continental-minded Catholics.
Architecture also signified the various degrees of Anglo-Catholic churchman-ship.
High Churchmen favoured the Gothic style inspired by William Butterfield and Somers Clarke, while advanced Catholics built in the Baroque and Rococo fashions, following the designs of Maurice Childs.
The competitiveness between the schools was also reflected in their rhetoric.
English Catholics called their advanced brethren 'Romanizers' and 'un-English', while in return, their conservative associates labelled them as 'Protestants in vestments', and dubbed their traditional taste 'British Museum religion'.
There had also been, of course, a 'liberal Catholic' school within the Anglo-Catholic party, since the publication of 'Lux Mundi' in 1889, however, liberal Catholics did not have their own distinguishable liturgical agenda, and a scattering of these Churchmen was to be found amongst both the English and Western Catholic traditions.
Lux Mundi: A series of Studies in the Religion of the Incarnation is a collection of 12 essays from liberal Anglo-Catholic theologians and edited by the future Bishop of Oxford, Charles Gore, in 1889.
Many of the contributors included the word 'Incarnation, in the titles of their articles, i.e. R.C Moberley, E.R.Talbot, J.R. Illingworth ('Incarnation and Development'),R.L.Ottley ('Incarnation and Christian Ethics'), Francis Paget ('Incarnation and Sacraments'), Walter Lock ('Incarnation, union of human and divine'). Other contributors were Arthur Lyttelton, Aubrey Moore and W. J. H. Campion.
For example, on the English side, Charles Gore, the father of the liberal Catholic school, was a keen supporter of moderate High Church worship, while on the Western side, Wilfred Lawrence Knox, the Cambridge theologian, preferred a continental (Baroque) style.
Historically, Anglo-Catholicism was self defined chiefly by liturgical rather than theological tastes.
Hence, it is not surprising that the boundaries of demarcation between the various Catholic factions were defined by differences in ritual style.
English Catholicism was based on a national expression of Church, loyalty to the 'Prayer Book' (also know as the 'Book of Common Prayer'), and obedience to episcopal authority.
The aim was to reflect English tradition by following the practices and regulations set out in Cranmer's 1549 Prayer Book (see above).
'The substitution of foreign ornaments', argued Tract One by the Alcuin Club, 'is mischievous from the countenance it gives to those who profess to Church of Rome. And we do not want these things, our own are better'.
Publications such as 'The Parson's Handbook' (1899) popularised this idea that the Church of England had its own unique liturgical method and ceremonial style: the 'English Usage' and 'English Altar'.
One of the standard features that identifies a church sanctuary as “English Use” is the appearance of a particular feature called a riddel post. These are two posts that stand at the north and south horns of the altar and have curtains (the “riddels” from whence the name comes) that extend back to the dorsal, the curtain mounted on the back wall right above the altar. A dossal may be a flat panel with a central large motif or it may be a gathered width of textile. Both types are suspended by a strong iron rod which is held in place by rod holders secured in the stone or wood.
Like many of the features that adorn the English/Sarum Uses, this wasn’t actually a distinctively English characteristic. Instead that which is “English” tends to be that which is pre-Baroque.
The methods and ideals of English Catholicism were expounded and promoted by various organisations and individuals.
The most prominent group was the 'Alcuin Club', an institution devoted to liturgical research, which published various 'tracts' on High Church ritual by respectable Churchmen such as Percy Dearmer, Walter Frere and T. A. Lacy from 1897 onwards.
The following century saw the English Catholic crusade advanced by the 'Warham Guild', a collective of eminent liturgologists including Frere and F. E. Brightman, and from the 1920s, by the 'Anglican Society', a group which aimed to promote both the 'study and appreciation of the English Use', and the beliefs and traditions of the Catholic Faith, 'in strict accordance with the principles laid down by the Book of Common Prayer'.
Many of the leaders and figureheads were elderly by this point, their influence having emerged around the turn of the century.
The patriarch of English Catholicism was Percy Dearmer, a leading light in the 'Alcuin Club' from the 1890s, the author of 'The Parson's Handbook' (1899) and 'The English Liturgy' (1903), both practical guides to Catholic worship in conformity with the Prayer Book, and co-author, with Ralph Vaughan Williams, of the English Hymnal, an exceptionally popular collection of High Anglican hymnody published in 1906.
Dearmer's church, St Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill, London, became a model for English Catholics, and continued to be a centre for the movement under his successor, A. S. Duncan- Jones, who was also editor of the High Church 'Guardian' newspaper.
The church of St Mary-the-Virgin, Primrose Hill in North London was opened in 1872. From the beginning, the style of services followed the then recently established Anglo-Catholic tradition within the Church of England.
Known for his acute aversion to Rome, Dearmer undoubtedly had a moderating influence on
Anglo-Catholicism during the period.
Alongside Dearmer, the other giant of English Catholicism was the ex-Bishop of Oxford and President of the 'Alcuin Club' for many years, Charles Gore.
His liberal theological disposition, and fierce loyalty to Church authority, which led him to recommend the use of legal sanction against recalcitrant priests, had made Gore a target of criticism for many Catholics by the 1920s.
Like Dearmer, Gore would continue to be a respected, if distant, voice during the revision controversy.
A third leader of the English Catholics, who emerged to prominence during the 1920s immediately before the revision crisis erupted, was Claude Beaufort Moss, an academic based at Christ Church, Oxford.
Moss was a leading light in the Anglican Society and the author of 'Anglo-Catholicism at the Crossroads' (1923), a publication that presented his own belligerent convictions that the Catholic movement must show loyalty to the, Church and English Use, and turn away from Roman and continental practices.
During the early twentieth century, a rivalry had developed between the moderate, High Church Anglo-Catholics and Ultramontane, continental-minded priests.
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| Claude Beaufort Moss |
Claude Beaufort Moss, a prominent English Catholic, wrote that 'this divergence was always latent at the Anglo-Catholic Congresses, and in spite of all efforts to keep it out of sight, it often comes to the surface'.
This developing atmosphere of factionalism was the context in which the Anglo-Catholic movement responded to the proposals to revise the 'Book of Common Prayer'.
The 'revision project', as it was known, was an attempt to make a conclusive settlement with Anglo-Catholics and limit the movement within set liturgical boundaries.
 |
| Arthur Headlam - Bishop of Gloucester |
The Centre-High bishops were offering a compromise to Anglo-Catholics, agreeing to allow moderate practices, but intending to regulate extreme ritual.
Thus, the revision controversy brought to the surface the issues of authority and identity for the movement.
The bishops proposals required Anglo-Catholicism to face up to its own ambiguity within the Church, and to choose between party principle and episcopal loyalty.
Crucially, the controversy would underline the factionalism within the party during the 1920s.
There are various signals indicating the extent of factionalism within the Anglo-Catholic movement in the early twentieth century.
The competition between the English Catholic and Western Catholic schools was most visible at the altar, the battleground at which the various ideologies and practices of Anglo-Catholicism collided.
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| Baroque Altar - Martin Travers |
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| 'English altar' |
Architecture also signified the various degrees of Anglo-Catholic churchman-ship.
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| William Butterfield - Keble College Chapel |
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| English Altar - 'British Museum Religion' |
English Catholics called their advanced brethren 'Romanizers' and 'un-English', while in return, their conservative associates labelled them as 'Protestants in vestments', and dubbed their traditional taste 'British Museum religion'.
There had also been, of course, a 'liberal Catholic' school within the Anglo-Catholic party, since the publication of 'Lux Mundi' in 1889, however, liberal Catholics did not have their own distinguishable liturgical agenda, and a scattering of these Churchmen was to be found amongst both the English and Western Catholic traditions.
 |
| Bishop of Oxford - Charles Gore |
Many of the contributors included the word 'Incarnation, in the titles of their articles, i.e. R.C Moberley, E.R.Talbot, J.R. Illingworth ('Incarnation and Development'),R.L.Ottley ('Incarnation and Christian Ethics'), Francis Paget ('Incarnation and Sacraments'), Walter Lock ('Incarnation, union of human and divine'). Other contributors were Arthur Lyttelton, Aubrey Moore and W. J. H. Campion.
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| Wilfred Lawrence Knox |
Historically, Anglo-Catholicism was self defined chiefly by liturgical rather than theological tastes.
Hence, it is not surprising that the boundaries of demarcation between the various Catholic factions were defined by differences in ritual style.
English Catholicism was based on a national expression of Church, loyalty to the 'Prayer Book' (also know as the 'Book of Common Prayer'), and obedience to episcopal authority.
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| Cranmer's 1549 Prayer Book |
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| Alcuin Club Liturgy |
Publications such as 'The Parson's Handbook' (1899) popularised this idea that the Church of England had its own unique liturgical method and ceremonial style: the 'English Usage' and 'English Altar'.
One of the standard features that identifies a church sanctuary as “English Use” is the appearance of a particular feature called a riddel post. These are two posts that stand at the north and south horns of the altar and have curtains (the “riddels” from whence the name comes) that extend back to the dorsal, the curtain mounted on the back wall right above the altar. A dossal may be a flat panel with a central large motif or it may be a gathered width of textile. Both types are suspended by a strong iron rod which is held in place by rod holders secured in the stone or wood.
Like many of the features that adorn the English/Sarum Uses, this wasn’t actually a distinctively English characteristic. Instead that which is “English” tends to be that which is pre-Baroque.
The methods and ideals of English Catholicism were expounded and promoted by various organisations and individuals.
 |
| Percy Dearmer |
 |
| Walter Frere |
The following century saw the English Catholic crusade advanced by the 'Warham Guild', a collective of eminent liturgologists including Frere and F. E. Brightman, and from the 1920s, by the 'Anglican Society', a group which aimed to promote both the 'study and appreciation of the English Use', and the beliefs and traditions of the Catholic Faith, 'in strict accordance with the principles laid down by the Book of Common Prayer'.
Many of the leaders and figureheads were elderly by this point, their influence having emerged around the turn of the century.
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| Ralph Vaughan Williams |
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| St Mary the Virgin - Primrose Hill - London |
Dearmer's church, St Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill, London, became a model for English Catholics, and continued to be a centre for the movement under his successor, A. S. Duncan- Jones, who was also editor of the High Church 'Guardian' newspaper.
The church of St Mary-the-Virgin, Primrose Hill in North London was opened in 1872. From the beginning, the style of services followed the then recently established Anglo-Catholic tradition within the Church of England.
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| 'Alcuin Club' Eucharistic Procession |
Known for his acute aversion to Rome, Dearmer undoubtedly had a moderating influence on
Anglo-Catholicism during the period.
Alongside Dearmer, the other giant of English Catholicism was the ex-Bishop of Oxford and President of the 'Alcuin Club' for many years, Charles Gore.
His liberal theological disposition, and fierce loyalty to Church authority, which led him to recommend the use of legal sanction against recalcitrant priests, had made Gore a target of criticism for many Catholics by the 1920s.
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| Claude Beaufort Moss |
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| Charles Gore |
A third leader of the English Catholics, who emerged to prominence during the 1920s immediately before the revision crisis erupted, was Claude Beaufort Moss, an academic based at Christ Church, Oxford.
Moss was a leading light in the Anglican Society and the author of 'Anglo-Catholicism at the Crossroads' (1923), a publication that presented his own belligerent convictions that the Catholic movement must show loyalty to the, Church and English Use, and turn away from Roman and continental practices.
Other individuals of standing in the faction included the newly appointed bishop, W. H. Frere, the intellectual J. N. Figgis, vice-Principal of Cuddesdon theological college E. J. Bicknell and convocational Proctors, Athelstan Riley and T. A. Lacy.
John Neville Figgis (1866 - 1919) was an historian, political philosopher and Anglican priest and monk. Educated at Brighton College and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, he was a student of Lord Acton at Cambridge, and editor of much of Acton's work. He entered the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield in 1896.
John Athelstan Laurie Riley (10 August 1858—17 Nov 1945) was an English hymn writer and hymn translator.
Riley was born in Paddington, London, and attended Pembroke College, Oxford where obtained his BA 1881 and MA 1883. Active in the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England, he energised the development of the English Hymnal and was chairman of its editorial board.
Although the movement had a number of ageing statesmen, the English Catholics lacked a central, dominant and dynamic leader during the period.
This deficiency would influence the fortunes of the faction during the 1920s.
The churchman-ship of English Catholicism revolved around key ideals and concerns regarding the relationship between Catholic belief and the Anglican Church.
The movement was based on the concept of a national English Church, and the conviction that, although the 'Ecclesia Anglicana' was part of the Catholic Church, it had something distinctive and unique to offer to the whole.
This espousal of the national Church was logically followed by a support for 'Englishness' in ritual.
English Catholics argued for a traditional English expression of worship, and frowned upon the historical influences of Geneva and Rome.
˜We should strive to show the world the full beauty of Catholic adoration', argued E. J. Bicknell in 1928, 'and that can best be done not by a blind imitation of Italian methods at their worst, but by working along English lines and by expressing ourselves in ways that are at once both natural and beautiful'.
