Cardinal O’Connell on Religious Change in England

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 34, 30 August 1923, Page 17

Cardinal O’Connell on Religious Change in England

Anti-Catholic sentiment is being gradually eliminated, in England, in the opinion of his Eminence William Cardinal O’Connell, who has returned from a trip to that country during which he visited many of the old cathedral and abbey churches (says a Boston message, under date June 25, to Catholic Progress).

“I could not help seeing a great change coming over the religious life and sentiment of the English people,” said Cardinal O’Connell, on his arrival in Boston. “There is a calm but very impressive wave of Catholic sentiment that is gradually eliminating the bitter anti-Catholicism of the radical Protestantism of even half a century ago. It is refreshing to see that this sentiment is gradually growing among the bishops, among the clergy, and among the people. I ascribe a great deal of it to the renewed interest in those wonderful cathedrals and abbey churches, many of which I visited, and which are really sermons in stone for the English people.

"It is a common thing now to see in the London Times, High Mass advertised in Anglican churches; it has ceased to cause surprise any longer. But I must say it is bewildering to find that the Congregational ministers are donning chasubles, and that they too are saying High Mass of Requiem for the dead and are venerating the old Saxon saints. This surely is a real change in the religious life of the English people. Of course, side by side with this goes the reaction to be expected. A small but very bitter and noisy faction is awake to all this and utters its feeble but unavailing protest. I should say that socially England has changed very radically, very fundamentally. There is almost nobody in the parks and the Row is deserted. One feels rather that the "English people are having their serious difficulties in an economic way. But let it be said to their great credit that they are game and that they will come through." Cardinal O'Connell said that while he went abroad for a rest he was not idle. He visited many towns, although he stayed when possible at little country inns.