ANGLO-CATHOLICS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 148, 27 June 1929, Page 7

ANGLO-CATHOLICS

A BISHOP'S STATEMENT

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 25th April. Bishop Southwell, formerly Bishop of Lewes, and latterly in charge of the dioeeso of Chichester during the vacancy in the see, spoke at the opening of an Anglo-Catholic conference which is being held at Brighton. Referring to proposals to unite with Nonconformist bodies, he said there was a movement going on within the Church of England towards reunion with Nonconformists, and the line that is taken by those who were supporting tho movement seemed, if one judged rightly, to have the support of at least some individual Bishops. Unless he had misunderstood things, they were to cut adrift from tho Eastern and "Western branches of the Church. Surely that was an enormous departure from anything in the three Prayer Books which had lately over-engaged public attention. If any attempt were made within the Church to go behind the plain meaning of the preface to the Ordinal, and to give a new meaning and a new expression to their faith in Apostolic Orders, then the Church of England be split and divided as it had never been before.

The Bishop added: "I say quite frankly that I am not inclined to accept Eoman obedience." (Cheers.) Proceeding, he said that if ho and others were turned out of the Church of England, there wouia be a vast body of clergy and laymen who would form a new Church, something like the Old Catholic Church, in England, which they would believe was still the Catholic Church in England. -^