Thus Anglican worship should be both native and the national, following the forms and traditions of the pre-modern Church in England.
This ideology would leave English Catholicism open to the charge - which was not without substance - that it was a nationalistic form of religion.
The ideology of English Catholicism had three basic tenets.
Firstly, it professed an intense loyalty towards the institution and authority of the Church of England.
This belief was promulgated in the work of J. N. Figgis, a member of the 'Community of the Resurrection' at Mirfield, who argued, 'It is to the value of English Catholicism, to the special contribution of our Church to the life of the great Church as a whole, and to the glorious changes of the future, that we need at this time to be loyal and devoted'.
English Catholics believed that the Church should be comprehensive and tolerant, truly representing the diversity of belief and practice amongst the English people.
Figgis argued that this stood in contrast to Roman Catholicism, where the 'autocratic claims of the curia' outlawed both individual reason and the dynamic of diversity which allowed different units within an institution to flourish.
Thus, significantly, the English Catholic movement found an ally in Centre-High Churchmen, who were its patrons as Catholic expressions of worship enjoyed success within Anglicanism. Secondly, this deferential attitude towards the Church meant that English Catholics demonstrated stubborn obedience towards the Book of Common Prayer.
The liturgy of 1549, and the ornaments rubric in particular, were seen as a plumb line for correct English practice.
Percy Dearmer expressed this principle in 'The Present Opportunity', his influential introduction to an 'Alcuin Club' book of liturgical illustrations by C. O. Skilbeck, praising the use of English Catholic practices at the Coronation of King George V.
He argued, 'When the Prayer Book is obeyed, as it was at the Coronation, the Ornaments Rubric fixes our ceremonial as well as our ritual at a point before the abounding degradation of a rococo period set in'.
English Catholics made every effort to comply with the traditional practices of the English Church as described in the 1549 book.
This meant the use of full vestments, and the various items believed to constitute the English Altar.
One noticeable convention was the utilising of a hanging pyx to hold the reserved sacrament.
The hanging pyx is a suspended form of tabernacle, or place of reservation in other words, for the Blessed Sacrament.
The High Church understanding and expression of liturgy was, therefore, both traditional and legalistic, compliant with the 'ancient' practices of England and resistant towards the Ultramontane fashions of Rome.
Ultramontanism is a religious philosophy within the Catholic Church that places strong emphasis on the prerogatives and powers of the Pope. In particular, ultramontanism may consist in asserting the superiority of Papal authority over the authority of local temporal or spiritual hierarchies (including the local bishop).
Thirdly, this preference for English distinctiveness meant that English Catholicism was characteristically anti-Roman.
The Anglican Society, according to E. J. Bicknell, existed to protest against the idea that English Churchmen 'had to go to Rome to find the best worship'.
Furthermore, they maintained that there were limits to the comprehensiveness of the Church of England that ruled out certain continental developments from the counter-Reformation and onwards.
'No society', argued a strident C. B. Moss, 'can be in a healthy state as long as it contains any large section of members who refuse to obey its authority exercised by its proper officers'.
Thus, this brand of Anglo-Catholicism promulgated a parochial, insular and peculiarly English form of religion.
The ideology and practices of Western Catholics stood in sharp contrast to their moderate, antiquarian relations.
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| John Neville Figgis |
John Athelstan Laurie Riley (10 August 1858—17 Nov 1945) was an English hymn writer and hymn translator.
Riley was born in Paddington, London, and attended Pembroke College, Oxford where obtained his BA 1881 and MA 1883. Active in the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England, he energised the development of the English Hymnal and was chairman of its editorial board.
Although the movement had a number of ageing statesmen, the English Catholics lacked a central, dominant and dynamic leader during the period.
This deficiency would influence the fortunes of the faction during the 1920s.
The churchman-ship of English Catholicism revolved around key ideals and concerns regarding the relationship between Catholic belief and the Anglican Church.
The movement was based on the concept of a national English Church, and the conviction that, although the 'Ecclesia Anglicana' was part of the Catholic Church, it had something distinctive and unique to offer to the whole.
This espousal of the national Church was logically followed by a support for 'Englishness' in ritual.
English Catholics argued for a traditional English expression of worship, and frowned upon the historical influences of Geneva and Rome.
˜We should strive to show the world the full beauty of Catholic adoration', argued E. J. Bicknell in 1928, 'and that can best be done not by a blind imitation of Italian methods at their worst, but by working along English lines and by expressing ourselves in ways that are at once both natural and beautiful'.
Thus Anglican worship should be both native and the national, following the forms and traditions of the pre-modern Church in England.
This ideology would leave English Catholicism open to the charge - which was not without substance - that it was a nationalistic form of religion.
The ideology of English Catholicism had three basic tenets.
Firstly, it professed an intense loyalty towards the institution and authority of the Church of England.
 |
| Community of the Resurrection - Mirfield |
 |
| Community of the Resurrection - Mirfield |
English Catholics believed that the Church should be comprehensive and tolerant, truly representing the diversity of belief and practice amongst the English people.
Figgis argued that this stood in contrast to Roman Catholicism, where the 'autocratic claims of the curia' outlawed both individual reason and the dynamic of diversity which allowed different units within an institution to flourish.
Thus, significantly, the English Catholic movement found an ally in Centre-High Churchmen, who were its patrons as Catholic expressions of worship enjoyed success within Anglicanism. Secondly, this deferential attitude towards the Church meant that English Catholics demonstrated stubborn obedience towards the Book of Common Prayer.
The liturgy of 1549, and the ornaments rubric in particular, were seen as a plumb line for correct English practice.
 |
| Coronation of King George V |
 |
| Percy Dearmer |
He argued, 'When the Prayer Book is obeyed, as it was at the Coronation, the Ornaments Rubric fixes our ceremonial as well as our ritual at a point before the abounding degradation of a rococo period set in'.
 |
| Full 'English' Vestments |
This meant the use of full vestments, and the various items believed to constitute the English Altar.
One noticeable convention was the utilising of a hanging pyx to hold the reserved sacrament.
The hanging pyx is a suspended form of tabernacle, or place of reservation in other words, for the Blessed Sacrament.
 |
| Hanging Pyx |
The High Church understanding and expression of liturgy was, therefore, both traditional and legalistic, compliant with the 'ancient' practices of England and resistant towards the Ultramontane fashions of Rome.
Ultramontanism is a religious philosophy within the Catholic Church that places strong emphasis on the prerogatives and powers of the Pope. In particular, ultramontanism may consist in asserting the superiority of Papal authority over the authority of local temporal or spiritual hierarchies (including the local bishop).
Thirdly, this preference for English distinctiveness meant that English Catholicism was characteristically anti-Roman.
The Anglican Society, according to E. J. Bicknell, existed to protest against the idea that English Churchmen 'had to go to Rome to find the best worship'.
Furthermore, they maintained that there were limits to the comprehensiveness of the Church of England that ruled out certain continental developments from the counter-Reformation and onwards.
 |
| Claude Beaufort Moss |
Thus, this brand of Anglo-Catholicism promulgated a parochial, insular and peculiarly English form of religion.
The ideology and practices of Western Catholics stood in sharp contrast to their moderate, antiquarian relations.
This newer school of 'Western Use' Churchmen were wary of the idea of a pre-Reformation English Church, instead supporting Roman ritualistic developments, and continental practices.
'The task of converting the English people to the Catholic religion', declared W. L Knox, 'cannot be accomplished without complete revision of the English liturgy in a Catholic sense, and the general introduction of the full system of Catholic devotion, as it has been developed by Western Catholicism since the Reformation'.
The Western Catholic expression combated the sobrieties of English and Gothic architecture and paraphernalia of moderate Anglo-Catholics with Baroque and Rococo designs and the accoutrements of Catholic Europe.
The Western Catholic movement began to gain momentum from 1911 when the 'Society of SS Peter and Paul (SSPP)' was set up to counteract the publications of the 'Alcuin Club'.
Ritualists such as Maurice Child, a former disciple of Dearmer, and Adrian Fortescue, began publishing Roman alternatives to 'The Parson's Handbook'.
Adrian Henry Timothy Knottesford Fortescue (14 January 1874 – 11 February 1923) was an English Roman Catholic priest who was an influential liturgist, artist, calligrapher, composer, polyglot, amateur photographer, Byzantine scholar, and adventurer.
The 'Federation of Catholic Priests' was formed in 1917 as a body for advanced Catholics, which by 1927 had around 1,400 members.
By the 1920s the Federation was having a considerable impact on the practices of Anglo- Catholic clergymen, with 827 of its members reserving the sacrament and 282 practising extra-liturgical devotions.
Among the various Anglican religious communities, the 'Society of the Holy Cross' was the one most dominated by Western Catholics.
The faction was chiefly influenced by two personalities in the 1920s: the senescent Viscount Halifax, a veteran of the ritualist prosecutions of the preceding century, and Darwell Stone, the unofficial Anglo-Catholic leader in convocation.
Halifax had been the lay leader of the ritual movement since his first appointment as President of the 'English Church Union', the umbrella society for all Anglo-Catholics, in 1868.
He held this prestigious post sporadically until he was re-elected President during the revision controversy in 1927.
A paradoxical figure, Halifax was a member of the English establishment, yet he would remain moderately rebellious throughout his ecclesiastical life.
Charles Lindley Wood, 2nd Viscount Halifax (7 June 1839 – 19 January 1934) was a British ecumenist who served as president of the English Church Union from 1868 to 1919, and from 1927 to 1934.
Darwell Stone was perhaps the most influential advanced Anglo-Catholic of the period.
A distinguished theologian and the Principal of Pusey House, Oxford, he wielded enormous influence in convocation, the 'English Church Union', the 'Federation of Catholic Priests' and the 'Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament'.
Stone would both assert and bolster this dominance during the revision controversy.
Alongside these two venerable figures, a number of academics, of which the Anglo-Catholic party had no shortage during the 1920s, possessed prominent leadership roles in the Western Catholic faction.
William Knox was a New Testament scholar at the Oratory of the Good Shepherd, Cambridge, and a leading light in the SSPP.
This wayward offspring of E. A. Knox, the firebrand anti-Catholic Bishop of Manchester (whose other son, Ronald, seceded to Rome in 1917), was a staunch advocate of Ultramontane worship.
The Western Catholic cause was supported in Oxford by N. P. Williams, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, who set about defining Western Catholicism, described by him as 'old Catholicism' or 'northern Catholicism', in a number of publications.
Other influential individuals within the movement included Lionel Thornton, a theologian among the more advanced members of the 'Community of the Resurrection', and Canon W. Sparrow Simpson, the chaplain of St Mary's, Ilford.
The Community of the Resurrection (CR) is an Anglican religious community for men in England. It is based in Mirfield, West Yorkshire and has 22 members as of March 2012. The community reflects Anglicanism in its broad nature and is strongly engaged in the life of the Anglican Communion. It also has a long tradition of ecumenical outlook and practice. The community has fostered 11 bishops in different parts of the Anglican Communion. Both of the two founders became bishops in the Church of England. Charles Gore was Bishop of Worcester (1902-05), Birmingham (1905-11) and Oxford (1911-19), and Walter Howard Frere became Bishop of Truro (1923-35). Timothy Rees became Bishop of Llandaff (1931-39) in Wales, and Thomas Hannay became Bishop of Argyll and The Isles in Scotland (1942-62).
In contrast to the English Catholic grouping, the advanced school benefited from stronger leadership during the 1920s, particularly through Darwell Stone, whose authority was evident across the whole web of the Western Catholic institutions.
The logic of Western Catholicism rested on the view that the Church of England shared a common bond with the Roman Church.
The western Church, according to one writer, was psychologically, geographically and historically closer to Anglo-Catholics.
Advanced Catholics opposed the moderate notion of English distinctiveness in worship.
According to one Western Catholic, Kenneth Ingram, the editor of the 'Green Quarterly' magazine, their churchman-ship centred on the idea that 'the isolation of the English Church from the rest of the Western Church as caused by the Reformation, may be inevitable but is neither desirable nor normal'.
Thus, the idea of English uniqueness was of little importance compared to a wider loyalty to the practices and traditions of the Western Church.
Norman Powell Williams argued that the word 'Anglo' was secondary to the term 'Catholic' there was only a national English Church due to historical circumstances.
Western Catholics desired eventual reunion with Rome, although contrary to some misunderstandings in the current historiography, they were not Anglo-Papal, as most could not agree with the claims of the papacy.
An example of a typical Western Catholic was A. F. Webling.
As a young curate in Hallam, Sheffield, Webling worked under an advanced priest whose consistent liturgical disobedience resulted in the diocesan refusing to visit the parish.
Webling's churchman-ship was strongly Catholic, as he accepted the mass, practised confession, and encouraged extra-liturgical devotions to the sacrament, yet he would not secede to Rome because of the issue of authority.
Such advanced Catholics were trying to revive Catholic religion, with a Roman preconception, within the Church of England.
This Rome-ward orientation meant that Western Catholics had a flexible interpretation of Anglican comprehensiveness.
