Anglo-Catholics

In the Protestant Episcopal Church, some take a high road and some take a low road, each group expecting to be in heaven before the other. The low-roaders hold only for the two sacraments, baptism and communion, finding "not a shred of evidence" for the high-roaders' belief that Christ is to be reached through five more sacraments--confession and absolution of sins, confirmation, extreme unction, holy orders, matrimony. Neither group acknowledges the ghostly authority of any earthly pope; together they elect a bishop to preside over one and all, and formally their Church is one church, militant.

Nevertheless, the party rift is a wide one, and five sacraments deep. When the presiding bishop, presumably a neutral, declared his intention of attending a congress of high-roaders, the low-road Episcopal press became filled with reverent indignation. When the bishop, the Right Reverend John Gardner Murray, refused to change his mind and did attend the congress, last week in Milwaukee, this indignation continued, high-road Episcopalians being filled with a corresponding amount of reverent elation.

It was called the Catholic* Congress of the Episcopal Church, all the proceedings being made to emphasize the omission from this title of the word "Protestant", which it is the high-roaders' ambition to have stricken from the official name of their Church. Milwaukee Presbyterians had placed one of their church buildings at the Episcopalians' disposal and here Bishop William Walter Webb of Milwaukee welcomed his brethren to the diocese in which "the first attempt at a religious order for men in the English Church after the Reformation was made"; the diocese which contains some of Anglo-Catholicism's earliest relics-- the first stone altar, the first rood screen, a cloth-of-gold altar-cloth; the U. S. diocese in which high-church feeling is today most concentrated.

Bishop Webb revealed plans for another Congress in London next year, of which the subtitle was actually to be "The Holy Eucharist." Rev. George Craig Stewart of Evanston, Ill., chairman of the occasion, took his post and enunciated a seven-fold keynote, of which the most specific clause was: "To clarify the position of the Anglican Communion in respect to Protestant Christianity on the one hand and Roman Catholicism on the other. . . ."

Presiding Bishop Murray--whom the high-churchmen referred to as the "Most" rather than the low-church "Right" Reverend--bestowed his warmest blessing upon "a voluntary gathering of constituent members of our Church," explaining his presence neatly, as follows:

"As the canonically chosen and duly designated administrative head of the affairs temporal of our universal body and of its spiritual concerns too, in so far as they may be inseparable from kinship with the former, I am convinced it is my duty, and so should be my desire, to establish every possible point of contact with the different agencies and various phases of our legitimate Church life. It seems to me nothing could be more right and so nothing more reasonable--nothing could be more necessary and so nothing more desirable."

Editor Frederic Cook Morehouse of The Living Church was then called upon to trace the history of the U. S. Catholic Revival. This he did in most scholarly fashion, beginning with the visit of Bishop Hobart of New York to England in 1823 ("It has always been a question whether the Oxford Movement was not in fact a New York Movement") ; lamenting the failure of Bishop Meade of Virginia to appraise the Oxford Movement at its true worth when it reached him in the early '40s ("If only, if only, Meade had accepted the Oxford Movement and become its leader!") ; lamenting as "a weak, puny survival of Mid-Victorianism" the recent low-church attacks upon Bishop Murray for his attendance at the Congress; acclaiming the "tremendous social work of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co."* as "the flower that has budded from the deep sacramental life that Catholic Churchmanship seeks to produce"; affirming high churchmen's right to go as far back in church history as they see fit for whatever ritual seems "helpful to souls"; scouting as "preposterously absurd" the idea that Catholic Churchmen seek to "undo the Reformation."

Dr. Chauncey Tinker, quaint, brilliant, learned headliner of Yale University's Department of English, consumed the rest of the evening with a consideration of the future of the Revival:

"I think there can be no doubt that the Catholic cause is destined to triumph in the Episcopal Church. . . .

"Among the 110,000,000 of the United States, we Anglo-Catholics are a corporal's guard, or shall we say a Gideon's army? Gideon, I seem to remember, regarded the purgation of his forces as the first step necessary to the success of his plan; and as our numbers decline we may hope that our character and aims will become more conspicuous. . . . Let us become like St. Francis, the troubadours of God, rather notorious for our reckless gayety and good nature, and we shall not be without the blessing that is reserved for those who rejoice in the Lord."

The High Road. The climax of the Congress was its actual procession up the high road to a solemn pontifical mass in All Saints' Cathedral. Over the high altar hung the Christ, luminous in crucifixion, surrounded by angels flying to his succor out of the dark cedars of Golgotha. The two Mary's adored; SS. Thomas of Canterbury, Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi and Demetrios worshiped from their panels; tall candles flickered; censers swung. Some 400 seminarians, priests and prelates, their festal vestments whispering unspoken prayers, moved up the aisle accompanied by two choirs, one being the famed a cappella choristers of Evanston, who sang Gretchaninov's "Cherubic Hymn" at the offertory, Palestrina's "Adoramus Te" at the Communion.

In richest pontifical embroidery, Bishop Webb and Bishop Murray occupied the sanctuary. In the clergy stalls, vested likewise in copes and mitres, sat the visiting bishops--13 of them, including prelates of the Polish, Greek and Serbian orthodoxies, whose oriental vestments added brilliance to stateliness--accompanied by chaplains in dalmatics. Three hundred priests in cassocks and cottas filled the front of the nave. Bishop Charles Fiske of Central New York preached the sermon. Following the Mass, many repaired to the Elks Club for a luncheon.

More Speeches. At other sessions of the high-roaders there were papers on Catholicism and family life, Catholic sanctions in the home, Catholicism and education. There was a telegram (which was applauded) from Bishop Manning of New York and a letter from the Rt. Rev. Arthur Foley Winnington Ingram, Lord Bishop of London, then visiting Detroit, regretting that his heavy tourist schedule prevented him from attending.

The Rev. Shirley C. Hughson arose to report that the offerings had come to $5,000 and that this, originally intended for foreign missions, was now to be tendered to Presiding Bishop Murray who might deal with it "according to his own discretion."

Less tangible but just as warm expressions of appreciation poured in upon Bishop Murray for his attendance and as he departed, Bishop Murray thanked one and all. "I have prayed," he said, "that my presence here might be somewhat of a benediction to you. I know that I myself have received a great blessing. I thank God for what mine eyes have seen and mine ears have heard. ... I return to headquarters with new courage . . . augmented inspiration. .

*High-church Episcopalians adhere to their Church's pre-Reformation name, merely omitting the adjective which implies obeisance to a pontiff at Rome. Low-church Episcopalians call this "anti-Protestant."

*A stout high-roader is President Haley Fiske of this company, half-brother of Bishop Charles Fiske of Central New York. Haley Fiske attended the congress ; delivered an address comparing Golden Rule corporations of today with sorry industrial conditions of 150 years ago, crediting the Church with the change.