THE POPE ON ANGLICAN ORDERS. T HE Pope has decided the
question of Anglican Orders as most of those familiar with ecclesiastical history "believed he must decide it, though the frankness, clear- ness, and finality of the Bull will arouse in some minds a sense of almost angry surprise. Those Orders are declared to be hopelessly invalid, first because previous Popes have so decreed, demanding reordination in cases where, if Anglican Orders had been valid, reordination would, it is declared in the Bull, have been nothing less than 4. sacrilegious." As the Papacy never stultifies its per- manent claim to supernatural guidance by reversing its own decrees, this consideration would of itself have been -final, but the Bull goes much farther. Anglican Orders - are pronounced invalid because of defect alike in form and in intention, the form having been altered not accidentally - or incidentally, but with the full intention of departing from the form ordained by the Catholic Church, which -form, from the point of view of that Church, is neces- sarily the only right one. History, precedent, and truth • are all declared to be opposed to the Anglican claim.
"Wherefore, strictly adhering in this matter to the decrees of the Pontiffs, Our Predecessors, and confirming them most fully, and, as it were, renewing them by Our -Authority, of Our own motion and certain knowledge We pronounce and declare that Ordinations carried out according to the Anglican rite have been and are absolutely null and utterly void." Language could mot be clearer, more straightforward, or less tainted by any trace of mental reservation, and there we may hope that a controversy which ought never to have been raised is ended, at least for a generation. Roma locuta est, causa finita est,—much more rapidly, we may add, than causes appealed to Rome usually are finished. Those who are unable to believe in branches which the trunk disowns, -must just submit themselves to the Pontiff and renounce Anglicanism, while those, an immense majority, who 'believe that Churches differing in their formulas may yet be justified in their claim to be established of Christ, must content themselves with a Church which teaches all that Rome acknowledges to be vital except submission to a central authority, and which, with the expansion of British dominion and the spread of the Anglo-Saxon race, is rapidly ceasing to be insular and becoming world-wide. The hope, the very faint and unreal hope, of a visible unity among all who recognise Christian Episcopacy has been roughly destroyed, and the Episcopal Churches must go on as separate bodies, even if they still assert that they are all moved and guided by the same spirit, and owe part, at least, of their strength to an unbroken chain of communication with their founder. The desire for unity, -which never quite dies or will die, will probably now • display itself in a swerve towards the Greek Church ; but that also, after a certain nearness of approximation, -will, we imagine, be found to be impossible on account of -fissures which it is impossible, or at least too difficult, to • bridge, one of them being a certain comprehensiveness in the Anglican Church which is almost totally wanting in -the Greek. Absorption, not junction, seems the only road left to unity, and it is difficult for that which is absorbed -to continue living. There is some discussion, we see, as to the immediate ,effect of the Bull upon the number of conversions to Rome, the general idea being that as the Anglican Church is insulted by the Papacy, its members will be less in- clined to turn Roman Catholics; but the controversy is not-, in our judgment, likely to be fruitful. Upon the mass of the English people, even that section of the mass which accepts the Anglican theory, the effect will be almost imperceptible. They do not dwell much on theology, and so far as they do Papal theology does not attract them. Something in the national character apart from the national intellect inclines our people to reject the claim of Rome. It is not, we think, insularity, its is usually said, so much as an inherent distaste for the principle of authority, a distaste sometimes pushed to lengths so absurd that the English ought to be ashamed of half their secular convictions, which for the majority of them rest upon authority and nothing else. Not one in ten thousand of them has any other evidence for their geographical beliefs, for instance, their belief in the exist- ence of the Pacific Ocean. That, however, is the national temperament, visible before Protestantism was born, and so marked that we believe, if all England could be persuaded to accept Rome to-morrow, there would be huge secessions and " dangerous " heresies on the day after. It is only a class which Rome will persuade, and we question if that class will be more unpersuadable because of this Bull. On the contrary, we conceive that for many minds the inflexibility, and what we may call the loneliness, of Rome has a singular charm. It could not, they think, be so unpliable were it not convinced of the truth of its own pretensions, or coerced by some supernatural influence. They are drawn towards it by itE immobility, as it is reported some Arab tribes were drawn towards Mahommed by his refusal to concede to them "even one green date." Absolute truth, they think, would maintain just that attitude, which, be it remembered, we all think very fine in martyrs who, having fixed convic- tions on some point, possibly of little moment, accept death rather than deny it even in words. They will not feel insulted for their Church any more than a Court feels insulted when a witness sticks to the story which counsel are trying to overset. They will only feel their doubts as to the safety of their present ecclesiastical position a little more harassing than before. For the rest, of all that draws them towards Rome the Bull alters nothing, and will in no way modify their prepossessions. She remains the one Church which claims over the whole field of morals and faith a supernatural certainty, and it is supernatural certainty for which their spirits crave. They will go over in the end, or would go over but for the marvellous want of logic in the British mind ; but the remainder, say 99 per cent. of all Anglicans, will remain as they have always done, full of a sort of respect for Rome—which has in it a strong tinge of the archseo- logist's respect for Druids—but not in the least disposed, or rather we ought to say not in any way able, to give up their right of private judgment.
We must repeat, though we have said it so often, that the Pope's course throughout his recent effort to attract Englishmen has been surprisingly straightforward, and will do much to abate the permanent English suspicion that the Papacy is always cheating. Leo XIII. has certainly tried to beguile nobody. From first to last he has been plain to the verge, or to a point over the verge, of haughtiness. He has understood thoroughly that the English hate the idea of submission to the tiara, and he has demanded that submission as a condition precedent of reception as inflexibly as Hildebrand could have done. He knows well that the special idea of Rome which is distasteful or even abhorrent to Englishmen is the worship of the Virgin Mary, and he has pressed the Virgin's claim to worship, as intercessor, with the earnestness and want of reticence of auy devotee of the Sacred Head. He has known that a party which he desires to conciliate is proud of the Anglican Church, though desirous to make it more Roman, and he has told them that their Church does not exist, that its Orders are in- valid, and that the acts performed by its priesthood are either sacrileges or empty ceremonials. It is not for Anglicans, at all events, if it is for French Legitimists, to taunt Leo XIII. with being a diplomatist. At least, if he is a diplomatist so was John Knox when he called the image of the Virgin "only a pented bred." That is well, for if Rome and Canterbury are ever to assist each other in the struggle with the new Paganism, it is necessary that each should believe the other to be honest.
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