Darwell Stone explained this concept of the Church at convocation in 1923, maintaining that 'It was intended by those in power [at the time of the Reformation] that there should remain within the Church of England people who, on the one hand, were almost puritans, provided that they would conform in worship, and, on the other hand, people who were almost Roman Catholics, provided that they would abstain from asserting any doctrine about the Pope which was inconsistent with the supremacy of the Crown'.
This was certainly a broader interpretation of the via media than that held by the Centre-High grouping.
The churchman-ship of Western Catholics had a tendency to put party principles before Anglican authority.
W. L. Knox admitted 'It is possible that I shall be accused of a lack of loyalty to the distinctive position of the Church of England. But if in being loyal to the Catholic Church I am disloyal to the Church of England, I fear that I shall bear the reproach with equanimity'.
A spiky and pertinacious attitude towards episcopal authority was evident amongst some members of the movement.
Alan Wilkinson suggests that advanced Anglo-Catholics responded to W. H. Frere's episcopal preferment as members of the left wing of the Labour Party have traditionally reacted when one of their own is appointed to a cabinet post: his promotion proved him unsound
An insubordinate spirit was certainly evident in A. F. Webling, who remained within the Church because of the 'natural human delight in struggle and effort', admitting that 'what one can get easily and respectably does not appeal'.
The loyalty of Western Catholics to counter-Reformation principles was at the root of the problem of ritualistic lawlessness within Anglicanism.
What Alan Wilkinson has described as a 'self-deception about authority' pervaded the movement as some priests 'worked' the 1662 Prayer Book to fit their liturgical agenda.
Furthermore, it was common, especially in the London diocese of 'uncle' Arthur Winnington-Ingram, for advanced clergy to evade the regulation of the bishop.
Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram KCVO PC (26 January 1858 – 26 May 1946) was Bishop of London from 1901 to 1939.
This ecclesiastical side-stepping was an open secret, with one commentator recognising 'the tone of ironical submissiveness in which some Anglo-Catholic priest coerces their titular superior is among the more amusing features of a situation in which the comic so often and so paradoxically intrudes'.
The bishops hoped that in revising the Prayer Book, such confusion and duplicity would be replaced by peace and order.
By the 1920s, in their attempt to re-assume the 'arrested development' of the Anglican ritual, Western Catholics had turned their focus to the issue of continuous reservation (see above).
Significantly, in 1923, an ECU report on Prayer Book revision, largely devised by Norman Powell Williams and Darwell Stone, recommended permanent reservation on an unrestricted basis.
This view was held partly with the aim of pressing forward the sacramental mission of Anglo-Catholicism by making frequent communion more practical in the parishes, however, Western Catholics also demanded continuous reservation to enable priests to practise Ultramontane-style extra-liturgical devotions (Benediction).
Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, commonly referred to as Benediction and known in France as Salut and in Germany as Segen. It is also the custom of some high-church Anglican churches to hold this service. It consists in the singing of certain hymns, or litanies, or canticles, before the Blessed Sacrament, which is exposed upon the altar in a monstrance, and is surrounded with candles. At the end, the priest or deacon, his shoulders enveloped in a humeral veil, takes the monstrance into his hands, and with it makes the sign of the cross in silence over the kneeling congregation. Benediction is often employed as a conclusion to other services, e.g. Vespers, Compline, the Stations of the Cross, etc., but it is also still more generally treated as a rite complete in itself.
Although this was a significant departure from Tractarian tradition, it did, in the opinion of some, follow logically from the Puseyite interpretation of the real presence of Christ at eucharist.
Real Presence is a term used in various Christian traditions to express belief that in the Eucharist, Jesus Christ is really present in what was previously just bread and wine, and not merely present in symbol, a figure of speech (metaphorically, common amongst the Radical Reformers and their descendants), or by his power (dynamically), or by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the individual believer partaking of the species (pneumatically, common amongst Reformed believers).
Many priests had experienced the beauty and benefit of these practices while serving in France and Belgium during the war.
A series of publications appeared during the late 1910s arguing in favour of adoration of the sacrament, and by the 1920s at least priests were providing these public services in their parishes.
The Articles of Religion as published in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England in 1662 can be said to fairly unequivocally condemn these practices. For example, Article 25 states that, 'The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon, or to be carried about, but that we should duly use them'.
The events of 1927 would indicate the measure to which these 'extra-liturgical' services of devotion were becoming synonymous with Western Catholic worship.
The third faction within the Anglo-Catholic party consisted of the Anglo-Papalists.
This ideology was the least influential amongst Anglican Catholics, and was embraced by only a minority on the extreme wing.
Some writers, such as W. S. F. Pickering, have suggested that advanced Catholics were 'Anglo-Papists' en-masse, but this ignores the fact that only a few advanced institutions and organisations advocated immediate corporate reunion under terms given by Rome.
The limited numerical force of the faction was indicated by its largest demonstration of strength: a manifesto for corporate reunion in 1933 which only 760 priests signed.
In the mindset of these extreme men, the Reformation had been an unmitigated disaster, severing the English Church from the Holy Catholic Church.
The Reformation had been an act of schism and apostasy which needed to be undone.
Unsurprisingly, the final destination for many in these circles, such as the Benedictines of Caldey Island, was usually Rome.
As the meticulously designed Italianate architecture of the Benedictine monastery of Caldey Island emblematised, the quintessence of the faction was a complete devotion to the religious idioms of the Catholic continent.
Anglo-Papalist eucharistic services, such as those at St Saviour's, Hoxton, London, tended to use Latin.
In addition, Anglo-Papalists practised devotions to the Blessed Virgin, and saw the Pope as head of the Church.
By the 1920s, the leading Anglo-Papalist institution was the 'Catholic League', which produced a magazine called 'The Messenger'.
Although the 'Catholic League' and some prominent individuals, such as A. Hope Patten, the priest at the 'Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham', were involved in 1927-28, the numerical weakness of the faction meant it was of limited importance during the controversy.
The former, such as Francis Underhill, Warden of Liddon House, emphasised the considerable gains in the proposals, arguing that it would be wise to 'accept what has been offered to use, while pressing in every legitimate and constitutional way for the further liberty we desire'.
Francis Underhill (16 May 1878 - 24 January 1943. was an Anglican bishop. Underhill was educated at Shrewsbury School and Exeter College, Oxford. He was ordained in 1901 and was a curate at St Paul's Swindon and St Thomas the Martyr, Oxford and then Vicar of St Alban’s Birmingham until 1925. He was the first secretary of the Federation of Catholic Priests and from 1925 until 1932 he was Warden of Liddon House, and priest in charge of the Grosvenor Chapel, Mayfair when he was appointed Dean of Rochester, a position he held until his consecration to the episcopate as Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1937. An author, he was a cousin of Evelyn Underhill.
The latter, such as R. W. Bunnse, a member of the 'Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament', saw revision as 'a weapon of war' forged against advanced Catholics.
The proposals of 1927 had a polarising effect on Anglo-Catholicism.
This was most noticeable in the ECU, the most comprehensive Catholic body.
The Council was prevented from taking an official stance on revision because of the 'deep cleavage of opinion' amongst its members.
Some were undecided or opposed to the measure, while others were 'readily accepting the Prayer Book as a considerable gain'.
The disunity within the ECU was also apparent at local level.
While some ECU groups, such as the Winchester and Hursley branch, passed pro-revision resolutions, others, such as Devon Central and Stratton Deanery branches, opposed the proposals.
Just as the ECU remained impartial during 1927 because of the duality of Anglo-Catholic opinion, Sydney Dark, editor of the 'Church Times', felt obliged to keep his paper neutral throughout that year.
A similar division was evident in convocation, where despite the beseeching of the bishops, though forty Anglo-Catholic members voted for revision, twelve still opposed it.
The revision controversy went to the core of the Anglo-Catholic movement, compelling it to assess its own identity within Anglicanism.
On the English Catholic side of the party, there was an attitude of acceptance towards the revision proposals.
The main leaders of the faction, such as Dearmer, Gore, Moss and Bicknell, led a chorus of approval for the liturgical changes.
The support from moderates was clearly expressed in a memorial of 1,300 clergy in
September 1927.
The organisers of the memorial were mostly academics with an English Catholic background, such as Maurice Relton, Professor of Theology, King's College, London; Bicknell, vice-Principal, Cuddesdon College, Oxford; S. R. P. Mousdale, Principal of St Chad's, Durham; and E. Gordon Selwyn, editor of the moderate Catholic journal, 'Theology'.
The memorial gave birth to a pro-revision group, known simply as 'the 1,300', which met to discuss policy during and after the controversy.
The group had an English Catholic ethos, claiming that the Anglican Church 'had its own contribution to make to Catholicism' and promoting loyalty to the bishops and their book.
The revision proposals were also championed by the 'Anglican Society', which supported the book as an embodiment of the Anglican via media, and launched a newspaper in 1928 known as the 'English Catholic'.
Similarly, revision was backed by moderate Anglo-Catholic institutions, most notably the 'Community of the Resurrection' at Mirfield, where an avalanche of Western Catholic pamphlets 'became wearisome rather than convincing' and 'most of the Brethren welcomed the news that the new book has been passed by a large majority'.
The Western Catholic wing of Anglo-Catholicism, however, seemed almost uniformly opposed to the revision measure.
Its leadership, including Halifax, Stone, Knox, Sparrow Simpson, and C. P. Shaw, Superior General of the 'Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament', all rejected the bishops' offer.
A number of these luminaries contributed to a tome on the controversy, edited by Darwell Stone, refuting the content and censuring the process of revision.
The most influential anti-revision response came from the 'Federation of Catholic Priests', which passed a resolution of '1,400 priests' (although the figure was closer to 1,200) in opposition.
Controversially, the Federation ignored objections regarding the recognition of the role of the State in Church affairs by writing to the Ecclesiastical Commission of Parliament, warning that 'some provisions of the deposited book, notably the rubrics concerning reservation, will be conscientiously resisted by many clergymen and laity at all costs'.
The 'Council General of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament' also issued a statement against revision at its annual meeting in May 1927, although, significantly, the body did not allow a general vote amongst its membership.
On the extreme fringe of the party, unsurprisingly, Anglo-Papalists were adverse to the bishops' proposals.
The Catholic League passed a resolution against revision in June 1927.
Likewise, priests attending the annual pilgrimage at the Shrine of Our Lady, Walsingham, passed a resolution against the book.
A. Hope Patten, parish priest at Walsingham and the most prominent Anglo-Papalist during the period, was in contact with Darwell Stone during the crisis to discuss strategy.
It seems likely that Anglo-Papalists goaded their less advanced brothers into greater opposition towards revision.
There were, of course, exceptions to the rule of English Catholic support for and Western Catholic protest against revision.
On the English Catholic side, Athelstan Riley, the venerated nineteenth century lay leader, saw the proposals as a major furtherance for the Catholic cause, but abstained from voting in the Church Assembly because of the omission of the Athanasian Creed (see above)
On the Western side, there appears to have been some indecision over the bishops' proposals.
In mid 1927 the General Secretary of the Federation of Catholic Priests reported to Darwell Stone that he was 'amazed to find the most unlikely people' who saw revision as a consolidation of Anglo-Catholic demands.
No doubt some were tempted to except the changes as an instalment in the Catholicisation of the Church of England.
In addition, the convocational vote in favour of revision appears to have put some Western Catholics in two minds as to whether they should undermine the spiritual authority of the Church.
An alignment with erastian Protestants against the Church's ruling on revision would have proven a bizarre concept for Anglo-Catholics.
One of the followers of Thomas Erastus, a German physician and theologian of the 16th century. He held that the punishment of all offenses should be referred to the civil power, and that holy communion was open to all. In the present day, an Erastian is one who would see the church placed entirely under the control of the State.
Nevertheless, despite these irregularities, by and large the line of division over revision was drawn between the English and Western Catholic factions.
The widely-held attitude of English Catholics towards the proposals was that they represented a generous offer from the bishops and that they recognised Anglo-Catholicism as an acceptable form of churchman-ship within Anglicanism.
Percy Dearmer endorsed the measure wholeheartedly, his replacement at Primrose Hill, A. S. Duncan-Jones, praised the proposals, and Francis Underhill, who rose to prominence through his leadership of 'the 1,300', perhaps securing his bishopric of Bath and Wells as a result, argued that the book secured much for which Catholics had campaigned during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Arthur Stuart Duncan-Jones (25 April 1879 – 19 January 1955) was an Anglican priest and author in the first half of the 20th century. Arthur Duncan-Jones was the son of the Revd Duncan Llewellyn Davies Jones. Educated at Pocklington School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, he was ordained in 1912. He held the College living at Blofield from 1912 until 1915 when he became Rector of Louth. He held further incumbencies at St Mary’s, Primrose Hill, and St Paul’s, Knightsbridge, before being elevated to the Deanery at Chichester Cathedral in 1929. He held this post until his death on 19 January 1955.
