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Anglo-Catholicism
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The terms Anglo-Catholic and Anglo-Catholicism describe people, beliefs and practices within Anglicanism that affirm the Catholic, rather than Protestant, heritage and identity of the Anglican churches.
Many Anglo-Catholics today, especially in England, prefer the terms Anglican Catholic or Catholic Anglican. The term High Church is also often used to describe them, though its meaning is frequently looser.
Anglo-Catholicism in history
Anglo-Catholicism claims continuity with the early days of Christianity in Great Britain.
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The terms Anglo-Catholic and Anglo-Catholicism describe people, beliefs and practices within Anglicanism that affirm the Catholic, rather than Protestant, heritage and identity of the Anglican churches.
Many Anglo-Catholics today, especially in England, prefer the terms Anglican Catholic or Catholic Anglican. The term High Church is also often used to describe them, though its meaning is frequently looser.
Anglo-Catholicism in the Anglican churches
Within Anglicanism, and in particular in the Church of England, three terms are frequently used - not always entirely correctly - to denote different varieties of belief and practice: High Church, Low Church and Broad Church (or Latitudinarian).
- High Church is generally used to describe a form of Anglicanism which is influenced to a greater or lesser extent by the Catholic tradition. Anglo-Catholicism is sometimes identified with this variety of churchmanship, but "High Church" believers would not necessarily endorse all the elements of Anglo-Catholicism.
- Low Church refers to Anglicans of a more Evangelical tradition who, consistently with the Protestant tradition, emphasise the primacy of scripture and salvation through faith alone. Low Church Anglicans usually (with the notable exception of the Australian Diocese of Sydney) worship according to the official prayer books, but with much less ceremonial.
- Broad Church refers to Anglicans falling between the "high" and "low" traditions who stress the inclusive nature of Anglicanism. The term sometimes has overtones of theological liberalism.
Anglo-Catholicism in history
Anglo-Catholicism claims continuity with the early days of Christianity in Great Britain. Pope Gregory the Great sent St. Augustine in the late 6th century from Rome to evangelise the Anglo-Saxon English, a process completed in the 7th century. It is commonly thought that the conversion of the English marked the beginning of Christianity in Britain, though the Romano-Celtic society which existed in Britain prior to the arrival of the pagan Germanic tribes from Denmark and northern Germany was already substantially Christian.
When the Protestant Reformation broke out in Europe, the tide swept up England as well. King Henry VIII took England into schism from Rome when the Pope refused to declare null his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, but retained Catholic views in theology and liturgy, while some reformers (such as Bishops Ridley and Latimer) wanted to follow the radical reforms of Geneva. All reforms were reversed, briefly, during the reign of the staunchly Roman Catholic Mary I who resumed communion with Rome as part of a general campaign to end the Reformation in England and Wales. Consequently when Queen Elizabeth I took the English throne, she sought to steer a via media between what her bishops felt were the excesses of Rome, on the one hand, and those of Geneva, on the other. Thus was born the Elizabethan Settlement, and the promulgation of a single Book of Common Prayer, for whatever theological party was to use it within the Anglican Church. This marks the birth of a special ethos for the Anglican Church. This ethos, peculiar to Anglicanism, was championed by the Elizabethan divine, Richard Hooker.
From that time, through Archbishop Laud and the Caroline Divines, up to the time of the Oxford Movement Tractarians, the Anglo-Catholic Congresses and the present day, there has always been a theological party within Anglicanism which has sought to stress apostolic continuity all the way back to the Twelve Apostles. In response to Pope Leo XIII's Apostolicae Curae (1896), which declared the Anglican apostolic succession invalid from the Vatican's perspective, the Anglican Archbishops of Canterbury and York have claimed, starting with their official response, Saepius Officio, that there is an unbroken apostolic succession in the Anglican priesthood and that the historical episcopate has been in the British Isles from the earliest days of the Church. Anglo-Catholicism has been weakened at regular intervals by secessions by its prominent leaders to the Roman Catholic Church or occasionally to the Eastern Orthodox Churches, among whom was John Henry Newman, the later Cardinal. Moments of crisis provoking such defections include the (narrowly avoided) condemnation of Tract 90 in 1841, the ritualistic controversy and the Public Worship Regulation Act of 1874, the Prayer Book controversy of 1927-28, and more recently decisions by many Anglican provinces to proceed to the ordination of women priests.
