CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 78, 12 January 1928, Page 5

CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

PRAYER BOOK CHANGES. RELATION TO RE-UNION. | (Per Preßs Association—Copyright.) LONDON, January 11. The Bishops to-day at Lambeth Palace will resume consideration of the position created by the rejection in the House o£ Commons of the revised Prayer Book. It is believed that they will seek to safeguard Jhe reservation of the Sacrament from the practice ol adoration by inserting in the new Prayer Book the rules governing reservation, which hitherto have been printed only on a pink leaflet, and by in-sei-ting in an alternative service for Holy Communion the black rubric from the present service, expressly affirming that there is no change in the substance of the elements and condemning adoration. The,prayer for the King will be made obligatory. In the meantime, on the eve of the meeting, there have been two unexpected developments—the publication by Viscount Halifax of notes dealing with the Malines conversations on the reunion of Christendom, and the Pope's encyclical, which may be regarded as Rome's final pronouncement on that subject. Viscount Halifax recites the subjects upon which he claims there is considerable agreement, such as baptism and the all-sufficiency of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, but he does not disguise the fact that the Papal claims created much discussion, and concludes that the subject is so.vast and complicated that many similar* conferences will be necessary before real progress is attain able. The opinion is expressed that these disclosures will probably strengthen the opposition to the new Prayer Book, on the ground of a tendency toward Rome on the part of the Bishops. The Pope's encyclical, however,' makes it clear that Rome stands where she always did, and stresses the infallible magistracy of the Roman Pontiff.

PAPAL VIEW OF RE-UNION. RETURN OF DISSIDENTS ESSENTIAL. ROME, January 10. In a Papal encyclical disapproving of the pan-Christian movement, especially in the interests of English Catholics, the Pope deplores the state of mind which holds that all religions are equally estimable. He says that many people urge a false religious unity between Christians, thereby seeking to undermine the basis of Catholicism. It is impossible to have a Christian league in which the faithful are free to have a personal criterion, since it would lead' to indifferentism. The Pope directs all Bishops to forewarn the people against such pernicious falseness ancT to clarify the manciples of religious unity. The encyclical confutes various non-CalhoTic arguments in favour .pf a unionistic thesis, and affirms that church unity is obtainable only by the return of dissidents to the Roman Catholic Church, the only true Church of Jesus Christ, from which they deserted.

"A DREAM DISSOLVED." REUNION A LOSS TO ANGLICANS. (Received This Day, 11.20 a.m.) LONDON, January 11. Mr Henry Fowler (secretary of the Protestant Alliance) expresses the opinion that the Pope's pronouncement has dissolved the Anglo-Catholics' dream of the reunion of the Anglican Church with Rome. Attempts at reunion must always result in loss to the Anglicans, because Rome's dogma is rigid. Anglo- Catholics, who alone cherish the illusion of reunion, would go to Rome, and the Evangelicals would turn Nonconformist.