These leaders broadcasted both the liturgical advances of the alternative book and the opportunities created for peace and order.
The potential areas of controversy for Anglo-Catholics in the proposals concerned the alternative canon and the reservation rubrics, particularly the prohibition of corporate adoration (Benediction).
These controversial points were, in the main, supported by English Catholics.
Regarding the alternative service, most were willing to acquiesce to the Eastern Orthodox model of communion, which emphasised the epiclesis, the work of the Holy Spirit, rather than Christ's Institution, the recital 'this is my body, this is my blood'.
The epiclesis (also spelled epiklesis; from Ancient Greek: ἐπίκλησις "invocation" or "calling down from on high") is that part of the Anaphora (Eucharistic Prayer) by which the priest invokes the Holy Spirit (or the power of His blessing) upon the Eucharistic bread and wine in some Christian churches.
Although this development was a deviation from the 1549 book, it was the practice in the
Scottish and American Churches, and had been recommended by Bishop Frere.
Canon Goudge argued in the 'Church Times' that although the western model of consecration was superior, the Eastern method was valid, and that Catholics owed the bishops a 'deep debt of gratitude' for daring to alter the communion rite at all.
Charles Gore argued that the Eastern model still sanctioned the idea of an alteration of the elements (bread and wine).
Generally, the alternative service seemed to have moved towards the Catholic understanding and form of the eucharist, and moderate Catholics were less concerned over following the Roman rite.
On reservation, although the leadership of 'the 1,300' asked the bishops to act synodically in deciding whether to authorise continuous reservation, most moderates saw the permission for reservation as a major gain for the Anglo-Catholic party, considering that previously a priest had needed a licence to practise reservation for the sick.
Predictably, the rubric forbidding corporate services of adoration (Benediction) was welcomed by English Catholics as a Predictably, the rubric forbidding corporate services of adoration (Benediction) was welcomed by English Catholics as a roadblock preventing further Roman developments within the Church.
The liturgical modifications in the 1927 book seemed to have English Catholic credentials, providing moderate Catholic changes while inhibiting continental Ultramontane excesses.
Moderate Anglo-Catholics saw the revision measure as an opportunity to bring peace and order and strengthen the position of the party within the Anglican Church.
If the party rejected this armistice, some argued, it would appear that the factiousness and rebelliousness of Anglo-Catholicism was innate and incurable.
W. M. Bell, a member of the local Halifax branch of the ECU, pleaded for members to support the book, arguing that the party was in danger of becoming an 'intransigent body of irreconcilables' and 'ecclesiastical Sinn Féiners'.
Various leaders beseeched the party at large to adopt a more peaceable and obedient attitude towards the bishops.
Athelstan Riley, despite deciding to abstain from voting on revision because of its treatment of the Athanasian Creed, asked his colleagues at the Church Assembly to stop seeing the bishops as ogres scenting Anglo-Catholic blood.
The revised book seemed to cement the influence of English Catholicism in the Church, and High Churchmen attempted to persuade their extreme brethren not to spurn such an opportunity for the party.
The response of advanced Catholics towards the 1927 revision measure was guided by concerns about the book's comprehensiveness and scepticism over the bishops' motivations. The 'Green Quarterly' argued that the diocesans were saying 'we rejoice in being gloriously comprehensive, but this means that we shall be quite gloriously in-comprehensive in regard to the things we don't like'.
The book was too moderate in feel, and centrally Anglican in scope, according to W. L. Knox, who maintained that the book represented 'the general lines along which all parties in the Church of England which fall between the limits of moderate Anglo- Catholicism and moderate Evangelicalism are prepared to come to terms'.
It seemed that in trying to compromise with the Anglo-Catholic party, the bishops were willing to isolate those advanced members who would not come into line.
Dom Anselm Hughes later described the bishops' tactic as being one of brakesmanship: placating the Anglo-Catholic party with moderate reform in order to end extreme practices such as extra-liturgical devotions.
This policy would bring to light the dilemmas of authority and principle for advanced Catholics.
For Western Catholics such as Knox, the answer to this question was plain.
He argued that order in worship was 'highly desirable but not in itself very important. The question is not about order but whether certain practices are a good thing or not'.
In their response to the bishops' proposals, Western Catholics would claim that certain principles and practices were too crucial to Catholic revival, and central to liturgical principle to sacrifice for the sake of 'peace and order'.
The Western Catholic attitude was most affected by the 'controversial' changes in the 1927 book regarding the alternative service, the reservation rubrics and particularly the prohibition of corporate adoration.
The alternative communion rite was a stumbling block for advanced Catholics because it used the Eastern rather than the Roman model of consecration.
The proposed revision deviated from both the 1549 book and contemporary continental custom.
For Western Catholics and Anglo-Papalists, such a wedge between Anglican and Roman convention was undesirable.
The reservation rubrics regarding the practise being 'for the sick only', and the need for a special licence to reserve perpetually were seen as unacceptable, both in a pastoral and practical sense.
The 'sacramental method' of regular and easily accessible communion services was understood as fundamental to the success of the Catholic revival in England.
In a speech at the 1927 Anglo-Catholic Congress, H. F. B. Mackay, priest at All Saints', Margaret Street, London, argued this point, suggesting that reservation was historically legitimate and contemporarily essential for the sick and the 'oppressed' (those who could not
attend normal communion because of their conditions of employment).
In the urban parishes in which Anglo-Catholics were focusing their resources, communion for the latter grouping was particularly vital.
In the judgement of Western Catholics, 'the deadly evil in the Church of England is the separation of the Lord's children from the Lord's table'.
The same point was made passionately by Kenneth Ingram at an ECU council meeting: 'We would strain every effort, and make every sacrifice possible to secure peace in our own borders. And it is only when we are asked to go into the wide battle, with a hand tied securely behind our backs, that we say that such a handicap is impossible. We must have both hands free. And that is the nature of our protest,' however, the loudest cry of disapproval was saved for the regulations concerning extra-liturgical devotions.
Statements by the Archbishop suggested that the bishops appeared to be unanimous in their intention to outlaw services of corporate adoration (Benediction).
Darwell Stone announced to the 'Council of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament' that the main point of issue in the crisis was 'nothing less than the adoration of our Divine Lord and Saviour in the Blessed Sacrament, whether in the course of liturgy or when the Sacrament is reserved'.
It appeared contradictory to allow perpetual reservation, which in itself implied a doctrine of the real presence, but forbid corporate services of adoration.
This policy, argued F. N. Thicknesse, a member of the Church Assembly, did not repudiate, but rather 'traverse' a view of the real presence that was thoroughly Catholic.
The practice of corporate devotions had become increasingly popular in Western Catholic parishes, and this was underlined in the strong rejection of the reservation rubrics during the controversy.
The centrality of this matter to advanced Catholic concerns reveals the direction in emphasis of the Western school during the 1920s.
Alongside these liturgical concerns, advanced Churchmen also addressed the issue of ecclesiastical politics, and the balance of power in the parish church.
Many believed that the control of the parish priest was diminished by the reservation rubrics in favour of the local bishop and the PCC.
W. L. Knox argued was the strongest advocate of the idea that priestly authority was reduced in the revision measure.
These concerns were heightened by the influence of Parliament in the selection of bishops. This procedure meant that the whole ecclesiastical system seemed biased in favour of Protestant opinion.
The appointment of Bishop Barnes to the Birmingham diocese in 1924 and his subsequent tirades against Catholic 'idolatry', and refusal to allow the reserved sacrament to be kept in the open church building, was seen as a prime example of the injustices affecting the party.
On the priest's opposite flank, it was suggested that the power of the laity had been increased by the rubric saying that the PCC should be able to oppose certain usages of the book.
This, according to one prominent priest and member of convocation, was 'surely a grave intrusion into the rights and leadership of the parish priest'.
Such concerns reflected the desire amongst some advanced Anglo-Catholic clergy for priestly autonomy.
Their insecurity was a result of the unpopularity of ritual in some rural parishes, and perhaps indicated an over-zealousness and arrogance regarding the implementation of the Catholic revival within the Church.
Overall, these liturgical, pastoral and political apprehensions meant that Western Catholics were mostly in opposition to the revision measure, preferring to keep the status quo and continue to use the 1662 book rather than face the regulation of the 1927 book.
Although the general distinction between English and moderate and Western and advanced Catholic responses to revision remained, the changes adopted by the bishops following the re-revision of the Prayer Book in early 1928 had the effect of hardening Anglo-Catholic opposition to the bishops' proposals.
Parliament's rejection of the deposited book was followed by the bishops' decision to reinsert
the 'Black Rubric', and give bishops the right to force parishes to keep the reserved sacrament in the vestry cupboard.
This miscalculation (for it also failed to increase Protestant support) was seen by many Catholics as a capitulation to secular authority and a slur on the doctrine of the real presence.
Support from key individuals, such as Bishop Frere and Maurice Relton, was retracted.
Frere believed that the new restrictions on reservation were intolerable and a deviation from the generous ethos of revision which would prevent an armistice with the Anglo-Catholic party.
Individual priests who had formerly been in favour of revision, such as A. G. Whye of the Olney parish in Buckinghamshire, retracted their support on the basis that the bishops' 'by yielding to the dictates of Parliament, compromised the spiritual authority of the Church of England'.
This high-level and low-level change in opinion was reflected in the organs and institutions of the party.
The 'Church Times' ceased to sit on the fence, arguing that the 'eleventh hour' addition of restrictions was an unwelcome capitulation to secular authority.
Most significantly, the ECU council finally felt safe to choose sides and passed a resolution recommending that Catholics in convocation vote against revision.
The Union, alongside the 'Central Council of Catholic Societies', organised a meeting of the laity with the purpose of making a declaration of principle regarding the real presence of Christ and the need to 'claim for Him the honour and worship which are due to his Name and Person in that Sacrament anywhere at all times'.
The declaration was endorsed by the 2,000 members present and another 2,373 by post.
The declaration also stated the belief that 'inward' and 'outward' acts of adoration were due to the real presence, and that Christ was no less present in the reserved sacrament outside of the eucharistic service and was thus 'always to be adored with like acts of devotion'.
All these developments indicated that the 1928 book consolidated Anglo-Catholic opinion against revision.
Furthermore, they underlined the extent to which the party, despite all its internal tensions, retained some cohesion in the 1920s.
The unity of the Anglo-Catholic Congresses was not merely a façade.
Many continued to see the party as a single movement, with pioneers and conservatives.
Maurice Relton, for example, retracted his support for revision in 1928 because the bishops no longer offered a fair armistice to his advanced brethren.
Thus, although Anglo-Catholicism did polarise in the 1920s, the subdivisions within the party were not emphasised to the same degree as between conservative and liberal Evangelicals.
The common experiences of the nineteenth century, and the triumphal successes of the twentieth century, maintained a synthesising spirit within the movement as a whole.
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| W. L Knox |
The Western Catholic expression combated the sobrieties of English and Gothic architecture and paraphernalia of moderate Anglo-Catholics with Baroque and Rococo designs and the accoutrements of Catholic Europe.
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| Society of SS Peter and Paul (SSPP) |
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| Adrian Fortescue |
Adrian Henry Timothy Knottesford Fortescue (14 January 1874 – 11 February 1923) was an English Roman Catholic priest who was an influential liturgist, artist, calligrapher, composer, polyglot, amateur photographer, Byzantine scholar, and adventurer.
The 'Federation of Catholic Priests' was formed in 1917 as a body for advanced Catholics, which by 1927 had around 1,400 members.
By the 1920s the Federation was having a considerable impact on the practices of Anglo- Catholic clergymen, with 827 of its members reserving the sacrament and 282 practising extra-liturgical devotions.
Among the various Anglican religious communities, the 'Society of the Holy Cross' was the one most dominated by Western Catholics.
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| Viscount Halifax |
He held this prestigious post sporadically until he was re-elected President during the revision controversy in 1927.
A paradoxical figure, Halifax was a member of the English establishment, yet he would remain moderately rebellious throughout his ecclesiastical life.
Charles Lindley Wood, 2nd Viscount Halifax (7 June 1839 – 19 January 1934) was a British ecumenist who served as president of the English Church Union from 1868 to 1919, and from 1927 to 1934.
Darwell Stone was perhaps the most influential advanced Anglo-Catholic of the period.
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| Darwell Stone |
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| Pusey House - Oxford |
Stone would both assert and bolster this dominance during the revision controversy.
Alongside these two venerable figures, a number of academics, of which the Anglo-Catholic party had no shortage during the 1920s, possessed prominent leadership roles in the Western Catholic faction.
This wayward offspring of E. A. Knox, the firebrand anti-Catholic Bishop of Manchester (whose other son, Ronald, seceded to Rome in 1917), was a staunch advocate of Ultramontane worship.
The Western Catholic cause was supported in Oxford by N. P. Williams, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, who set about defining Western Catholicism, described by him as 'old Catholicism' or 'northern Catholicism', in a number of publications.
Other influential individuals within the movement included Lionel Thornton, a theologian among the more advanced members of the 'Community of the Resurrection', and Canon W. Sparrow Simpson, the chaplain of St Mary's, Ilford.
