THE CHURCH IN ENGLAND

New Zealand Tablet, 25 January 1912, Page 13

THE CHURCH IN ENGLAND

CARDINAL WISEMAN’S WORK Cardinal Bourne took possession of his Titular Church of St. Pudentiana in Rome on Monday afternoon, December 27 on which occasion he delivered the following address. He said the first element of the joy he experienced in taking possession of the church was the fact that he was called to fill the place once filled by Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman, who was the special glory of the ‘ second spring ’ of the Catholic Church in England. Like Wiseman, he was first educated at St. Cuthbert’s College, which in equal measure shared with the other Alma Mater of St. Edmund of Canterbury the glory of representing in the England of today the undying glories of the Douai of Cardinal Allen. Douai, Ushaw, Old Hall, names consecrated by memories of martyrdom, were precious assets in the treasure of the Church in England, and they gave to Wiseman and to him gifts of which, if he had not profited to the full, the fault was his and not theirs. The Catholic Church has dealt not with mere months, not alone with years or lives or generationsthe centuries were hers, and she was ever at home therein, and it was therefore a very simple matter that again, after nearly fifty years, another English Cardinal, a son, like his last predecessor, of Ushaw, should take possession of the title of St. Pudentiana.

When Cardinal Wiseman

first crossed .the threshold of that ancient church he was called to build up anew the ecclesiastical Hierarchy of England and to renew the glories of the past as the only true successor of the authority of those , who in the far distant past came as dim figures upon the page of history when Britannia was still the only name of England— in all jurisdiction of the great ones whose names shone forth as dauntless champions of England’s religious faith and liberties, of Augustine, Dunstan, Lanfranc, Thomas, and Edmund. Like them, sent by the authority of the Apostolic See to hold their country in .unity of faith and worship, Wiseman’s hopes and aspirations were all fixed on England. It was on that sacred spot that Wiseman commenced his future work to God and turned his steps-towards home, where there soon burst upon him a storm of obloquy and misrepresentation which brought shame upon their countrymen. They knew now how he overcame that, and how when fifteen years later he was called to his rest he had won the respect of the English people. The Pope had given to the work of restoration, begun in 1850, its crown and its completion ,by the creation of two new ecclesiastical provinces, thereby opening out the' way to that multiplication of centres of sacred activity for which the spiritual needs of England would most surely call, and to-day another Cardinal priest of the title ■of St. ■ Pudentiana was entrusted with the more complete development of the vast work of reorganisation which was given to his great predecessor sixty-one years ago. To him these things furnished • ; / « ;f . High Hope of the Divine Protection > and assistance in the special work . which had been committed to him by the Apostolic See'. A further

ground of confidence might be sought in the sacredness of that shrine. The House of Pudens, who was the friend and generous host of Peter, the husband of Claudia, of British princely race, father of Praxedes and Pudentiana, marked, perhaps, the first link binding Britain to the Holy See, that gave to them, as the centuries : passed on, the unity of faith which was to bind together into one ppople the various races that successively came thronging upon British shores. His Eminence concluded The Archbishop of Westminster has been called to the Sacred College as a signal proof of the Roman Pontiff’s love for England and English Catholics.’ * For a thousand years these terms were practically synonymous and identical in their .extension, and if to-day we have with sorrow to divide our country into those that are ‘ of the household of faith ’ and those whom we affectionately, but sadly,, terra ‘ our separated brethren,’ the fault is not with us, but lies to the charge of the men who, more than three hundred years ago, snapped the chain that began to be formed in the house of Cornelius Pudens. The minds of many at home are turned with ardent longing to thoughts of knitting afresh the bonds which were broken then. But, for the most part, they are seeking their end where it can never be found, namely, in a compromise of religious truth. Many are the plans that have been suggested, all alike Distressing and Disheartening, in the impotence of the efforts that are so well meant. There .is but one scheme that can succeed the Divine Scheme of Jesus Christ Our Lord, Who has made of Peter and his successors the foundation of His Church, and has given to them the power to, confirm their brethren in truth. This is the great fact of which we, so earnestly desire to convince our fellow-country-men, and thus again to build up the unity of faith which was the strength of England for so long, . and which : has left . such deep traces upon the religious character of her people—traces which survive in their effects the : cause which has, alas! so long disappeared s '. May the recent exercise on our behalf of the Supreme Authority of the Apostolic See, may the events of these past days, with their deep and touching significance, may - the intercession of ; Peter and Pudentiana, and of all our , saints of British, Saxon, Norman, or-Eng-lish blood, soon restore to our Blessed Lady her dowry

in unsullied beauty, and grant to,our beloved England once again her full and proper place in the pne true Church of, ; Jesus Christ, the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church. ( : The ceremony in the church was attended by many members of the English Colony in Rome.