The Appeal of the Church of Rome
Fenn, Percy T.
{The followinff paper by an influential dnffiican clerffyman is published here because it illustrates a state of mind that seems to be more general than is commonly supposed. We are naturally not...
...But the point is this: Would these churches be crowded on Sunday, as they unquestionably are, if the Roman Church were losing ground...
...They are their spiritual homes...
...She is not only not losing ground, but she is constantly enlarging her borders, and extending her influence...
...Yet Saint Francis was only one of myriads that have chosen the Way of the Cross under the teachings of their Church...
...A church that provides such a system of education for her young as the Roman Church does, can never die...
...It was founded upon negation, has become split up into two or three hundred warring and contending bodies, it has lost—if it ever possessed —the true idea of worship, it places little emphasis upon the sacramental side of religion, and it is making of itself a moral policeman to thunder in our ears the perpetual warning: "Thou shalt not...
...Her church buildings are alluring, inspiring and homelike...
...If you doubt it, make the test and be convinced...
...He has paid his debt to God, and that is what many of his fellows refuse to do...
...The average Roman Catholic child of seven or eight years knows more about religion than the average Protestant adult...
...It was a little bunch of withered flowers, left by the side of the altar of one of these chapels, with a note in a childish hand, thanking God for the donor's success in passing her school examinations ! Old men came in, and old women with shawls thrown over their heads, and little children with their arms full of bundles, to say their prayers before the reserved Sacrament, and to make their wants known to the Father of us all...
...The child is taught the Faith, and made to practise it...
...In the afternoon he will go to the ball game, and in the evening to the movies...
...I can see no sense in conducting service in a foreign tongue, in the recognition of the jurisdiction of a foreign bishop, in the celibacy of the clergy, and in enforced, or compulsory, confession...
...If anybody has an idea that that Church is not functioning, let him watch the Sunday congregations...
...She is a perfect Babel of tongues, and the faith of which she is the custodian is capable of antagonistic interpretations...
...Some day, when the church is disestablished, things will be different...
...It has preserved the ideas and ideals of worship, it appeals to the aesthetic sense, and has an unexcelled system of training through creed, church year, and church school curriculum...
...It is the old church of the English-speaking people, and is bound up with their liberties...
...Such a service as the one I attended one Sunday morning would not be tolerated in this country...
...The cathedral was crowded with people, but many showed their lack of interest by leaving during the sermon...
...Even the cathedrals of the English Church lack the charm of the Roman churches...
...They start in early in the morning—when the Protestant world is sound asleep—and they are going and returning until late noon...
...It is not a product of the Reformation, but has a ministry and a sacramental system as old as Christianity itself...
...But after the best has been said for it, it is an unlovely system, and I should feel very little sorrow over its demise, and should gladly utter an appropriate requiescat in pace over its grave...
...And then there were the everlasting fees of admission...
...If his conscience will let him do those things, it is his lookout, not ours...
...With non-Romanists it is largely a matter of inclination...
...I could not help regarding this as a specimen of English humor...
...I could never follow her...
...In fact, they do this everywhere...
...We answer, that is his concern...
...Her organization, her missionary spirit, her methods of propaganda, are really admirable...
...God-fearing people who have been reared under its influence, or the part it has played in the development of our country...
...There is a Roman church just two blocks from where I live...
...Read such books as The Little Flowers of Saint Francis of AssisI, and his Mirror of Perfection...
...And when that day comes the Church of England will be born again...
...However, we cannot hide the admiration we feel for her sublime witness to the Faith when creeds are crumbling, for her magnificent organization and order, and for the love and devotion she creates in the hearts and livesj of those whom she serves...
...The Roman Church i^ wise, and claims the child for all time...
...If the day be fine, and everything else be propitious, a man may take it into his head to go to church...
...Their God is a God Who lives with them, shares their burdens, guides and directs them, comforts them in their sorrows, and ministers to them from the cradle to the grave...
...it is none of our business to censor his life...
...It seems to transfigure their very faces...
...Protestantism neglects its young...
...One offering made an impression upon me that I shall never forget...
...and even if its church buildings were open daily, there would be found nothing to attract in the bare and ugly interior, with its vacant pews and its empty auditorium—the organ or pulpit usurping the place of the altar and the cross or crucifix...
...It is full of all kinds of statistics with which the writer tries to prove that the Roman Church is losing ground throughout the world, and that its former devotees are becoming liberals and nationalists...
...There is an atmosphere about them which is restful and which one cannot find anywhere else...
...But to see the Roman churches on Sundays and on holy days is wonderfully impressive...
...The old Puritan Sabbath has gone, thank God, and I doubt whether one person in a hundred would wish to bring it back again...
...For it seems to me that the only church which shows any power and virility today is the Roman Church...
...But the large liberty of teaching which that church permits, and in which she even glories, and the large diversities of ceremonial which prevail everywhere, make her seem a city of confusion...