The Community of the Resurrection (CR) is an Anglican religious community for men in England. It is based in Mirfield, West Yorkshire and has 22 members as of March 2012. The community reflects Anglicanism in its broad nature and is strongly engaged in the life of the Anglican Communion. It also has a long tradition of ecumenical outlook and practice. The community has fostered 11 bishops in different parts of the Anglican Communion. Both of the two founders became bishops in the Church of England. Charles Gore was Bishop of Worcester (1902-05), Birmingham (1905-11) and Oxford (1911-19), and Walter Howard Frere became Bishop of Truro (1923-35). Timothy Rees became Bishop of Llandaff (1931-39) in Wales, and Thomas Hannay became Bishop of Argyll and The Isles in Scotland (1942-62).
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| Darwell Stone |
The logic of Western Catholicism rested on the view that the Church of England shared a common bond with the Roman Church.
The western Church, according to one writer, was psychologically, geographically and historically closer to Anglo-Catholics.
Advanced Catholics opposed the moderate notion of English distinctiveness in worship.
According to one Western Catholic, Kenneth Ingram, the editor of the 'Green Quarterly' magazine, their churchman-ship centred on the idea that 'the isolation of the English Church from the rest of the Western Church as caused by the Reformation, may be inevitable but is neither desirable nor normal'.
Thus, the idea of English uniqueness was of little importance compared to a wider loyalty to the practices and traditions of the Western Church.
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| Norman Powell Williams |
Western Catholics desired eventual reunion with Rome, although contrary to some misunderstandings in the current historiography, they were not Anglo-Papal, as most could not agree with the claims of the papacy.
An example of a typical Western Catholic was A. F. Webling.
As a young curate in Hallam, Sheffield, Webling worked under an advanced priest whose consistent liturgical disobedience resulted in the diocesan refusing to visit the parish.
Webling's churchman-ship was strongly Catholic, as he accepted the mass, practised confession, and encouraged extra-liturgical devotions to the sacrament, yet he would not secede to Rome because of the issue of authority.
Such advanced Catholics were trying to revive Catholic religion, with a Roman preconception, within the Church of England.
This Rome-ward orientation meant that Western Catholics had a flexible interpretation of Anglican comprehensiveness.
Darwell Stone explained this concept of the Church at convocation in 1923, maintaining that 'It was intended by those in power [at the time of the Reformation] that there should remain within the Church of England people who, on the one hand, were almost puritans, provided that they would conform in worship, and, on the other hand, people who were almost Roman Catholics, provided that they would abstain from asserting any doctrine about the Pope which was inconsistent with the supremacy of the Crown'.
This was certainly a broader interpretation of the via media than that held by the Centre-High grouping.
The churchman-ship of Western Catholics had a tendency to put party principles before Anglican authority.
W. L. Knox admitted 'It is possible that I shall be accused of a lack of loyalty to the distinctive position of the Church of England. But if in being loyal to the Catholic Church I am disloyal to the Church of England, I fear that I shall bear the reproach with equanimity'.
A spiky and pertinacious attitude towards episcopal authority was evident amongst some members of the movement.
Alan Wilkinson suggests that advanced Anglo-Catholics responded to W. H. Frere's episcopal preferment as members of the left wing of the Labour Party have traditionally reacted when one of their own is appointed to a cabinet post: his promotion proved him unsound
An insubordinate spirit was certainly evident in A. F. Webling, who remained within the Church because of the 'natural human delight in struggle and effort', admitting that 'what one can get easily and respectably does not appeal'.
The loyalty of Western Catholics to counter-Reformation principles was at the root of the problem of ritualistic lawlessness within Anglicanism.
What Alan Wilkinson has described as a 'self-deception about authority' pervaded the movement as some priests 'worked' the 1662 Prayer Book to fit their liturgical agenda.
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| Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram |
Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram KCVO PC (26 January 1858 – 26 May 1946) was Bishop of London from 1901 to 1939.
This ecclesiastical side-stepping was an open secret, with one commentator recognising 'the tone of ironical submissiveness in which some Anglo-Catholic priest coerces their titular superior is among the more amusing features of a situation in which the comic so often and so paradoxically intrudes'.
 |
| Continuous Reservation |
By the 1920s, in their attempt to re-assume the 'arrested development' of the Anglican ritual, Western Catholics had turned their focus to the issue of continuous reservation (see above).
Significantly, in 1923, an ECU report on Prayer Book revision, largely devised by Norman Powell Williams and Darwell Stone, recommended permanent reservation on an unrestricted basis.
This view was held partly with the aim of pressing forward the sacramental mission of Anglo-Catholicism by making frequent communion more practical in the parishes, however, Western Catholics also demanded continuous reservation to enable priests to practise Ultramontane-style extra-liturgical devotions (Benediction).
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| Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament |
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| Benediction |
Although this was a significant departure from Tractarian tradition, it did, in the opinion of some, follow logically from the Puseyite interpretation of the real presence of Christ at eucharist.
 |
| Elevation of the Host - Martin Travers |
Many priests had experienced the beauty and benefit of these practices while serving in France and Belgium during the war.
A series of publications appeared during the late 1910s arguing in favour of adoration of the sacrament, and by the 1920s at least priests were providing these public services in their parishes.
The Articles of Religion as published in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England in 1662 can be said to fairly unequivocally condemn these practices. For example, Article 25 states that, 'The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon, or to be carried about, but that we should duly use them'.
The events of 1927 would indicate the measure to which these 'extra-liturgical' services of devotion were becoming synonymous with Western Catholic worship.
The third faction within the Anglo-Catholic party consisted of the Anglo-Papalists.
This ideology was the least influential amongst Anglican Catholics, and was embraced by only a minority on the extreme wing.
Some writers, such as W. S. F. Pickering, have suggested that advanced Catholics were 'Anglo-Papists' en-masse, but this ignores the fact that only a few advanced institutions and organisations advocated immediate corporate reunion under terms given by Rome.
The limited numerical force of the faction was indicated by its largest demonstration of strength: a manifesto for corporate reunion in 1933 which only 760 priests signed.
In the mindset of these extreme men, the Reformation had been an unmitigated disaster, severing the English Church from the Holy Catholic Church.
The Reformation had been an act of schism and apostasy which needed to be undone.
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| Caldey Island |
As the meticulously designed Italianate architecture of the Benedictine monastery of Caldey Island emblematised, the quintessence of the faction was a complete devotion to the religious idioms of the Catholic continent.
 |
| St Saviour's - Hoxton |
In addition, Anglo-Papalists practised devotions to the Blessed Virgin, and saw the Pope as head of the Church.
By the 1920s, the leading Anglo-Papalist institution was the 'Catholic League', which produced a magazine called 'The Messenger'.
 |
| 'The Holy House' Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham |
Catholic League is an organisation dedicated to the reconciliation of the same two communions. It is associated with the Anglo-Papalist wing of Anglo-Catholicism.
A member of the Catholic Societies of the Church of England, the League supports the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (formerly the Octave of Christian Unity), the work of the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission on Unity and Mission, and in the past, its predecessor, the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission. Associated with the Catholic League is the Sodality of the Precious Blood, a confraternity of male priests in the Church of England who pray the Liturgy of the Hours and practice celibacy. The League was founded in 1913 with 97 foundation members on the initiative of the Revd Richard Langford-James and the Revd Henry Fynes-Clinton. Its predecessors were the Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom (established 1857) and the Guild of the Love of God (founded 1911).
The years before the climax of the revision project witnessed two main trends in the Anglo-Catholic party in relation to these factions.
Firstly, during the mid-1920s, there was undoubtedly an increase in tension between these two main schools of thought.
The post-war rise of advanced Catholicism was met with increasing apprehension from the English Catholic leadership.
The potential for confrontation had always been close to the surface of the party.
Colin Dunlop, an 'Alcuin Club' member, had suggested 'there is no phrase which is more productive of controversy amongst the more Catholic-minded section of English Churchmen than is the phrase 'English Use'. Its mention will stir up in some wrath and contempt, in some amusement, in others fanatical approval. Few remain
indifferent'.
In 1921, as a counter-blast to Percy Dearmer's 'The Present Opportunity', the SSPP entitled an introduction to a collection of illustrations 'The Lost Opportunity', claiming that the antiquarian traditions of 'British Museum religion' had never prospered, and that the English revival had failed, however, by the mid-1920s, this tension had reached new levels as English Catholics reacted to the rise in public services of devotions.
In 'The Anglo-Catholic Movement Today' (1925), Charles Gore launched a bitter tirade against the 'half-Romanism' of advanced Catholics, arguing that their devotional practices were disobedient to the Church and loathe-some to the laity.
In the same year an 'Alcuin Club' publication by D. L. Murray set out the historical and theological case against public devotions (Benediction), arguing that the reserved sacrament had not been a perpetual centre for worship in the primitive Church.
The concern over services of adoration was accentuated because the publication of the revision proposals was approaching, and English Catholics were aware that the bishops would probably outlaw such devotions.
Thus, adoration was seen as an issue that could drive a wedge between the Anglo- Catholic party and the Church authorities.
Contemporaries noticed a marked increase in strain within the party in the 1920s.
On the English side, C. B. Moss suggested that intra-party unity could no longer hold, and that a decision about future direction must be made.
Correspondingly, Western Catholics voiced frustration at the authoritarian tone of their moderate brethren.
During 1925 and 1926 the 'Green Quarterly' published a steady stream of articles against Moss and Gore.
An allegory entitled 'The Anglican Crisis on the Isle of Alpha', which told the story of ecclesiastical tensions between 'High Alpheans' and 'continentalists', painted the High Church side as being nationalistic and traditionalist in outlook.
Another article stereotyped English Catholics as 'alarmists', who were paranoid about any foreign influence on the English Church.
Some were predicting a final split in the party over liturgical revision.
There were now two factions, both with highly developed systems of thought and practice, with divergent views regarding Church authority and Catholic identity.
The second trend to influence Anglo-Catholicism before the revision controversy was the rise in supremacy of Western Catholicism across the party.
The Anglo-Catholic movement contained a number of institutions which carried no overt faction 'label'.
The 'English Church Union', the largest Anglo-Catholic body, representing both the laity and the clergy, seems to have become more influenced by Western Catholic ideology during the early twentieth century, despite the diversity of Catholic opinion within its ranks.
The recommendations for Prayer Book revision set out in its 'Green Book' in 1922 were alarmingly progressive, especially the assertion that permanent reservation, on an unrestricted basis, should be allowed.
The fact that the 'Alcuin Club' opted to publish its own separate 'Orange Book' suggests it felt its opinions were not represented by the ECU.
Some members of the ECU, such as Alfred Kelly of the 'Society of the Sacred Mission' at Kelham, believed that an advanced 'ruling clique' had gained power.
The other main 'no party label' organisation was the Anglo-Catholic Congress, which held an event every three or four years from 1920.
Although the Congress had always been under the influence of Maurice Child and the SSPP, it attempted to limit its partisanship and so appeal to a broad spectrum of Catholics, however, the 1923 Congress, chaired by a provocative figure in the shape of Bishop Frank Weston of Zanzibar, seemed to move ideologically towards the advanced wing of the movement.
Weston encouraged members with the slogan 'fight for your tabernacles', a contentious proclamation considering the disagreements within the party over devotions.
Moderate Catholics, such as Reginald Tribe, Director of the Society of the Sacred Mission, believed that it was wrong 'to make this the touchstone of the Anglo-Catholic movement'.
At the same conference, Bishop Weston, 'a man who loved the dramatic gesture', surprised the faithful by suggesting a telegram to the pope saying '16000 Anglo-Catholics, in Congress assembled, offer respectful greetings to the Holy Father, humbly praying that the day of peace may quickly break'.
Frank Weston OBE (13 September 1871–2 November 1924) was the Anglican Bishop of Zanzibar from 1907[1] until his death 16 years later. A staunch Anglo-Catholic, he was chaplain then principal of St Andrew's College before being ordained to the episcopate.
Many English Catholics were shocked by this development.
Walter Frere made a public protest at Weston's action and some left the Congress in disgust.
In a sense, 'Zanzibargate' was symbolic of the English-Roman division within Anglo-Catholicism during the period, and the rising influence of the advanced wing.
It was in this context and atmosphere that the bishops' proposals of 1927 were received by the party.
The aim of the bishops in revising the Prayer Book was twofold: to provide both peace and comprehensiveness, and order and regulation.
Undoubtedly, the changes made, such as provision for reservation for the sick, continuous reservation with a licence, the alternative communion service, and a clarification of the legitimacy of vestments, were all in a distinctively Catholic direction.
The book was generous in ethos; however, in the interests of restoring Church order, it made plain clear limits regarding liturgical practice.
The 'Central Council of Catholic Societies' noted in early 1927 that the following would offend some Catholics: the Eastern Orthodox position of the invocation in the alternative canon, reservation 'for the sick only', the need for a bishop's licence to practise continuous reservation, and the prohibition of corporate adoration.