The Oxford Movement and the beginning of modern Anglo-Catholicism
The modern Anglo-Catholic movement can be traced to the Oxford Movement of the Victorian era (sometimes termed Tractarianism).
In the early 19th century, various factors caused misgivings among English Churchmen, including the decline of church life and the spread of unorthodox practices in the Church of England. The government's plan to suppress ten Irish bishoprics in 1833 inspired a sermon from John Keble in the University Church in Oxford on the subject of "National Apostasy". This sermon marked the inception of what became known as the Oxford Movement.
The chief objective of the Oxford Movement was the defence of the Church of England as a divinely-founded institution, of the doctrine of the Apostolic Succession and of the Book of Common Prayer as a "rule of faith". The key idea was that the Anglican Church was not a Protestant denomination, but rather a branch of the universal Catholic Church, along with the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox churches. It was argued that Anglicanism had preserved the historical apostolic succession of priests and bishops and thus the Catholic sacraments. These ideas were promoted in a series of 90 "Tracts for the Times".
The principal leaders of the Movement were John Keble, John Henry Newman and Edward Bouverie Pusey. The movement gained influential support, but was also attacked by the latitudinarians within Oxford University and by bishops. Within the movement there gradually arose a much smaller group which tended towards submission to the Roman Catholic Church. In 1845, the University censured the pro-Roman theologian W. G. Ward and his Ideal of a Christian Church, and 1850 saw the victory of the evangelical clergyman George Cornelius Gorham in a celebrated legal action against the church authorities. A number of conversions to the Roman Catholic Church followed. The majority of adherents of the Movement, however, remained in the Church of England, and, despite hostility in the press and in government, the Movement spread. Its liturgical practices were influential, as were its social achievements (including its slum settlements) and its revival of male and female monasticism within Anglicanism.
Anglo-Catholicism today
Since at least the 1970s, Anglo-Catholicism has been dividing into two distinct camps, along a fault-line which can perhaps be traced back to Bishop Charles Gore's work in the 19th century.
The Oxford Movement had been inspired in the first place by a rejection of liberalism and latitudinarianism in favour of the traditional faith of the "Church Catholic", defined by the teachings of the Church Fathers and the common doctrines of the historical eastern and western Christian churches. Until the 1970s, therefore, most Anglo-Catholics rejected liberalising development such as the conferral of holy orders on women. Present-day "traditional" Anglo-Catholics seek to maintain tradition and to keep Anglican doctrine in line with that of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. They often ally themselves with low-church evangelical Anglicans to defend traditional teachings on sexual morality. The main organisation in the Church of England that opposes the ordination of women, Forward in Faith, is largely composed of Anglo-Catholics.
However, Gore's work, bearing the mark of liberal Protestant higher criticism, paved the way for an alternative form of Anglo-Catholicism influenced by liberal theology. Thus in recent years many Anglo-Catholics have accepted the ordination of women, the use of inclusive language in Bible translations and the liturgy, and progressive attitudes towards homosexuality. Such Anglicans often refer to themselves as "Liberal Catholics". The more "progressive" or "liberal" style of Anglo-Catholicism is represented by Affirming Catholicism.
Many traditional Anglo-Catholics have left official Anglicanism to form "continuing Anglican churches" such as the Traditional Anglican Communion. Others have left Anglicanism altogether for the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Churches, in the belief that liberal doctrinal innovations in the Anglican Church have resulted in Anglicanism no longer being a true branch of the "Church Catholic".
Practices and beliefs
Theology
What Anglo-Catholics believe is fiercely debated, sometimes even among Anglo-Catholics themselves.
In agreement with the Oriental Orthodox Churches and Eastern Orthodox Churches, Anglo-Catholics — along with Old-Catholics and Lutherans — generally appeal to the "canon" (or rule) of St Vincent of Lerins: "What everywhere, what always, and what by all of us has been credited, that is truly and properly Catholic."
The Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles make distinctions between Anglican and Roman Catholic understandings of doctrine. As the Articles were intentionally written in such a way as to be open to a range of interpretations, Anglo-Catholics have defended Catholic practices and beliefs as being consistent with them. Due to the Articles' harsh tone, however, they have generally not been held in high regard by most Anglo-Catholics.
Anglo-Catholic priests often hear private confessions and anoint the sick, regarding these practices, as do Roman Catholics, as sacraments. The majority of Anglicans generally think of them merely as optional sacramental rites. The classic Anglican aphorism regarding private confession is: "All may, some should, none must".
Anglo-Catholics share with Roman Catholics a belief in the sacramental nature of the priesthood, the sacrificial character of the Mass and the Real Presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist. A minority of Anglo-Catholics also encourage priestly celibacy. Some Anglo-Catholics encourage devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, particularly under her title of Our Lady of Walsingham, but not all Anglo-Catholics adhere to a high doctrine of Mariology.
A minority of Anglo-Catholics, sometimes called Anglo-Papalists, consider themselves under papal supremacy even though they are not in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. Such Anglo-Catholics, especially in England, often celebrate Mass according to the contemporary Roman Catholic rite and are concerned with seeking reunion with the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.
Liturgical practices
Anglo-Catholics are usually identified by their liturgical practices and ornaments. These may be characterised by the "six points" of the Oxford Movement's Eucharistic practice:
- the use of Eucharistic vestments
- the eastward-facing orientation of the priest (that is, facing the altar rather than the congregation)
- the use of unleavened bread
- the mixing of water into the Eucharistic wine
- the use of incense and candles.
Many other traditional Catholic practices are observed within Anglo-Catholicism, including Eucharistic adoration. Many Anglo-Catholic "innovations" (or, rather, revivals of dormant practices) have since become accepted by mainstream Anglicans.
Various liturgical strands exist within Anglo-Catholicism:
- Some, like the original members of the Oxford Movement, use official Anglican liturgical texts, such as the Book of Common Prayer.
- Some use the modern Roman Catholic rite of Mass, celebrated in English.
- Some use the older "Tridentine" Catholic rite of Mass, celebrated in Latin, or English liturgies based on it, such as the rites of the English Missal.
- Some occasionally use the mediaeval English Sarum Rite, which is broadly similar to the Tridentine Mass and is celebrated in Latin.
Preferences for Elizabethan English and modern English texts vary within the movement.
In the United States a group of Anglo-Catholics in The Episcopal Church published under the rubrics of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer an Anglican Service Book which is "a traditional language adaptation of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer together with the Psalter or Psalms of David and additional devotions." This book is based on the 1979 Book of Common Prayer but includes offices and devotions in the traditional language of the 1928 Prayer Book that are not in the 1979 edition. The book also draws from sources such as the Anglican Missal.
Criticism
Opposition to Anglo-Catholicism has existed within Anglicanism since the movement's inception. The Evangelical, Low Church tradition emphasises a more Protestant understanding of the nature of Anglicanism, and has been suspicious of, or even openly hostile to, the Catholic ethos that informs Anglo-Catholicism. Historical research in recent years has emphasised aspects of a Protestant self-consciousness in the English Reformation, a consciousness which was dominant from Elizabeth I's reign until the Victorian era.
The theological basis of Anglo-Catholicism - that the Anglican Church is a "branch" of the universal Catholic Church, with valid bishops, priests sacraments - has never been accepted by the other two putative branches of the Church, the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. (Each of those bodies claims to be the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, though the Roman Church was once in communion with the Orthodox Patriarchates until the two broke apart in the 11th century during the Great Schism.) In 1896, Pope Leo XIII declared in the papal bull Apostolicae Curae that the orders of Anglican clergymen were "absolutely null and utterly void", and that Anglican priests and bishops were therefore laymen. Apostolicae Curae continues to be a source of some controversy: following its publication, the Church of England produced its own response, Saepius Officio, which is sometimes said to be written in better Latin.
Anglo-Catholic liturgical practices (sometimes called 'Ritualism', though many Anglo-Catholics dislike the term) were a particular source of controversy in the nineteenth century, and led to the passage of the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874.
Examples
See also
External links
- Various links and resources
- Lists of parishes, dioceses, orders and societies
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