“REBELS” REPLY

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1005, 23 June 1930, Page 14

“REBELS” REPLY

CLERGY PROTEST AGAINST BISHOP BARNES “TAKING PAPAL POWERS” (1) The Bishop rules his diocese “as an officer of the State,” and (2) “Has set himself against the general body of the Bishops and arrogated to himself Papal powers.” These are the two main charges brought against Dr Barnes, the Bishop of Birmingham, in a book, “So-Called Rebels,” as the statement of the case for the Anglo-Catholic clergy in his diocese in the dispute which has raged between them and the Bishop since his enthronement five years ago. The authors are the Rev. G. D. Rosenthal, Vicar of St. Agatha’s, Sparkbrook, chairman of the Birmingham Anglo-Catholic Finance Board, and the Rev. F G. Belton, Vicar of Sr. Patrick’s, Bordesley, lion. Canon of Birmingham. Other incidental charges are: The Bishop declared “war” soon after his enthronement; Refused to negotiate with “us” (the Anglo-Catholics) as a recognised body within the Church of England: “Stigmatised us in the secular Press as law-breakers and rebels,” and “Never visits our churches.” In their conclusion the authors say: “If we had believed that Dr. Barn-.s was expressing the mind of the English Church in his assertion that Reservation is based upon erroneous doctrine, the question of obedience or disobedience would never have arisen; the only course open to us would have been to resign forthwith our cures of souls.” While stating a readiness to do everything to promote a settlement of “this miserable controversy,” the authors say the Anglo-Catholics have been “subjected to the greatest provocation. “Their priests are ostracised, their grants are withdrawn, their churches are placed under the Episcopal ban their methods of devotion are derided, and their most cherished beliefs openlv condemned. . . . “YY'e have no wish to fan into fiercer flame the fires of this most unhappy conflict, but we think it right to say plainly that so long as this spirit underlies the policy of the Bishop of Birmingham, there can never he a satisfactory settlement of our difficulties. “We cannot possibly recognise the right of an individual bishop to exercise autocratic powers, and, setting himself against the whole body of the Catholic Episcopate throughout the world, to enunciate a different law for his own diocese.”