Other changes, such as the treatment of the 'Athanasian Creed', the omission of references to the Flood and the crossing of the Red Sea, and a 'softening down' of the Baptismal and Marriage Offices, were perceived to be in a modernist direction, and offended the conservative sensibilities of some advanced Catholics.
The Athanasian Creed, or Quicunque Vult (also Quicumque Vult), is a Christian statement of belief focused on Trinitarian doctrine and Christology. The Latin name of the creed, Quicumque vult, is taken from the opening words, "Whosoever wishes". The creed has been used by Christian churches since the sixth century.
Archbishop Davidson had made plain to Anglo-Catholic leaders that the bishops had no intention of letting the proposed rubrics be disregarded, and that while they were 'not going to be bullies' they did 'mean business', and intend to press for obedience to the Revised Book.
Randall Thomas Davidson, 1st Baron Davidson of Lambeth GCVO PC (7 April 1848 – 25 May 1930) was an Anglican bishop of Scottish origin who served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1903 to 1928. Davidson resigned after Prayer Book revision failed to pass the House of Commons in 1928.
Thus revision would divide Anglo-Catholicism, and emphasise the fault line between loyalty-driven English Catholics and principle-led Western Catholics.
Firstly, during the mid-1920s, there was undoubtedly an increase in tension between these two main schools of thought.
The post-war rise of advanced Catholicism was met with increasing apprehension from the English Catholic leadership.
The potential for confrontation had always been close to the surface of the party.
Colin Dunlop, an 'Alcuin Club' member, had suggested 'there is no phrase which is more productive of controversy amongst the more Catholic-minded section of English Churchmen than is the phrase 'English Use'. Its mention will stir up in some wrath and contempt, in some amusement, in others fanatical approval. Few remain
indifferent'.
 |
| Percy Dearmer |
In 'The Anglo-Catholic Movement Today' (1925), Charles Gore launched a bitter tirade against the 'half-Romanism' of advanced Catholics, arguing that their devotional practices were disobedient to the Church and loathe-some to the laity.
 |
| Benediction |
The concern over services of adoration was accentuated because the publication of the revision proposals was approaching, and English Catholics were aware that the bishops would probably outlaw such devotions.
Thus, adoration was seen as an issue that could drive a wedge between the Anglo- Catholic party and the Church authorities.
Contemporaries noticed a marked increase in strain within the party in the 1920s.
On the English side, C. B. Moss suggested that intra-party unity could no longer hold, and that a decision about future direction must be made.
Correspondingly, Western Catholics voiced frustration at the authoritarian tone of their moderate brethren.
During 1925 and 1926 the 'Green Quarterly' published a steady stream of articles against Moss and Gore.
An allegory entitled 'The Anglican Crisis on the Isle of Alpha', which told the story of ecclesiastical tensions between 'High Alpheans' and 'continentalists', painted the High Church side as being nationalistic and traditionalist in outlook.
Another article stereotyped English Catholics as 'alarmists', who were paranoid about any foreign influence on the English Church.
Some were predicting a final split in the party over liturgical revision.
There were now two factions, both with highly developed systems of thought and practice, with divergent views regarding Church authority and Catholic identity.
The second trend to influence Anglo-Catholicism before the revision controversy was the rise in supremacy of Western Catholicism across the party.
The Anglo-Catholic movement contained a number of institutions which carried no overt faction 'label'.
The 'English Church Union', the largest Anglo-Catholic body, representing both the laity and the clergy, seems to have become more influenced by Western Catholic ideology during the early twentieth century, despite the diversity of Catholic opinion within its ranks.
The recommendations for Prayer Book revision set out in its 'Green Book' in 1922 were alarmingly progressive, especially the assertion that permanent reservation, on an unrestricted basis, should be allowed.
The fact that the 'Alcuin Club' opted to publish its own separate 'Orange Book' suggests it felt its opinions were not represented by the ECU.
 |
| Alfred Kelly |
The other main 'no party label' organisation was the Anglo-Catholic Congress, which held an event every three or four years from 1920.
Although the Congress had always been under the influence of Maurice Child and the SSPP, it attempted to limit its partisanship and so appeal to a broad spectrum of Catholics, however, the 1923 Congress, chaired by a provocative figure in the shape of Bishop Frank Weston of Zanzibar, seemed to move ideologically towards the advanced wing of the movement.
Weston encouraged members with the slogan 'fight for your tabernacles', a contentious proclamation considering the disagreements within the party over devotions.
Moderate Catholics, such as Reginald Tribe, Director of the Society of the Sacred Mission, believed that it was wrong 'to make this the touchstone of the Anglo-Catholic movement'.
 |
| Bishop Weston |
Frank Weston OBE (13 September 1871–2 November 1924) was the Anglican Bishop of Zanzibar from 1907[1] until his death 16 years later. A staunch Anglo-Catholic, he was chaplain then principal of St Andrew's College before being ordained to the episcopate.
Many English Catholics were shocked by this development.
Walter Frere made a public protest at Weston's action and some left the Congress in disgust.
In a sense, 'Zanzibargate' was symbolic of the English-Roman division within Anglo-Catholicism during the period, and the rising influence of the advanced wing.
It was in this context and atmosphere that the bishops' proposals of 1927 were received by the party.
The aim of the bishops in revising the Prayer Book was twofold: to provide both peace and comprehensiveness, and order and regulation.
Undoubtedly, the changes made, such as provision for reservation for the sick, continuous reservation with a licence, the alternative communion service, and a clarification of the legitimacy of vestments, were all in a distinctively Catholic direction.
The book was generous in ethos; however, in the interests of restoring Church order, it made plain clear limits regarding liturgical practice.
The 'Central Council of Catholic Societies' noted in early 1927 that the following would offend some Catholics: the Eastern Orthodox position of the invocation in the alternative canon, reservation 'for the sick only', the need for a bishop's licence to practise continuous reservation, and the prohibition of corporate adoration.
 |
| St Athanasius |
The Athanasian Creed, or Quicunque Vult (also Quicumque Vult), is a Christian statement of belief focused on Trinitarian doctrine and Christology. The Latin name of the creed, Quicumque vult, is taken from the opening words, "Whosoever wishes". The creed has been used by Christian churches since the sixth century.
 |
| Randall Thomas Davidson |
Randall Thomas Davidson, 1st Baron Davidson of Lambeth GCVO PC (7 April 1848 – 25 May 1930) was an Anglican bishop of Scottish origin who served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1903 to 1928. Davidson resigned after Prayer Book revision failed to pass the House of Commons in 1928.
Thus revision would divide Anglo-Catholicism, and emphasise the fault line between loyalty-driven English Catholics and principle-led Western Catholics.
 |
| Francis Underhill |
Francis Underhill (16 May 1878 - 24 January 1943. was an Anglican bishop. Underhill was educated at Shrewsbury School and Exeter College, Oxford. He was ordained in 1901 and was a curate at St Paul's Swindon and St Thomas the Martyr, Oxford and then Vicar of St Alban’s Birmingham until 1925. He was the first secretary of the Federation of Catholic Priests and from 1925 until 1932 he was Warden of Liddon House, and priest in charge of the Grosvenor Chapel, Mayfair when he was appointed Dean of Rochester, a position he held until his consecration to the episcopate as Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1937. An author, he was a cousin of Evelyn Underhill.
The latter, such as R. W. Bunnse, a member of the 'Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament', saw revision as 'a weapon of war' forged against advanced Catholics.
The proposals of 1927 had a polarising effect on Anglo-Catholicism.
This was most noticeable in the ECU, the most comprehensive Catholic body.
The Council was prevented from taking an official stance on revision because of the 'deep cleavage of opinion' amongst its members.
Some were undecided or opposed to the measure, while others were 'readily accepting the Prayer Book as a considerable gain'.
The disunity within the ECU was also apparent at local level.
While some ECU groups, such as the Winchester and Hursley branch, passed pro-revision resolutions, others, such as Devon Central and Stratton Deanery branches, opposed the proposals.
Just as the ECU remained impartial during 1927 because of the duality of Anglo-Catholic opinion, Sydney Dark, editor of the 'Church Times', felt obliged to keep his paper neutral throughout that year.
A similar division was evident in convocation, where despite the beseeching of the bishops, though forty Anglo-Catholic members voted for revision, twelve still opposed it.
The revision controversy went to the core of the Anglo-Catholic movement, compelling it to assess its own identity within Anglicanism.
On the English Catholic side of the party, there was an attitude of acceptance towards the revision proposals.
The main leaders of the faction, such as Dearmer, Gore, Moss and Bicknell, led a chorus of approval for the liturgical changes.
The support from moderates was clearly expressed in a memorial of 1,300 clergy in
September 1927.
The organisers of the memorial were mostly academics with an English Catholic background, such as Maurice Relton, Professor of Theology, King's College, London; Bicknell, vice-Principal, Cuddesdon College, Oxford; S. R. P. Mousdale, Principal of St Chad's, Durham; and E. Gordon Selwyn, editor of the moderate Catholic journal, 'Theology'.
The memorial gave birth to a pro-revision group, known simply as 'the 1,300', which met to discuss policy during and after the controversy.
The group had an English Catholic ethos, claiming that the Anglican Church 'had its own contribution to make to Catholicism' and promoting loyalty to the bishops and their book.
The revision proposals were also championed by the 'Anglican Society', which supported the book as an embodiment of the Anglican via media, and launched a newspaper in 1928 known as the 'English Catholic'.
Similarly, revision was backed by moderate Anglo-Catholic institutions, most notably the 'Community of the Resurrection' at Mirfield, where an avalanche of Western Catholic pamphlets 'became wearisome rather than convincing' and 'most of the Brethren welcomed the news that the new book has been passed by a large majority'.
The Western Catholic wing of Anglo-Catholicism, however, seemed almost uniformly opposed to the revision measure.
Its leadership, including Halifax, Stone, Knox, Sparrow Simpson, and C. P. Shaw, Superior General of the 'Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament', all rejected the bishops' offer.
A number of these luminaries contributed to a tome on the controversy, edited by Darwell Stone, refuting the content and censuring the process of revision.
The most influential anti-revision response came from the 'Federation of Catholic Priests', which passed a resolution of '1,400 priests' (although the figure was closer to 1,200) in opposition.
The 'Council General of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament' also issued a statement against revision at its annual meeting in May 1927, although, significantly, the body did not allow a general vote amongst its membership.
On the extreme fringe of the party, unsurprisingly, Anglo-Papalists were adverse to the bishops' proposals.
The Catholic League passed a resolution against revision in June 1927.
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| Our Lady of Walsingham |
A. Hope Patten, parish priest at Walsingham and the most prominent Anglo-Papalist during the period, was in contact with Darwell Stone during the crisis to discuss strategy.
It seems likely that Anglo-Papalists goaded their less advanced brothers into greater opposition towards revision.
There were, of course, exceptions to the rule of English Catholic support for and Western Catholic protest against revision.
On the English Catholic side, Athelstan Riley, the venerated nineteenth century lay leader, saw the proposals as a major furtherance for the Catholic cause, but abstained from voting in the Church Assembly because of the omission of the Athanasian Creed (see above)
On the Western side, there appears to have been some indecision over the bishops' proposals.
In mid 1927 the General Secretary of the Federation of Catholic Priests reported to Darwell Stone that he was 'amazed to find the most unlikely people' who saw revision as a consolidation of Anglo-Catholic demands.
No doubt some were tempted to except the changes as an instalment in the Catholicisation of the Church of England.
In addition, the convocational vote in favour of revision appears to have put some Western Catholics in two minds as to whether they should undermine the spiritual authority of the Church.
An alignment with erastian Protestants against the Church's ruling on revision would have proven a bizarre concept for Anglo-Catholics.
One of the followers of Thomas Erastus, a German physician and theologian of the 16th century. He held that the punishment of all offenses should be referred to the civil power, and that holy communion was open to all. In the present day, an Erastian is one who would see the church placed entirely under the control of the State.
Nevertheless, despite these irregularities, by and large the line of division over revision was drawn between the English and Western Catholic factions.
The widely-held attitude of English Catholics towards the proposals was that they represented a generous offer from the bishops and that they recognised Anglo-Catholicism as an acceptable form of churchman-ship within Anglicanism.
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| Primrose Hill |
Arthur Stuart Duncan-Jones (25 April 1879 – 19 January 1955) was an Anglican priest and author in the first half of the 20th century. Arthur Duncan-Jones was the son of the Revd Duncan Llewellyn Davies Jones. Educated at Pocklington School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, he was ordained in 1912. He held the College living at Blofield from 1912 until 1915 when he became Rector of Louth. He held further incumbencies at St Mary’s, Primrose Hill, and St Paul’s, Knightsbridge, before being elevated to the Deanery at Chichester Cathedral in 1929. He held this post until his death on 19 January 1955.
These leaders broadcasted both the liturgical advances of the alternative book and the opportunities created for peace and order.
