Persecuted Bishop

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 283, 20 February 1928, Page 1

Persecuted Bishop

CANON DEFENDS DR. BARNES

“An Implacable Vendetta”

“'■'HE Anglo-Catholic party is not content with recognition: 1 it is now planning persecution.” This dictum of Dean Inge was quoted yesterday in St. Mary’s Cathedral by Canon Percival James, in a defence of Bishop E. W. Barnes, of Birmingham.

“FpHERE is no question of the piety and devotion of many of the extreme Anglo-Catholies,,” said the Canon, “but they are fanatically determined to impose mediaeval superstitions and idolatrous rites upon the worship of the parish churches throughout England. “History shows that fanatics will always employ, if they can, the weapons of persecution. Dr. Barnes has had to endure vindictive persecution. Ever since the reign of its first bishop, Dr. Gore, the diocese of Birmingham has been an Anglo-Catholic stronghold and a large body of Anglo-Catho-lic clergymen in his diocese began to defy and attack Dr. Barnes even before his consecration; and for two years they have waged an implacable vendetta against him. “The publication of a collection of the bishop’s addresses entitled ‘Should Such a Faith Offend?’ will create a strong reaction in his favour,” said Canon James. “Fair-minded men are resenting the most unfair attacks of his assailants, based upon a grotesque distortion of his utterances. It is said that he has been unnecessarily provocative. I can find no sentence in the book more provocative than Dr. Gore’s description of these same Anglo-Cath-olia extremists as ‘sacramentalists of extreme ex opera operaio type.

who seem to reduce the sacraments charm and magic.’ The whole AngloCatholic world has proclaimed a vendetta against Dr. Barnes; but Dr. Gore is still their hero. “A bishop who, at his consecration, has pledged himself to use all faithful diligence to drive away strange doctrines, finds in his diocese a large group of clergy propagating what he considers superstitious and reactionary doctrines and practices. His duty is to speak plainly. He has done his duty.”