THE ENGLISH RITUALISTIC PARTI AND CARDINAL VAUGHAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9726, 23 January 1895, Page 6

THE ENGLISH RITUALISTIC PARTI AND CARDINAL VAUGHAN.

TO THB EDITOR. Sir, —I should nob have noticed the letter of "C.W.R.," in this morning's Herald, commenting on mine on the above subject, had he contined himself to airing the wellknown angry views of the various sections of the High Church party at the enormous crime of three Irish Bishops going to Spain, and there consecrating to the offic of a bishop a Spaniard for the congregi tions of reformers as to religion. But r. speaks of my various and exaggerated ( not positively untrue) statements ; and y< does nob proceed to show my statement are either untrue or exaggerated. Th three Bishops did consecrate Senor Cabrera Lord Halifax did write to the Archbisbo of Toledo (I have read the letter, and most abjecc and impertinent affair it is) Cardinal Vaughan did write to the Arc! bishop of Toledo. The letter was publishe in the Times ; he completely exposed th pretensions of Lord Halifax and his friends as I stated, and I quoted the exact words he did tell that very High Church noble man that the Irish and Anglican Bishops and therefore the clergy of their churches were mere laymen. He is angry at my words, the " Roman ising section of the Church of England. He denies there is such a section ; and " a to the High Church teaching or practio being a training ground for Rome that ha long since been exploded." "C. VV.R." i evidently either a not "up-to-date Higl Churchman," or ignores the plainest o facts. Let me quote from a speech made b] Cardinal Vaughan at the Catholic Congresi at Preston, England, on the 10th of Sep tember last. Although the extracb is long yet as the subject is really a very im portanfc one, 1 hope you will be able to fine room for it. He firs t says that the study of various classes of Roman Catholic writings has simplj brought aboub a revolution, "until the Thirty-nine Articles have been banished as a rule of faith," and then he particularise! thus:—"The Real Presence, the sacrifice of the mass, offered for the living and the dead—sometimes even in Latin—nob infrequent reservation of the sacrament, regular auricular confession, extreme unction, purgatory, prayers for the dead, devotion of Our Lady, to her immaculate conception, the use of the Rosary, and the invocation of saints, are doctrines taught and accepted with a growing desire and relish for them in the Church of England. A celibate clergy, the institution of monks and nuns under vow, retreats for the clergy, missions for the people, fasting and other penitential exercises—candles, lamps, incense, crucifixes, images of the Blessed Virgin and the saints held in honour, stations of the cross, cassocks, cotfcas, birettas, copes, dalmatics, vestments, mitres, croziers, the adoption of an ornate Catholic ritual, and now recently an elaborate display of the whole ceremonial of the Catholic Pontifical—all this speaks of a change and a movement toward the Church which would have appeared absolutely incredible at the beginning of this century" and " the movement continues and spreads, lodging itself in Anglican homes and convents, in school and churches, and even cathedrals, until ib is rapidly covering the j country." ... r. . . . : ; . " . I think keen-eyed, watchful Cardinal Vaughan, of all that makes for Rome in England is a pretty good authority on the subject. And now, will MC. W.R.," or any other ,High Churchman, show that whab the Cardinal testifies to in the words I have quoted, has been brought aboub, is fostered, nursed, by either the Evangelical or Broad Church party in the Church ? These parties hold the whole imitation of Rome in the strongesb aversion. The High Church party, and that alone, in its various ramifications and societies, are the originators of the movement, and carry ib on with the results so well described by His Eminence Cardinal Vaughan in the speech from which i I havd quoted.—l am, etc.. Delta. |