The potential areas of controversy for Anglo-Catholics in the proposals concerned the alternative canon and the reservation rubrics, particularly the prohibition of corporate adoration (Benediction).
Regarding the alternative service, most were willing to acquiesce to the Eastern Orthodox model of communion, which emphasised the epiclesis, the work of the Holy Spirit, rather than Christ's Institution, the recital 'this is my body, this is my blood'.
The epiclesis (also spelled epiklesis; from Ancient Greek: ἐπίκλησις "invocation" or "calling down from on high") is that part of the Anaphora (Eucharistic Prayer) by which the priest invokes the Holy Spirit (or the power of His blessing) upon the Eucharistic bread and wine in some Christian churches.
Although this development was a deviation from the 1549 book, it was the practice in the
Scottish and American Churches, and had been recommended by Bishop Frere.
Canon Goudge argued in the 'Church Times' that although the western model of consecration was superior, the Eastern method was valid, and that Catholics owed the bishops a 'deep debt of gratitude' for daring to alter the communion rite at all.
Charles Gore argued that the Eastern model still sanctioned the idea of an alteration of the elements (bread and wine).
Generally, the alternative service seemed to have moved towards the Catholic understanding and form of the eucharist, and moderate Catholics were less concerned over following the Roman rite.
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| Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament |
 |
| Benediction |
The liturgical modifications in the 1927 book seemed to have English Catholic credentials, providing moderate Catholic changes while inhibiting continental Ultramontane excesses.
Moderate Anglo-Catholics saw the revision measure as an opportunity to bring peace and order and strengthen the position of the party within the Anglican Church.
If the party rejected this armistice, some argued, it would appear that the factiousness and rebelliousness of Anglo-Catholicism was innate and incurable.
W. M. Bell, a member of the local Halifax branch of the ECU, pleaded for members to support the book, arguing that the party was in danger of becoming an 'intransigent body of irreconcilables' and 'ecclesiastical Sinn Féiners'.
Various leaders beseeched the party at large to adopt a more peaceable and obedient attitude towards the bishops.
Athelstan Riley, despite deciding to abstain from voting on revision because of its treatment of the Athanasian Creed, asked his colleagues at the Church Assembly to stop seeing the bishops as ogres scenting Anglo-Catholic blood.
The revised book seemed to cement the influence of English Catholicism in the Church, and High Churchmen attempted to persuade their extreme brethren not to spurn such an opportunity for the party.
The response of advanced Catholics towards the 1927 revision measure was guided by concerns about the book's comprehensiveness and scepticism over the bishops' motivations. The 'Green Quarterly' argued that the diocesans were saying 'we rejoice in being gloriously comprehensive, but this means that we shall be quite gloriously in-comprehensive in regard to the things we don't like'.
The book was too moderate in feel, and centrally Anglican in scope, according to W. L. Knox, who maintained that the book represented 'the general lines along which all parties in the Church of England which fall between the limits of moderate Anglo- Catholicism and moderate Evangelicalism are prepared to come to terms'.
It seemed that in trying to compromise with the Anglo-Catholic party, the bishops were willing to isolate those advanced members who would not come into line.
Dom Anselm Hughes later described the bishops' tactic as being one of brakesmanship: placating the Anglo-Catholic party with moderate reform in order to end extreme practices such as extra-liturgical devotions.
This policy would bring to light the dilemmas of authority and principle for advanced Catholics.
For Western Catholics such as Knox, the answer to this question was plain.
He argued that order in worship was 'highly desirable but not in itself very important. The question is not about order but whether certain practices are a good thing or not'.
In their response to the bishops' proposals, Western Catholics would claim that certain principles and practices were too crucial to Catholic revival, and central to liturgical principle to sacrifice for the sake of 'peace and order'.
The Western Catholic attitude was most affected by the 'controversial' changes in the 1927 book regarding the alternative service, the reservation rubrics and particularly the prohibition of corporate adoration.
The alternative communion rite was a stumbling block for advanced Catholics because it used the Eastern rather than the Roman model of consecration.
The proposed revision deviated from both the 1549 book and contemporary continental custom.
For Western Catholics and Anglo-Papalists, such a wedge between Anglican and Roman convention was undesirable.
The reservation rubrics regarding the practise being 'for the sick only', and the need for a special licence to reserve perpetually were seen as unacceptable, both in a pastoral and practical sense.
The 'sacramental method' of regular and easily accessible communion services was understood as fundamental to the success of the Catholic revival in England.
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| Henry Falconer Barclay Mackay |
attend normal communion because of their conditions of employment).
In the urban parishes in which Anglo-Catholics were focusing their resources, communion for the latter grouping was particularly vital.
In the judgement of Western Catholics, 'the deadly evil in the Church of England is the separation of the Lord's children from the Lord's table'.
The same point was made passionately by Kenneth Ingram at an ECU council meeting: 'We would strain every effort, and make every sacrifice possible to secure peace in our own borders. And it is only when we are asked to go into the wide battle, with a hand tied securely behind our backs, that we say that such a handicap is impossible. We must have both hands free. And that is the nature of our protest,' however, the loudest cry of disapproval was saved for the regulations concerning extra-liturgical devotions.
 |
| Benediction |
Darwell Stone announced to the 'Council of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament' that the main point of issue in the crisis was 'nothing less than the adoration of our Divine Lord and Saviour in the Blessed Sacrament, whether in the course of liturgy or when the Sacrament is reserved'.
It appeared contradictory to allow perpetual reservation, which in itself implied a doctrine of the real presence, but forbid corporate services of adoration.
This policy, argued F. N. Thicknesse, a member of the Church Assembly, did not repudiate, but rather 'traverse' a view of the real presence that was thoroughly Catholic.
The practice of corporate devotions had become increasingly popular in Western Catholic parishes, and this was underlined in the strong rejection of the reservation rubrics during the controversy.
The centrality of this matter to advanced Catholic concerns reveals the direction in emphasis of the Western school during the 1920s.
Alongside these liturgical concerns, advanced Churchmen also addressed the issue of ecclesiastical politics, and the balance of power in the parish church.
Many believed that the control of the parish priest was diminished by the reservation rubrics in favour of the local bishop and the PCC.
W. L. Knox argued was the strongest advocate of the idea that priestly authority was reduced in the revision measure.
These concerns were heightened by the influence of Parliament in the selection of bishops. This procedure meant that the whole ecclesiastical system seemed biased in favour of Protestant opinion.
 |
| Bishop Barnes of Birmingham |
On the priest's opposite flank, it was suggested that the power of the laity had been increased by the rubric saying that the PCC should be able to oppose certain usages of the book.
This, according to one prominent priest and member of convocation, was 'surely a grave intrusion into the rights and leadership of the parish priest'.
Such concerns reflected the desire amongst some advanced Anglo-Catholic clergy for priestly autonomy.
Their insecurity was a result of the unpopularity of ritual in some rural parishes, and perhaps indicated an over-zealousness and arrogance regarding the implementation of the Catholic revival within the Church.
Overall, these liturgical, pastoral and political apprehensions meant that Western Catholics were mostly in opposition to the revision measure, preferring to keep the status quo and continue to use the 1662 book rather than face the regulation of the 1927 book.
Although the general distinction between English and moderate and Western and advanced Catholic responses to revision remained, the changes adopted by the bishops following the re-revision of the Prayer Book in early 1928 had the effect of hardening Anglo-Catholic opposition to the bishops' proposals.
Parliament's rejection of the deposited book was followed by the bishops' decision to reinsert
the 'Black Rubric', and give bishops the right to force parishes to keep the reserved sacrament in the vestry cupboard.
This miscalculation (for it also failed to increase Protestant support) was seen by many Catholics as a capitulation to secular authority and a slur on the doctrine of the real presence.
Support from key individuals, such as Bishop Frere and Maurice Relton, was retracted.
Frere believed that the new restrictions on reservation were intolerable and a deviation from the generous ethos of revision which would prevent an armistice with the Anglo-Catholic party.
Individual priests who had formerly been in favour of revision, such as A. G. Whye of the Olney parish in Buckinghamshire, retracted their support on the basis that the bishops' 'by yielding to the dictates of Parliament, compromised the spiritual authority of the Church of England'.
This high-level and low-level change in opinion was reflected in the organs and institutions of the party.
The 'Church Times' ceased to sit on the fence, arguing that the 'eleventh hour' addition of restrictions was an unwelcome capitulation to secular authority.
Most significantly, the ECU council finally felt safe to choose sides and passed a resolution recommending that Catholics in convocation vote against revision.
The Union, alongside the 'Central Council of Catholic Societies', organised a meeting of the laity with the purpose of making a declaration of principle regarding the real presence of Christ and the need to 'claim for Him the honour and worship which are due to his Name and Person in that Sacrament anywhere at all times'.
The declaration was endorsed by the 2,000 members present and another 2,373 by post.
All these developments indicated that the 1928 book consolidated Anglo-Catholic opinion against revision.
Furthermore, they underlined the extent to which the party, despite all its internal tensions, retained some cohesion in the 1920s.
The unity of the Anglo-Catholic Congresses was not merely a façade.
Many continued to see the party as a single movement, with pioneers and conservatives.
Maurice Relton, for example, retracted his support for revision in 1928 because the bishops no longer offered a fair armistice to his advanced brethren.
Thus, although Anglo-Catholicism did polarise in the 1920s, the subdivisions within the party were not emphasised to the same degree as between conservative and liberal Evangelicals.
The common experiences of the nineteenth century, and the triumphal successes of the twentieth century, maintained a synthesising spirit within the movement as a whole.
The Prayer Book controversy offers a window on to Anglo-Catholicism in the 1920s, allowing an assessment of the identity of the party, its attitude towards authority and its position within Anglicanism.
The events of 1927-28 point towards two important trends within the movement: firstly, the increased influence of Western Catholicism and, secondly, the declining unity of the party.
The rise of advanced theology and ritual was most evident in the stances of the ECU and the 'Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament' on revision.
Although the ECU did not have an official position until 1928, when it opposed the re-revised book, its actions during 1927 were far from neutral.
The ECU actually assented to a secret memorandum sent to the bishops by the Central Council of Catholic Societies recommending that the revision, or its controversial parts, be postponed 'for some years', because a large body of Anglo-Catholic opinion could not accept the rules regarding corporate adoration.
Although the memorandum highlighted the need to maintain unity, such a one-sided proposal was hardly representative of the many Catholics who favoured revision.
The advanced tendencies of the ECU were again evident in 1928, with its support for the CCCS declaration of principle regarding the real presence of Christ.
The declaration's statement regarding the legitimacy of outward acts of adoration again emphasised the ideology of advanced Anglo-Catholicism, and did not express the concerns of moderate English Catholics.
The declaration was of a similar spirit to a number of papers delivered at the previous year's Anglo-Catholic Congress, where H. F. B. Mackay argued for a 'dignified' and sacred position of the reserved sacrament at the altar,159 and Lionel Thornton suggested that the reserved sacrament should be adored outside of the eucharistic rite.
Thornton announced uncompromisingly, 'where our Lord is sacramentaly present, there He must be adored'.
Some English Catholics believed that this Western Catholic ideology was on the verge of capturing the ECU and sending it in a Roman direction.
The Western Catholic school also influenced the response of the 'Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament' towards revision.
Darwell Stone held enormous sway at the annual meetings of the Confraternity in 1927 and 1928, giving detailed refutations of the revision proposals at both.
The Superior General, C. P. Shaw, was determinedly opposed to revision and the minutes of the annual meetings suggest that an atmosphere of animosity towards the proposals was created.
When one representative, E. J. G. Forse, a young advanced priest, suggested acceptance of revision, there was a response of shouts of 'no', and threats of resignation.
Furthermore, it seems unfair that there was no general vote on revision, as organised by the Federation of Catholic Priests.
There is evidence that local groups of the Confraternity were less opposed than the leadership of the organisation to the 1927 book.
Lionel Thornton reported to Darwell Stone in April that the Yorkshire branch of the Confraternity were strongly in favour of revision, warning 'you ought to know that the tide is turning strongly in favour of the book in these parts'.
He continued, 'if we take the line that no good Anglo-Catholic ought to use the book,
we shall split the movement from top to bottom'.
Thus, it seems that Western Catholic leaders enjoyed a wide sphere of influence over the Anglo-Catholic party in 1927-28.
Darwell Stone, in particular, dominated during the period, wielding authority in the ECU and the 'Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament', as well as in the 'Federation of Catholic Priests'.
The revision crisis both underlined and accentuated the rise in Western Catholic influence amongst members of the party at large during the 1920s.
Consequently, the furore over revision also highlighted a decline in Anglo-Catholic unity.
The declaration of belief organised by the 'Central Council for Catholic Societies' regarding the real presence and adoration was criticised by moderate Catholics.
The 'Church Times' questioned whether such an immoderate statement took into account the broad range of Anglo-Catholic belief regarding outward devotions.
