THE ANGLICAN MISSION TO CONVERT ITALY.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Having expressed my opinion on what appeared to be the great mistake of an " Anglican Mission to Italy," I had hoped to leave the subject to itself; but the letters of " Anglicanns " and Mr. Lias require a short acknowledgment and answer.
1. " Anglicanus " loves proverbs, and I cannot think that his argument amounts to more than this,—that " Tit for tat " is the golden rule of Christianity, and that because the Pope did wrong in attacking the English Church forty years ago, we shall do right in retorting the attack now. We must not, how- ever, forget that there is a considerable difference between the position and the claims of the two Churches. The Church of Rome has always occupied an important position in England, and the establishment of its Bishops was a very different thing from establishing a Mission in a country where we have never had a single congregation ; not to mention that Rome has always claimed to be the One Catholic Church,—a claim which I never heard of the English Church asserting before. On the right of the matter, however, I did not and do not care to dwell : what I wished to point out was the mistake and even folly of such a step, in which apparently your corre- spondent agrees, for he tells us that he "has no desire to pro- mote an active propaganda in Italy against the Church of Rome." If a Mission, to be presided over by an English Bishop, originated by one Archbishop, and " with the sympathy of the Archbishop of Canterbury," is not " an active propaganda," it surely looks uncommonly like one. But it will be well that English Bishops, before engaging in this Crusade, should re- member how inconsistent such a course would be with the position which their Church has hitherto maintained.
2. The elaborate letter of Mr. Lias is on different but even less tenable grounds. His propaganda is certainly active enough. To him, Count Campello is not the religions but the political martyr. "He resigned his canonry because he felt that his connection with the Papacy pat an unfair strain on his allegiance to his Sovereign." He was " at once an earnest Catholic" (what will the Archbishop of Dublin say to this ?) " and a patriotic Italian ;" and it would be " selfish and cowardly in our authorities," " and suicidal besides, to refuse to help a man to spread those views on the Continent whioh we believe to have been the source of our own national greatness." I confess I should even prefer the idea of a religions propagandism to an extravagance like this, which simply amounts to saying that our Archbishops and Bishops are to send missions to support any priests who may desert the Roman Church, on the ground that it is opposed to the Kingdom, or to the Radical party, of Italy. But it shows clearly enough the mass of confusion in which Missions of this kind would soon involve our Church.
3. I am not aware of any other points in your corre- spondents' letters which require discussion, and therefore, as I shall not trouble you again on this subject, I will only, as an attached member of the English Church, repeat the 1, no that a Mission of this kind is not likely to receive the sanrhole. of any of the authorities of our own Church ; and that ifate to to go on, it will be left to the private energies of the Archbilemii of Dublin. With his activity, either in Italy or in Spain, no one would wish to interfere, so long as it is not understood to compromise the Church of England,—as I am sure that the late Archbishop of Canterbury would have been too prudent to allow it to do. The Church of England has plenty of work of its own, at home and in its Colonies ; and it is doing it well and energeti- cally. But it will both be opposed to its own principles and may lead to dangerous results, religiously and even poli- tically, if not content with setting our own Missions in order (and we know they are rather severely criticised), it adopts a fanciful line of Continental mission, in order to attack a Church which, in spite of all differences, is by far its greatest fellow-worker in the cause of Christianity. Hitherto, our Church has distinctly abstained from interference of this kind. Nor is it any excuse to say that individual attacks are constantly being made by members of the Church of Rome on the Church of England. All this is inevitable ; and we have quite as often been the aggressors. But I may call attention to the fact that the great leaders of the Church of Rome in England have never, in this generation at least, set the example of such an attack as would now be begun—if this rumour is to be trusted—and begun for the first time in our history, by some of the authorities of the Church of England.—I am, Sir, &c.,
CAM:1MM.
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