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Show DIVINE AND HUMAN SIDE OrjHE CHURCH Answer to Critics Who Justify England's Apostasy Medieval British Sovereigns Sover-eigns Were Loyal to Pontiff. r (Being a continuation of the .subject published in issue of July ;;o. mid-.-r heading. "No -Valid Claims of the Ritualists, to Apo.-toiic Sue-Ti"n." (Written for The Interrnoiintain Ciitlndir. ) Why did England apostatize -from the Carh-'die church? is a question that is frequently asked. In defense of the .ehisiu inaugurated 'under Henry VIII, many Anglican writers justify the revolt, re-volt, (1) because of the corruptions that existed at the time, and (2) because it was the euhninariou u long contest and incessant quarrels between ihe kings of England and ihe successors, of St.. Peter. Regarding the first, critics dwell entirely on the human side of the church. lu the .church are two elements the human and the divine. The human is the life inherited from Adam and Eve. It was -the life that influenced Judas when he betrayed his master. The errors of churchmen must net ho iit-tributed iit-tributed to the church, any more than the avarice of Judas, one of the apostles, should be attributed to our Lord. The church in her teaching is guided by the Holy Ghost. This constitutes ihe divine clement. cle-ment. The members, who are endowed with free " will, and subject to human frailties, make up th-human th-human side of the church. At best. then, the objection objec-tion by critics when analyzed can apply only to the fallibility of the . human side of the church in worldly prudence. Only in its divine side, i. p.. in teaching faith and morals, does she pretend to be infallible. Critics who devote all their enenri's in exposing the human side, have little to say of ihe divine side of the church. The second reason given for the English schism is that it was the culmination of a long 'contest, and incessant quarrels between the kings of England and the successors of Sr. Peter. They assume that, the popes were encroaching on the temporal power. The quarrels, to which reference is made, began after the Xorman conquest, and under the light of - history were manifestly brought on by the usurpation usurpa-tion of the temporal rulers who claimed spiritual jurisdiction and infringed on the rights of the spiritual authority. Having treated of the disputes and misunderstandings misunder-standings after tlie advent, of William the Conqueror, Con-queror, we now direct attention to pre-Xorman times, when the good old English Catholics set an example to the whole Christian world of their loyalty to the spiritual authority of the church. "Howel the Good," when ruler of Catholic Wales, went in person to Rome and asked the Holy Father '-to '-to bless the laws, both civil and ecclesiastical, en- acted by him. The ambassadors sent at this period by the dukes of Brittany to Rome have left the following fol-lowing record of their visitation: "Our forefathers, fore-fathers, from the hour they became Christians, were never guilty of apostasy; they lived up to Rome's laws: and to the commands of the Roman See they never offered opposition." The harmony that existed between the ruling monarch and the pontiffs was evidenced during the Saxon Heptarchy. One ruler made the following statute: "I, Wiltred. an earthly king, forbid. to all kings, our successors, and to earldormen ai.'d all f - laymen, any lordship whatever over the churches. sThe King of Mercia. Ivenulf. wrote that he con- f sidercd "it fitting to incline the ear of his obedience, obedi-ence, with all due humility, to the pontiff's holy commands." In the Anglo-Saxon "Chronicle," TS0. is the following fol-lowing record: "King Alfold sent to Rome for a pall and invested Eanbald as archbishop." Xot less than ten Saxon kings went to Borne to pay homage to the spiritual father of Christendom. King Coead-wclla Coead-wclla was baptized in Rome. It is on record in the Anglo-Saxon "Chronicle." So", that "King- Ethel-wulf Ethel-wulf sent his son Alfred to Rome, and Pope Ler consecrated hira and took him for his son at confirmation. con-firmation. The last of the Saxon kings. St. Edward, Ed-ward, being unable to cross the Alps, asked the popo to dispense him from his vow. The request -wa - granted, and King Edward, in lieu of his pilgrimage, pilgrim-age, built the historic abbey of Westminster. Bedf. an Anglo-Saxon historian of the seventh and! eighth centuries, wrote "that the Roman pilgrimage a pious practice in early times, though accompanied accom-panied by fearful hardships and risks was accomplished accom-plished by crowds, noble and ignoble; and alway?, too. with the commendation of the king." To all this might be added a great deal more historical testimony showing that England wa3 a loyal child of the church up to the time of thf Conquest, and even after the Conquest, down to the reformation. v The quarrels were not about the spiritual jurisdiction juris-diction and supremacy of the pope, but about its extent. Xeither William the Conqueror nor his two sons denied that they were Catholics and subject to the spiritual authority of the pope. Collier, the Anglican historian, says of the royal father, that "though he tookt care to make the most of his crown, and. it may be, strained his prerogative too far upon the church in some cases, yet he never carried the point so far as to depose any bishop." Xeither did he interfere with the church's teaching, teach-ing, liturgy, or the exercise of discipline which was purely spiritual. Whilst admitting the pope's supremacy, after the Conquest, not before, there was a tendency on the part of the rulers to exaggerate exag-gerate their temporal power, which meant a curtailment cur-tailment of the spiritual authority of the pope, or the right to define its limits. The same contest 13 now carried on in France. F. D. : 1. |