I've made several statements now about the way in which the Anglican Catholic Church calls itself Anglican and, in many of my arguments, I've used that phrase from the Magna Carta namely
ecclesia Anglicana. The objection that I've received is that "Anglican" in its modern sense is an invention of the 18th and 19th Centuries and means the Protestant faith of the Church of England. The
ecclesia Anglicana which is always to be free was meant to be the Church of England under the Pope to be free from the interference of Kings and Barons and politics. It's a point I've often made myself that Magna Carta does not legislate a Church free from the Papacy.
However, as an Anglican Catholic, I am duty bound not to play "pick and choose" with my faith. For this reason, Anglican Catholics go back to what the word "Catholic" means in the Creeds. This means the definition given by St Ignatius, St Cyril of Jerusalem and St Vincent of Lérins. This is typical of Anglican Catholic thinking - go back to the Undivided Church of the First Millennium as the authority.
So what about "Anglican"? Well, we do the same - go back to its meaning of "Anglicana" meaning English. Does this mean that we must become Roman Catholic again in order to return to the meaning of Anglicana as mentioned in the Magna Carta?
Obviously, this brings us to the central question for Anglican Catholics: should there have been a Reformation? Should Anglican Catholics necessarily view the Reformation in England negatively?
There are, of course, great positives. The position of the Pope as de facto monarch claiming supremacy over the crowned heads of Europe is clearly a consequence of medieval politics and not of Christian Doctrine. The Papal Bull Unam Sanctam makes clear how Pope Boniface VIII saw the position of the Papacy in the light of monarchs such as Edward I of England seeking to limit the influence of the Pope in domestic affairs. The formal insertion of the filioque clause into the Nicene Creed by Benedict VIII in 1014 was at the behest of Henry II of Germany and demonstrates the clear belief that the Pope had the authority to correct Oecumenical Councils. The sad thing is that if the Pope had not become inveigled in Carolingian politics and achieved the status of a monarch of the Papal States, an Oecumenical Council could have been called to deal with this issue. Even then the Council of Ephesus had made the Creed inviolable so, as Leo III had said, the conclusion of an eighth truly Oecumenical Council needs not have been inserted in the Creed, just as many other orthodox Christian doctrines are not credal.
As Fr Aidan Nichols OP notes in his book The Panther and the Hind (p3ff), the relationship between England and Roman has not been as firm as many would think, though it's worth noting that many countries in Europe have taken Papal supremacy with a pinch of salt. One can see that in the coercion of Popes by force or by charm throughout the Medieval period. In England, the statutes of Provisors, Praemunire, and Mortmain were created to limit the political influence of the Pope. While many lay the reason for the English Reformation happening at all at the feet of Henry VIII, they do so not only ignoring the role of Pope Clement VII, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Francis I of France but also the impact of the political instability caused by the Wars of the Roses.
Given also that Henry VIII essentially wanted to make political changes to the Church rather than doctrinal by replacing the Pope with the Crown, (see his Six Articles) it's easy to see that it is the effect of the continental Reformation under his son Edward VI that propagates the Reformed Christianity in this country.
Of course, Anglican Catholics rejoice in many benefits from the rejection of Papal Supremacy and the focus on the needs of the Nation.
1) the reclamation of the word "Catholic ' in its original sense, together with the possibility of a return to the Holy Synod and openness to Oecumenical Councils and dialogue with other Catholics such as the Eastern Orthodox Churches;
2) the Bible and the Liturgy in the vernacular for the education and edification of the individual allowing for the possibility of a return to the high level personal piety exemplified in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (see Fr Martin Thornton's book English Spirituality) but now available for every social class through programmes of education;
3) the provision of a simpler, more available regimen of daily prayer in the Book of Common Prayer which introduces the reader to the discipline, education and devotion in his own language through the words of Holy Scripture and invites further study;
4) the removal of some doctrinal accretions caused by a "development of doctrine" rather than patristic witness, such as Purgatory as a place of punishment from which sinners can be rescued by indulgences, as well as recognising that not all doctrine is necessary for salvation, e.g. the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Our Lady;
5) the retention of bishops, priests and deacons and the Apostolic Succession but on wider, more patristic terms than the tortured and, as history shows (Fr Paul Bradshaw, Ordination Rites of the Ancient Churches of East and West) tenuous foundations of the Scholastic understanding of ordination, so that the priest becomes more than just a machine for churning out the Sacrament but one learned and pastoral to engage with his flock;
6) the re-emphasis on the One Eternal sacrifice of the Mass rather than sacrifices of Masses thus rescuing the Mass from being a sacrifice to help souls in Purgatory but rather reinforcing the mystical communion of all Christians in union with that one perfect sacrifice - a position always held by the Orthodox and reaffirmed by the Roman Catholic Church in the light of the Reformation;
7) the promotion of rôle of the individual in his salvation by "loosening the apron strings" and ceasing overly to mandate the sacraments allowing for greater sincerity in approaching the sacrament of Confession allowing for the formation of a healthy conscience without coercion and fear of sanction.
Notice that the accusation of "pick and choose" often levelled at us by some does not apply to these statements because they are all either questions of piety, politics or patristcs. We are seeking the practice of the Early Church. Furthermore, each of these can be seen very clearly in the Pre-Reformation Church of England. Again, Fr Thornton's book is very clear on the influence of the School of St Victor on English Spirituality. The Use of Sarum is also much more focussed on the spiritual disposition of the priest than the Roman (and hence English and Anglican) Missals and it must be remembered that for all his Calvinism (albeit nuanced), Cranmer was quite deliberate at incorporating much of the Sarum Use into the Book of Common Prayer thereby creating a point of continuity with the "Old Religion".