...It is baptized in infancy, confirmed at seven or eight, receives Its First Communion, and after that it seldom strays...
...Then it becomes Identified with the church for a time, and after a time lapses...
...Now church-going may be a habit...
...May I say again, that I hold no brief for Rome...
...In Westminster Abbey alone there were three different charges, to different parts of the building, and I paid them all...
...but everybody must admit that it is a good one...
...Their religion Is an every-day affair, and not something taken out on Sunday, and packed away in camphor when Sunday is over...
...A church which has inspired, and can still inspire, such whole-souled devotion to the highest ideals that can be conceived by man, will never die...
...And would she get the money for these buildings, if her people did not love her...
...And the way in which she gets it, and usually from the poor, is amazing...
...For the Episcopal Church—the via media between Rome and Protestantism—^much can be said...
...Look at the innumerable multitudes of saints that have been produced by that Church...
...We are naturally not in agreement unth its conclusions, but, offer it in what we believe is accord with the plea for consideration of the problems antecedent to church union, made by the Holy Father.—The Editors...
...Their churches are part of their very life...
...4 S I sit in my study from day to day, musing over / \ my sermon work, my eyes fall frequently upon •^ - ^ a book in my library, entitled The Decay of the Church of Rome...
...I do not forget the thousands of noble...
...The Romanist goes to worship...
...It is also a joyful thing...
...Another thing which appeals to us Is the ascetic life of many Roman Catholics...
...It seems Incredible that flesh and blood should so prostrate themselves at the feet of the Christ, and live for Him through such countless hardships and sacrifices...
...The Sacrament of Baptism is seldom stressed, and the child grows up uninstructed, until such' time as it is worked into some kind of hysteria through the efforts of a professional revivalist...
...She is the one church in Christendom that does make such an appeal, Protestantism has lost its vigor, and is sick unto death...
...Even on holy days, when I can get but a handful to church out of 400 communicants, crowds of faithful Romanists are flocking by to their place of worship...
...But it chafed my very soul that I, a priest of that same church, should have to do it...
...I frequently go into these churches to pray for my sick before the Blessed Sacrament, and I have been struck, again and again, by the numbers of people who frequent them...
...But there doesn't seem to be any obligation that compels him to go...
...With the Romanist it is more than a habit...
...The story of his life of selfabnegation, leading at last to the "stigmata"—the reproduction in his body of the five wounds of Christ I— reads like a fairy story...
...It was published in 1909, and I bought it soon after it came out...
...But you say: "Yes, but see how he spends the rest of his day...
...In Lincoln Cathedral there was a notice that no admission charge would be made, but that every visitor was expected to drop sixpence into a box provided for that purpose...
...And in her inability to enforce her discipline and her laws, she is the wonder of the world I Of the Roman Church one must speak with the profoundest respect...
...And, too often, he goes to criticize, or to be entertained, but not to worship God...
...and every Sunday morning regiments of people pass my house on their way to Mass...
...And I haven't much use for the commercial side of the Roman Church...
...She takes the child from its infancy, and saturates it with her faith...
...They positively throng them at every Mass...
...But the appeal she makes to me, and to an almost innumerable multitude of people outside of her communion, is striking and well-nigh irresistible...
...Frankly, I could never be a Romanist...
...The Protestant churches seem to have been erected for the performances of man, all others for the exaltation of God...
...The side chapels were full of votive and thank-offerings, placed there by people to whom religion is a real, vital affair...
...We sometimes hear that the French people have deserted their churches...
...And we must remember this: God has never declared that Sunday is to be a day of worship only...
...The music was execrable, and the sermon, by an unknown priest, was thoroughly mediocre...
...Protestantism shuts and bars its doors when the Sunday services are over...
...it is a debt he owes his God, and he is not happy unless he can discharge that debt...
...She may have her troubles, but she can never die...
...New parishes are being created everywhere, and new schools, hospitals, homes and reformatories...
...This is the most horrible libel one can utter against them...
...If, however, she would cut herself loose from the medlaevalism which disfigures her, repudiate the so-called Petrine figments, give an honest and logical interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, and content herself with spiritual power and authority rather than temporal, the world would be Impressed and attracted toward her, and every suspicion would be removed...
...I have noticed this in our own country, and I noticed it especially, in the numerous churches I visited last summer on the continent of Europe, in Paris, Chartres, Germany, Belgium, and in England...
...The doors of her churches are always open for prayer and meditation...
...But she will not do this...
...He has given us the day for relaxation, rest, refreshment, as well as worship...
...Westminster Abbey is nothing but a national pantheon, and Saint Paul's Cathedral, in the summer-time, is denuded of all attractiveness...
...Perhaps the wish of the writer was father to the thought...
...But she does get it...
Vol. 6 • July 1927 • No. 11
