Walton Hannah (1912 – 1966) was a Church of England clergyman who wrote a famous exposé of freemasonry called Darkness Visible. He became a Roman Catholic and left England for Canada (I think because of masonic harassment). In 1957 he wrote a pamphlet explaining the crisis which was current in the Church of England at the time, known as the “Church of South India Crisis”. It was caused by the amalgamation of clergy from nonconformist denominations with Anglican clergy into the Church of South India without doctrinal agreement on key points. At the time Anglo-Catholics questioned the validity of the sacraments in these conditions.
This is what Hannah wrote at the time:
South India provoked a crisis, and crises in the Church of England follow a well-defined pattern. A situation arises which is hopelessly compromising to the Anglo-Catholic position, but which has the support of the vast bulk of the Church of England. Anglo-Catholics protest against it without avail; some leave the Establishment and become Catholics, but the majority hang on, apparently under the impression that by protesting they clear themselves from complicity. Eventually they get used to it and forget all about it, and start talking excitedly about the next crisis, which they say really will split the Church of England. For the Anglo-Catholic conscience is an elastic which will stretch to almost any lengths if it is stretched sufficiently gradually – and no one understands this better than the Bishops.
(Walton Hannah, The Anglican Crisis: The Church of South India, London: CTS, 1957, pp.18-19)
1957- quite the prophet.
ReplyDeleteAn embittered man?
ReplyDeleteThe questions, as always, remain the same for all Christians: at what point does the desire for unity of doctrine become a demand for uniformity of doctrine? And how much room within our man-made ecclesiastical structures dare we leave for the operations of the Holy Spirit who, like the wind, blows where he wills?
And there's the rub. Catholics don't believe that the Church is merely a "man made ecclesiastical structure."
ReplyDeleteThat belief is a Protestant invention. That is to say it is a "man made ecclesiastical structure."
Now, now, Father, you know very well that that isn't what I either said or meant!
ReplyDeleteWas it not Benedict himself who wrote that the Pope had a duty to listen to differing voices within the Church before making a decision? How many differing voices might the Holy Spirit allow to speak? And how many different decisions might different Popes come up with?
The Holy Father does listen to many voices within the church--not only those of the living, but also those of the dead. Tradition informs and corrects the current fads and opinions which individuals mistake for the moving of the Holy Spirit.
ReplyDeleteI think one thing which marks the authentic movement of the Holy Spirit is that it is almost always counter cultural. It is subversive. If a movement reflects the cultural norm or majority opinion it is probably not of the Holy Spirit.
Yes, I'm sure you're right for much of the time. But not always. As soon as we put ourselves in the position of saying that the Holy Spirit "almost always" operates in a certain way, or that any individual can say of an innovation that this is, or is not, the work of the Holy Spirit, we're perilously close to defining (i.e. limiting) the operation of God. When Jesus himself uses as an illustration the unpredictability of the wind, we do well not to pretend that we know better.
ReplyDeleteThe wind does blow where it wills, but there are such things as weathervanes and windmills.
ReplyDelete...which turn in their places to face whichever new direction the wind is coming from, never once saying (in my experience) "You can't be the real wind because you're coming from the wrong direction..."
ReplyDelete