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Anglicanism and the Papacy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2024
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Work for Christian unity must, of course, envisage the removal of what are called the non-theological factors, obstacles of divergence of ethos, outlook and idiom of thought, which separate Christians and Christian allegiances. These seem to bulk larger in the minds of many ecumenists than the primary and basic obstacles which are purely theological. Dr Mascall’s book wisely sets out to make theology the foundation of his approach to the problem of unity, and Christians of every allegiance, Catholics not least among them, have cause to be grateful for almost all of this ably written contribution to the solving of that problem. His work has been done with the learning and charity we should expect of him, and apart from one important section of it, the two chapters on the Papacy which we shall comment on later in this article, will prove of undiluted value in promoting the ecumenical dialogue.
The distinctive mark of Dr Mascall’s approach is a typically Anglican one; it is characteristic, as he points out, of the central theme of the Report Catholicity, namely the necessity of getting back behind the Reformation and the middle ages if the wholeness of the Catholic tradition is to be recovered. Much of what he says on this subject, in his chapters on Clearing the Ground, Reculer Pour Mieux Sauter, The Rediscovery of Liturgy, and The Church and the Ministry, will gain the cordial assent, exceptis excipiendis, of the majority of Catholic theologians, whether their particular interest is ecumenical or not.
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- Copyright © 1958 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
Footnotes
1
The Recovery of Unity. A Theological Approach. By E. L. Mascall. (Longmans; 25s.)
References
2 Catholicity.A study of the Conflict of Christian Traditions in the West, being a Report presented to His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury by a group of Anglo-Catholic theologians. Dacre Press. 1947.
3 This is evidenced by the onesidedness of his comment upon a quotation from Dom Columba Cary-Elwes that the doctrine of infallibility was ‘of immensely slow and gradual growth and its realization occurred chiefly in the Western Church’ (The Sheepfold and the Shepherd, page 222). He says ‘This is a significant admission, and might lead to the suspicion that human ambition had as much to do with it as divine inspiration’ (page 206). No doubt a legitimate expression of‘opinion for one who does not recognize that the Papal supremacy is of divine origin. But, historically speaking, should it have been set down without reference to the long story of human ambition which characterizes the See of Constantinople and many of its occupants, from the days of Eusebius of Nicomedia? The erection of ‘an ecclesiastical system, leaving out of view the primacy of the See of Rome, and finding the key-stone of its vault, in the last resort, in the political authority of the Emperor of Constantinople’ (The Church and Infallibility, B. C. Butler, page 207) undoubtedly played a very large part in impeding the recognition in the East of all that the Roman primacy involves, and confining it to the West.
4 The Gospel and the Catholic Church, by A. M. Ramsey (Longmans), page 65.
5 ideoque ejusmodi Romani Pontificis definitiones ex sese, non autem ex consensu Ecclesiae irrefomabilies esse. Vatican Council, Constitutio Pastor Aeternus, cap. iv.
6 Acts, 15, I.
7 Ibid., page 65.
8 The Fourth Gospel, edited by F. N. Davey (Faber and Faber, 1947), page 25 ff.
9 The Church and the Papacy. Bampton Lectures. (S.P.C.K.)page 542.
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