The emotions of some moderate priests were evident in a number of letters to Darwell Stone. One, from J. E. Thompson, assistant curate at All Saints', Wokingham, enquired 'will you be so kind as to tell me whether a priest who is opposed to 'devotions' and Benediction can associate himself with the 'Declaration of Belief' in today's issue of the 'Church Times' ?'
In 1929 another writer criticised Stone's support for illegal devotions in London parishes, complaining that his actions gave the impression that 'Catholics will not obey anybody and look upon the Church as being just another branch of the Roman Catholics'.
Even the 'Federation of Catholic Priests' was not exempt from division over revision.
A. G. M. Flemming, assistant priest at St Mary Magdalene's, Oxford, resigned from the Federation because of its intransigent policy, suggesting that the proposals should be accepted as an expression of appreciation of the 'immense gains and advantages the new book gives them'.
The disunity within Anglo-Catholicism was further demonstrated as the English Catholic element within the movement began to distance itself from the Western Catholic faction.
The '1,300' group, formed in response to the bishops' proposals, continued to exist after the storm over revision had calmed, encouraging loyalty to the Church.
In September 1929 it sent a memorandum to bishops offering support for use of the 1928 book following parliament's second rejection, but requesting the right to appeal on certain reservation rubrics.
Furthermore, the disgruntlement and disillusionment amongst English Catholics regarding the direction of the party saw the establishing of a new paper, the 'English Catholic', during the controversy in 1928.
The columns of this organ were dominated by prominent members of 'the 1300', such as E. J. Bicknell and C. B. Moss.
It voiced an intransigent attitude towards Western Catholic practice, instead celebrating the 'genius of the English Church' and the 'English Use'.
The paper launched some fierce assaults on continentalists, with, for example, F. C. Howard lambasting the practitioners of Roman methods, saying 'they offer to God what is mean and trivial, and deck his throne with what is tawdry, bizarre and theatrical'.
The Western Catholic faction also experienced a rise in self-identification and partisanship as a result of the controversy.
In 1928 N. P. Williams authored a book concerning the identity of the party, rejecting the idea that 'Anglo' implied the need to express Englishness in liturgy.
Halifax and Stone continued to press for an adoption of the 1549 book, with perpetual reservation as a 'right', a western model of consecration, and the allowance of corporate adoration.
While 'the 1300' group demonstrated loyalty and obedience to the bishops in the aftermath of the controversy, Western Catholic leaders maintained their principled and defiant support for devotions.
When twenty-one incumbent priests refused to give up services of corporate adoration in the diocese of London in 1929, Stone, Halifax, Knox and Thornton wrote to 'The Times' defending their actions.
Thus, the Western Catholic faction resolved to continue an uncompromising policy begun during the revision controversy.
The advanced wing of the party also continued its attempts to dominate the various Anglo-Catholic organisations.
Viscount Halifax wrote to the new Archbishop of Canterbury in 1932, informing him that 'the ECU will almost certainly have to be brought into closer relation with the Federation of Catholic Priests and the Anglo-Catholic Congress committees, which are becoming everyday more powerful, in order to create a body really capable of giving effective support to all that concerns the vital interests of the Church and the reunion of Christendom'.
'We should do our utmost', wrote Athelstan Riley to Halifax in 1932, 'to unite all Catholic-minded clergy and not separate them into cliques; e.g., Anglo- Catholic and High Church...Our victories in the nineteenth century were due to the fact that in the last resort we could always rely on the support of all who regarded themselves as Tractarians'.
The implication was that there had been a loss of unity in the sacramental movement.
The events of 1927-28 had a significant impact on the Anglo-Catholic party.
The controversy heightened the division within the movement between the old school of English Catholics and a new school of Western Catholics.
The revision controversy occurred only a few years before the one-hundredth anniversary of the Oxford Movement in 1933.
It was a period during which Anglo-Catholics wished to consider the identity and direction of Tractarianism, both retrospectively and prospectively, however, the leaders of the movement faced the harsh reality that Anglo-Catholics were increasingly divided over the identity of the party.
As C. B. Moss claimed in the 'English Catholic' in 1931, 'we are going to commemorate the Oxford movement, but we are not agreed about the Oxford movement'.
The revision controversy was the climax of a conflict between English and Western Catholics which had developed in the earlier decades, and resulted in a major rift within Anglo-Catholicism.
The two main identities - 'English' and 'Western' - were, deeply ingrained and multifaceted, dividing party members culturally and politically as well as liturgically and doctrinally.
The division within the 1920s movement occurred parallel with the split within Evangelicalism. English Catholicism, like liberal Evangelicalism, began to associate itself increasingly with Centre-High Anglicanism rather than its own party.
As a result its methods became popular in the Church at large, but went out of favour in Catholic circles.
In terms of identity and authority, the events of 1927-28 emphasised the developing dominance of advanced ritualism within the party.
The figures of Darwell Stone and other continental-influenced leaders cast long shadows over the 'English Church Union', the 'Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament' and the 'Federation of Catholic Priests'.
The influence of advanced ritual was highlighted by the central importance of corporate devotions, during the revision controversy.
The controversy underlined that the pendulum of faction influence had begun to swing noticeably in favour of Western Catholicism by the late 1920s.
The events of 1927-28 point towards two important trends within the movement: firstly, the increased influence of Western Catholicism and, secondly, the declining unity of the party.
The rise of advanced theology and ritual was most evident in the stances of the ECU and the 'Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament' on revision.
Although the ECU did not have an official position until 1928, when it opposed the re-revised book, its actions during 1927 were far from neutral.
 |
| Corporate Adoration |
Although the memorandum highlighted the need to maintain unity, such a one-sided proposal was hardly representative of the many Catholics who favoured revision.
The advanced tendencies of the ECU were again evident in 1928, with its support for the CCCS declaration of principle regarding the real presence of Christ.
The declaration's statement regarding the legitimacy of outward acts of adoration again emphasised the ideology of advanced Anglo-Catholicism, and did not express the concerns of moderate English Catholics.
The declaration was of a similar spirit to a number of papers delivered at the previous year's Anglo-Catholic Congress, where H. F. B. Mackay argued for a 'dignified' and sacred position of the reserved sacrament at the altar,159 and Lionel Thornton suggested that the reserved sacrament should be adored outside of the eucharistic rite.
 |
| Where our Lord is sacramentaly present, there He must be adored. |
Some English Catholics believed that this Western Catholic ideology was on the verge of capturing the ECU and sending it in a Roman direction.
The Western Catholic school also influenced the response of the 'Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament' towards revision.
Darwell Stone held enormous sway at the annual meetings of the Confraternity in 1927 and 1928, giving detailed refutations of the revision proposals at both.
The Superior General, C. P. Shaw, was determinedly opposed to revision and the minutes of the annual meetings suggest that an atmosphere of animosity towards the proposals was created.
When one representative, E. J. G. Forse, a young advanced priest, suggested acceptance of revision, there was a response of shouts of 'no', and threats of resignation.
Furthermore, it seems unfair that there was no general vote on revision, as organised by the Federation of Catholic Priests.
There is evidence that local groups of the Confraternity were less opposed than the leadership of the organisation to the 1927 book.
Lionel Thornton reported to Darwell Stone in April that the Yorkshire branch of the Confraternity were strongly in favour of revision, warning 'you ought to know that the tide is turning strongly in favour of the book in these parts'.
He continued, 'if we take the line that no good Anglo-Catholic ought to use the book,
we shall split the movement from top to bottom'.
Thus, it seems that Western Catholic leaders enjoyed a wide sphere of influence over the Anglo-Catholic party in 1927-28.
Darwell Stone, in particular, dominated during the period, wielding authority in the ECU and the 'Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament', as well as in the 'Federation of Catholic Priests'.
The revision crisis both underlined and accentuated the rise in Western Catholic influence amongst members of the party at large during the 1920s.
Consequently, the furore over revision also highlighted a decline in Anglo-Catholic unity.
The declaration of belief organised by the 'Central Council for Catholic Societies' regarding the real presence and adoration was criticised by moderate Catholics.
The 'Church Times' questioned whether such an immoderate statement took into account the broad range of Anglo-Catholic belief regarding outward devotions.
The emotions of some moderate priests were evident in a number of letters to Darwell Stone. One, from J. E. Thompson, assistant curate at All Saints', Wokingham, enquired 'will you be so kind as to tell me whether a priest who is opposed to 'devotions' and Benediction can associate himself with the 'Declaration of Belief' in today's issue of the 'Church Times' ?'
In 1929 another writer criticised Stone's support for illegal devotions in London parishes, complaining that his actions gave the impression that 'Catholics will not obey anybody and look upon the Church as being just another branch of the Roman Catholics'.
Even the 'Federation of Catholic Priests' was not exempt from division over revision.
A. G. M. Flemming, assistant priest at St Mary Magdalene's, Oxford, resigned from the Federation because of its intransigent policy, suggesting that the proposals should be accepted as an expression of appreciation of the 'immense gains and advantages the new book gives them'.
The disunity within Anglo-Catholicism was further demonstrated as the English Catholic element within the movement began to distance itself from the Western Catholic faction.
The '1,300' group, formed in response to the bishops' proposals, continued to exist after the storm over revision had calmed, encouraging loyalty to the Church.
In September 1929 it sent a memorandum to bishops offering support for use of the 1928 book following parliament's second rejection, but requesting the right to appeal on certain reservation rubrics.
Furthermore, the disgruntlement and disillusionment amongst English Catholics regarding the direction of the party saw the establishing of a new paper, the 'English Catholic', during the controversy in 1928.
The columns of this organ were dominated by prominent members of 'the 1300', such as E. J. Bicknell and C. B. Moss.
 |
| 'English Use' |
The paper launched some fierce assaults on continentalists, with, for example, F. C. Howard lambasting the practitioners of Roman methods, saying 'they offer to God what is mean and trivial, and deck his throne with what is tawdry, bizarre and theatrical'.
The Western Catholic faction also experienced a rise in self-identification and partisanship as a result of the controversy.
In 1928 N. P. Williams authored a book concerning the identity of the party, rejecting the idea that 'Anglo' implied the need to express Englishness in liturgy.
Halifax and Stone continued to press for an adoption of the 1549 book, with perpetual reservation as a 'right', a western model of consecration, and the allowance of corporate adoration.
While 'the 1300' group demonstrated loyalty and obedience to the bishops in the aftermath of the controversy, Western Catholic leaders maintained their principled and defiant support for devotions.
When twenty-one incumbent priests refused to give up services of corporate adoration in the diocese of London in 1929, Stone, Halifax, Knox and Thornton wrote to 'The Times' defending their actions.
Thus, the Western Catholic faction resolved to continue an uncompromising policy begun during the revision controversy.
The advanced wing of the party also continued its attempts to dominate the various Anglo-Catholic organisations.
Viscount Halifax wrote to the new Archbishop of Canterbury in 1932, informing him that 'the ECU will almost certainly have to be brought into closer relation with the Federation of Catholic Priests and the Anglo-Catholic Congress committees, which are becoming everyday more powerful, in order to create a body really capable of giving effective support to all that concerns the vital interests of the Church and the reunion of Christendom'.
'We should do our utmost', wrote Athelstan Riley to Halifax in 1932, 'to unite all Catholic-minded clergy and not separate them into cliques; e.g., Anglo- Catholic and High Church...Our victories in the nineteenth century were due to the fact that in the last resort we could always rely on the support of all who regarded themselves as Tractarians'.
The implication was that there had been a loss of unity in the sacramental movement.
The events of 1927-28 had a significant impact on the Anglo-Catholic party.
The controversy heightened the division within the movement between the old school of English Catholics and a new school of Western Catholics.
The revision controversy occurred only a few years before the one-hundredth anniversary of the Oxford Movement in 1933.
It was a period during which Anglo-Catholics wished to consider the identity and direction of Tractarianism, both retrospectively and prospectively, however, the leaders of the movement faced the harsh reality that Anglo-Catholics were increasingly divided over the identity of the party.
As C. B. Moss claimed in the 'English Catholic' in 1931, 'we are going to commemorate the Oxford movement, but we are not agreed about the Oxford movement'.
The revision controversy was the climax of a conflict between English and Western Catholics which had developed in the earlier decades, and resulted in a major rift within Anglo-Catholicism.
The two main identities - 'English' and 'Western' - were, deeply ingrained and multifaceted, dividing party members culturally and politically as well as liturgically and doctrinally.
The division within the 1920s movement occurred parallel with the split within Evangelicalism. English Catholicism, like liberal Evangelicalism, began to associate itself increasingly with Centre-High Anglicanism rather than its own party.
As a result its methods became popular in the Church at large, but went out of favour in Catholic circles.
In terms of identity and authority, the events of 1927-28 emphasised the developing dominance of advanced ritualism within the party.
The figures of Darwell Stone and other continental-influenced leaders cast long shadows over the 'English Church Union', the 'Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament' and the 'Federation of Catholic Priests'.
The influence of advanced ritual was highlighted by the central importance of corporate devotions, during the revision controversy.
The controversy underlined that the pendulum of faction influence had begun to swing noticeably in favour of Western Catholicism by the late 1920s.
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