THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND THE MASS.

New Zealand Tablet, 22 August 1918, Page 29

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND THE MASS.

Not a great many years have passed since profound and bitter hostility to the Mass was to be found everywhere in the Church of England,' It was the outcome of the old anti-Catholic movement which led to the destruction of the altars in the churches of the United Kingdom. But a remarkable change has taken place. Now, whilst the Mass is denounced by some Anglicans, as it was formerly, other members of that denomination are strongly in favor of it and call themselves Catholics. In a sermon reported by the Church limes, the Rev. J. J. G. Stockley, M.A., vicar of St. Paul’s, Burton-on-Trent, says that never since the Oxford movement began has there been such an extraordinary chance as at present of bringing back to England that which England was robbed of in the sixteenth century— Holy Eucharist as the principal service and worship of the Church. Anglicans must, he said, take stock of their position. The advice could not be better. It indicates a desire to undo the evil wrought in England by the so-called Reformation. But the rev. gentleman and all Anglicans who think as he does should not forget that when, clergymen renounce the doctrine of the Mass and cut themselves off from the Catholic Church, and their Orders become invalid, only by joining the Church which they abandoned can their successors become genuine Catholics and secure valid Orders. This is a simple truth which Anglicans who are anxious to be real Catholics should take to heart.