Of course, with the Edwardian reformers, the doctrinal changes, especially those that come to be included in the Articles introduce German Protestantism into the Church of England. This has meant the loss of certain patristic teachings and practices such as:
1) the practice of praying for the dead as an act of continued love which is in evidence in the Fathers and separate from any question of Purgatory;
2) the recognition that, although Purgatory itself is not patristic, there is a "third state" other than Heaven and Hell of which very little can be known;
3) Sacramental Realism and ex opere operato, especially the Real Objective and Physical Presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Host as affirmed by the Church Fathers and which the doctrine of Transubstantiation, far from being "repugnant to to the plain word of Scripture," describes albeit nonexclusively;
4) the intercession of the saints as beings who are alive in Eternity and are like Christ because they see Him as He is, thus able to hear prayer and offer prayer;
5) the veneration of Our Lady and the devotions associated with her in recognition of the limits that veneration possessed but denying none that she is honestly due as one who is living in Eternity with her Son;
6) the use of the Ave Maria noticeably absent from the BCP:
7) the veneration of ikons as sanctioned in the Seventh Oecumenical Council.
8) the ancient sense of phronema, i.e. the sense of possessing the Mind of Christ through the unifying work of the Holy Ghost acquired through active participation in the Church's activities such as fasting, novenas, pilgrimages, veneration of ikons, relics, shrines, processions, and Eucharistic devotions;
9) the monasteries and communities for the Religious adhering to the ancient rules of life in order to present a visible presence of the work of God to the secular society.
These are the losses which are largely concomitant with the acquisitions from the German Protestants, namely:
1) the authority of the individual to interpret Scripture thereby leaving the Church open to schisms and heresies propagated mainly by eisegetical reasoning as noted by St Irenaeus and St Jerome;
2) the legalistic framework built upon the atonement inherited from Roman Catholicism, to the exclusion of other models of atonement held by the Fathers, leading to see it as an act of appeasing an angry God rather than a loving Father who runs to meet the penitent;
3) justification being separated from Baptism and ceasing to be a process of formation through synergy, thereby removing the individual's voluntary active participation in his own growth in faith in God as a member of His Church;
4) theologies which rob the Church of her awareness of transcendental realities, teleology, and which ultimately lead to acceptance of such absurdities as Christian atheism.
Protestantism is intrinsically fissiparous and there is no such thing as the Protestant theology which many Roman Catholic polemicists try to debunk in vain. What is different about Anglicanism is that it presents a way back to genuine Catholic faith as held by the Fathers. A canon of a Synod in 1571 states:
Let Preachers above all things be careful that they never teach aught in a sermon to be religiously held and believed by the people, except that which is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testaments, and which has been collected from the same doctrine by the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops.
This, together with the preface to the ordinal in which this rational of "diligently readinge holye scripture and auncient aucthours" shows the Anglican commitment always to look back to the Undivided Church. It is precisely this approach to which Anglican Catholics are also committed, shaping our theology from the rock from which it was hewn. The Anglicans have four of the Oecumenical Councils and yet cite six in the Formularies. Anglican Catholics have seven and that is a difference and also a fidelity to the same principle.
Bruce Kaye also writes of an "Anglicanism" before the Reformation (The Oxford Handbook of Anglican Studies) being exemplified in Bede's history, the lives of Alfred the Great and Sir John Fortescue and the continuity of faith and practice across the Norman Conquest. Together with Fr Thornton's studies and the existence of Church Papists, the Caroline Divines, the Laudians and the Nonjurors who demonstrate that the Catholic faith can survive somewhat underground in a Protestant milieu, we have a clear picture of a spirit that inhabits the Church of England from its inception and continues, albeit bound by continental Protestantism, across the Reformation. As Fr George Tavard SJ notes (Holy Writ, Holy Church):
The Anglican Church... tried to maintain the Catholic notion of perfect union between Church and Scripture. The statement of Johann Gropper, that the Church's authority is not distinct from that of Scripture, but rather they are one, corresponds to the Anglican view of the Early Church, as it corresponds to the catholic conception of the Church at all times.
Fr Arthur Middledton also notes (Fathers and Anglicans p13):
This ecclesial context of Anglican divinity understands the Church as bearing witness to the truth not merely from written documents, but from its own living, unceasing experience, from its catholic fullness. This has its roots in continuity with the primitive church, where the mind of Christ and the mind of the Church are mutually interrelated.
While it is true that Anglicanism is indeed Protestant in its Formularies, it still contains the method for its own Reformation to extract and reinforce the Catholic Faith within its midst. This is sorely needed given the lapse into heterodoxy of the Church of England and the Episcopal Church over the past fifty years. It is not enough to reform back to the sixteenth century as this just sets the clock back 500 years with those same seeds of heterodoxy will grow again.
Anglican Catholics have always existed within the Church of England and only recently have separated from it in order to pursue this Anglican spirit, not by adherence to the Anglican Formularies of the sixteenth century which are largely Calvinist in substance, thus injecting into English Spirituality a legalism and personal impotence in monergy which detracts from the Orthodox sense of phronema - the Mind of Christ - which was in evidence in the piety of the 14th Century.
It is in this Anglican spirit that Anglican Catholicism holds its name, not in Article and Homily but in reading the Book of Common Prayer with Catholic eyes supplying that which is lacking and correcting whatever is amiss. Our debt to Cranmer is there is something to work with, even if imperfectly hewn and erroneous in places. His commitment to the authority of the Undivided Church is in keeping with the whole Catholic Church, and has at least given Anglican Catholics the language by which we can articulate the Anglican Spirit that we continue through the Romans, Celts, Angles and Saxons, Normans, Reformers and Tractarians to the present day and, God willing as part of His wider Catholic and Orthodox Church unto the age of ages. Amen.
