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Sunday 20 July 2008

The corpse of a beauty

I am following the sad doings in the Anglican Communion via Father Hunwicke's Liturgical Notes , and in one heartbreaking post he quotes Blessed (soon-to-be Saint) John Cardinal Newman, mourning the reformation.
The vivifying principle of truth, the shadow of St Peter, the grace of the Redeemer, left it. That old Church in its day became a corpse (a marvellous, an awful change!); and then it did but corrupt the air which once it beautified. So all seemed to be lost; and there was a struggle for a time, and then its priests were cast out or martyred. There were sacrileges innumerable. Its temples were profaned or destroyed; its revenues seized by covetous nobles, or squandered upon the ministers of a new faith ... It took a long time to do this thoroughly; much time, much thought, much labour, much expense; but at last it was done ... the fair form of Truth, moral and material, hacked piecemeal, and every limb and organ carried off, and burned in the fire, or cast into the deep! But at last the work was done. Truth was disposed of, and shovelled away, and there was a calm, a silence, a sort of peace ...

Incidentally, I just KNEW the AP had it wrong, (Selective Quoting ) -- the Holy Father in his presser aboard to e plane on the way to WYD prayed that there would be no further divisions or ruptures , NOT that there would "'be no further divisions or ruptures' in the Anglican Communion," a very different thing.
Interview of the Holy Father during the flight to Australia (July 12, 2008)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, the reality is a lot less bleak than painted from afar by Fr Hunwicke and you. --An Anglican thankful for the Anglican Communion and a little tired of Roman Catholic tut-tutting and condescension.

Scelata said...

Welcome, Anonymous.
I apologize, i didn't know I was being condescending to express sympathy for the current plight of the Anglican Communion.
Is Fr Hunwicke reporting "from afar"?
I seem to have misunderstood that he was on the ground as it were, in England and a part of the Communion.

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)