THE OLD CATHOLICS AND THE LAMBETH CONFERENCE. T HOSE of our
readers who took an interest in matters ecclesiastical as long ago as 1870 will remember the hopes that were excited by the formation of the "Old Catholic" Church in Germany. It seemed the natural, if not the inevitable, outcome of the erection of Papal infalli- bility into an article of faith. Papal infallibility had been an opinion, and an increasingly pious opinion, for centuries, and in this character no one had objected to it. Roman Catholics might think the Pope infallible as much as they liked, so long as they were compelled to admit that no one could say for certain whether he was infallible or not. But when this saving clause was altogether excluded, it seemed impossible for theologians who had all their lives been maintaining that infallibility was false in theory, and historians who had been similarly busy in demon- strating that it was false in fact to remain in a Church which propounded it as a revealed truth. In most cases the difficulty was got over or evaded ; but in a few, and notably in the little group which had been attracted to Munich by the great name of Diillinger, it proved insur- mountable. They rejected the new doctrine, and they took the consequences. The position at that moment bore a distant likeness to the position of the English Liberal Unionists in 1886. Just as it was on the cards that the Liberal party might, on reflection, refuse to have anything to say to Home-rule, so it was conceivable that the Old. Catholic protest might appeal with such force to German Catholics that the new dogma would be everywhere re- pudiated, and the German Church be remodelled on something like the lines of the English Reformation under Henry VIII. As we know, nothing of the kind happened in either case. The Liberal Unionists remained, or shortly became, a mere fraction of the Liberal party ; the Old Catholics remained a still more infinitesimal fraction of European Catholicism. This numerical insignificance prevented them from taking one of the two lines which perfect consistency demanded. On the theory that Rome had become heretical by adding to the deposit of faith, there was no longer a lawful Pope or lawful Bishops, and the duty of the Old Catholics was to elect an orthodox Pope in place of Pius IX., and to place an orthodox Bishop in every diocese of the Catholic world. This being out of the question unless pretty well the entire Old Catholic Church had been admitted to Episcopal Orders, the logical alternative was that adopted, we believe, by Dollinger himself. On this theory, the obedience due to lawful authority did not cease to be owing where the things commanded were not in themselves unlawful. A priest could not profess belief in a lie if all the Bishops in Christendom commanded it ; but if his own Bishop forbade him to say mass, his duty was to protest and submit. This, however, was a distinction too subtle for ordinary folk ; indeed, we do not know that Dollinger himself ever recommended it for general adoption. The little groups of priests and laymen who shared his convic- tions upon infallibility formed themselves into congrega- tions, got a Bishop consecrated—if we remember rightly— in Holland, and settled down into the small and stationary communities which we now know.
We have been led into this retrospect by a passage in the Lambeth Encyclical and by the Report of a Committee appointed by the Conference to "consider the subject of Reformation movements on the continent of Europe and elsewhere." The passage in the Encyclical expresses "warm sympathy" and a "warm desire for friendly relations" with the Old Catholics in Germany, Switzer- land, and Austria, and further speaks of the "hopeful interest" with which it regards similar movements both in Europe and in South America. We are by no means sure that these latter movements are in all respects iden- tical with the Old Catholicism of Germany and Switzerland. But as we have not the means of forming an opinion on this point, and as it does not really concern our present purpose, we shall speak only of the Old Catholics strictly so-called. That they deserve "warm sympathy" from every one who is not a convinced Roman Catholic is obvious. The position. in which they were placed by the Vatican decree was one of great embarrassment and great suffering. They were called upon to accept a doctrine which as an article of faith they had all their lives dis- believed; they saw their pastors and teachers excom- municated for refusing to trifle with their consciences ; and they had to decide whether to endure exclusion from all religious ordinances, or to become Lutherans or Calvinists, or to form a distinct religious body which should retain the name of Catholic, the framework of hierarchical organisation, and so much of Roman doctrine as they had up to that time believed. "Warm sympathy" seems to us an exact desoription of what is due to the Old Catholics,—sympathy alike with the difficulties of their position and with the efforts they have made to surmount them.
But when the Encyclical passes from expression of sympathy to a warm desire for friendly relations, it is not on such sure ground. To speak quite frankly, the realisa- tion of this desire' however gratifying it might be to Anglicans, would be exceedingly detrimental to one of the main objects for which Old Catholics exist, and for which the Anglican Episcopate desire their existence. That object is incidentally, but very accurately, described in the Encyclical. "We are well aware," it says, "that such move- ments may sometimes end in quitting not merely the Roman obedience, but the Catholic Church itself, and sur- rendering the doctrine of the sacraments, or even some of the great verities on the creeds." And then the Bishops go on to declare their confidence that this is not what will happen in the ease of the Old Catholics. Let us imagine a little more closely what this means. On the continent of Europe, and among the Latin races all over the world, Pro- testantism makes but few converts. If men give up "the Roman obedience" they not merely sometimes, but usually, give up Christianity into the bargain. Consequently men and women of a religious turn of mind, naturally shrink from any severance from the Church in which they have been brought up. They prefer to go on making compromises with their consciences, and allowing it to be thought that they believe all, rather than run the risk of ceasing to believe anything. The end and object of the Old Catholic movement, so far as regards fresh converts, is to relieve religious people from this dilemma. "You are no longer," it says in effect, "left to choose between Rome and Pro- testantism. You are no longer compelled. to exchange your familiar devotions for the frigid worship of a Pro- testant Temple.' Come to us, and you will hear mass as you have been wont to hear it, and secure the sacraments as you have been accustomed to receive them. Your children will be baptised, you yourselves will be married and buried, with the old ritual. You will be given com- munion by a true priest, who has himself been ordained by a true Bishop. All that you will miss will be two or three doctrines which in your hearts you feel to be stumbling-blocks, not helps." How far this appeal has been effectual is not the present question. Certainly some- thing over a hundred thousand adherents in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria show that up to this time the response has been sufficiently partial. But whether or not the function is discharged, it remains true that this is the special function which the Old Catholics, and they alone, can dis- charge. The obvious way of neutralising this appeal, and the way which the Roman Catholic clergy will naturally adopt, is to take every opportunity they can of confounding the Old Catholics with the Protestants around them. It will be difficult to do this, because the Old Catholic will always be able to ask : "Is not my priest just as much a priest as yours? Is not my mass just as much a mass as yours ? Is not my Bishop just as much a Bishop as yours ? " And to these questions the Roman Catholic can give but one reply. What he will do, therefore, is to evade them, and to try to turn the controversy into other fields. The more the Old Catholics are associated in their own minds and in the minds of others with ordinary Protestantism, the better able he will be to do this. Consequently a real well-wisher to the Old Catholic cause will advise them, in the language of the English poor, to "keep themselves to themselves,"—to pose, in fact, as Roman Catholics minus two or three doctrines which are secretly disbelieved by a great number inside the Roman Church. Probably the authors of the Encyclical are quite ready to make this advice their own. But then they should remember that to the Continental public, and especially to the Continental religious public, the distinction between Anglicans and Protestants is unknown, or at all events unfamiliar. They may depend upon it that the more friendly the relations between the Old Catholics and the English Church become, the better pleased Roman Catholic controversialists will be, and the less will be the success with which the Old Catholic position will appeal to doubters inside the Roman Church. It is eminently an occasion on which the Anglican Bishops should nerve themselves to be cruel in order to be really kind.
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