A Catholic Plea for Re-Union

The first impression of many priests on reading A Catholic Plea for Reunion ' is likely to be: Why! here is a man saying a number of things which I have often said myself or heard others say; and putting them on paper with a lack of qualification that usually characterizes the convivial talk of common-rooms and recreations, but without the air of levity which makes things said in such circumstances very pardonable. There is a good deal here about the centralisation of the Church's government, about the autocratic ways of our superiors, about the hair-splitting niceties f moral theology, about the multiplication of devotions and the frequency of the confessions of those who have nothing to confess, about the way of life and rules of nuns; all harmless enough in itself, though liable to be completely misunderstood by outsiders and when said with full seriousness generally betokening in the speaker a particular grievance or a disgruntled outlook on life.All this forms the setting for a thesis fairly common on the Continent, but so uncommon here as to require in the writer's eyes the protection of anonymity-the thesis of the Abbé Portal and Dom Lambert Beaudouin that corporate union between the Church of England and the Holy See is both possible and desirable, and that steps ought to be taken to facilitate the setting up of an Anglican Uniat Church in England side by side with the already existing Catholic organization

Citation · Plea · Political science · Catholicism and Religious Studies · Law