CATHOLICITY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12267, 11 May 1903, Page 6

CATHOLICITY.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—Your correspondent " Kent?," asks the pertinent question, Why not reply to my assertion that millions of " English Churchmen" are Anglican Catholics and not Protestants? May I ask for space to define wherein the Roman, Greek, and Anglican Churches differ from the 300 to 400 sects ©numerated in a dictionary. First: Those three Churches are universal—that is, they claim the whole world as the earthly kingdom of their head, Our Saviour Jesus Christ. Second: They are apostolic, and their orders" are transmitted by apostolic succession. Third: They admit every man, woman, and child to the Catholic Church by Holy Baptism. Fourth : They lay down as a dogma that " the elements" of bread and wine represent the body and blood of Christ, which are " verily and indeed partaken of" by communicants at Ccena Domini, the Sacrament "ordained by Christ Himself" (Cathechism). Fifth: They define their faith in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds. These three then, with whom I have worshipped all my life are "The Holy Church Universal." Now, with regard to the 300 odd sects at the present day, they have taken from the Faithful their right of entering the Church by Holy Baptism, for which they have substituted "conversion" by the individual in place of confirmation or renewal of baptismal vows. They have also taken away the prayers of the Church transmitted from the earliest ages and substituted a mass of extemporised verbiage; in the very best cases vastly below any Catholic prayer, and in too many instances, blasphemous twaddle. I do not include the reverent members of the Presbyterian or Wesleyan Methodist bodies in the 300 odd sects, but do include them in the prayer I daily say, " for the unity of Christendom." If that unity can only be gained by levelling down the Anglican to Nonconformist standard let the "extreme low" go out of the Church they have ceased to believe in, and not ask the millions to come to the hundreds. Thanking " Kent" and " Tho General" for their absolutely fair and true statements that the Anglican Church allows great latitude in " form," but none in " creed," or " essentials."—l, am, sir. still "An English Catholic." A.V.C.