Catholicism in England

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 15, 19 April 1923, Page 5

Catholicism in England

The Turn of the Tide The steady increase of converts to the Catholic faith is now such a feature of life in England that it would look as if the return of the country to her old religion is, at least probable in time. At any rate, it can be safely aid down that whatever religion will be bothered about there S 50, aye, in 20 years' time, will be the teaching of the Catholic Church; everything else i s being daily deserted. With this change the breakdown of prejudice is most remarkable, Formerly when a member of a Protestant family became a Catholic, the outcast was driven from the house not infrequently accompanied by a shower of stones. That feeling exists to-day in parts of Wales and Scotland, and in all parts of North-East Ulster, but if is almost dead in England. 'Your daughter attends the Catholic church and desires to become a Catholic," said a Cheshire priest to a Protestant churchwarden last Christmas- "I think you should know this." "Do not accept her' yet " said the father, "till I speak about it to her in 12 months " The priest promised, and at the end of the 12 months the churchwarden approached him and said, "My daughter is of the same mind still, and we are all coming with her She has converted the whole of us." Events like this are taking place every week. It is nothing now to see whole families coming over, and there is a feeling in the air that England is on the verge ofV big spiritual landslide. It is said that whole congregations are on the move, and intend to become Catholics en masse, as at St. Katherine's Convent in London, where a number of Protestant nuns were received at Westminster Cathedral on the same morning, and on Caldey Island, where all t|he population came over in one day. ,'■ / -/H'.v & \.-\ f - ■