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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2024
The purpose and scope of this paper may be conveniently formulated in the following two questions: what are the obstacles which prevent our fellow countrymen, who are Christian believers, and men and women of good will, from recognizing the Catholic Church for what it is, the visible society in the world, which alone is Christ’s Mystical Body and which alone speaks his word with the fullness of his authority; and, how far are these obstacles in the minds of the non-Catholics in question, and how far are they to be looked for in our presentation to them of the Gospel?
You will observe that I am prescinding altogether from any discussion of the mystery of the bestowal or non-bestowal of the gift of faith, which, however else we differ about it, we all agree to be a sheerly gratuitous gift of God, given by him when and to whom he wills. I am treating faith, in the context of this discussion, as divine faith in the authority of the Catholic and Roman Church, which seems to me to be very often an extension of faith in those who already possess it on a narrower, but at the same time very real, field. I am proposing to deal only with obstacles in the mind, obstacles, that is, in the non-Catholic mind which, we must presume, make it incapable of having this gift of faith bestowed; or obstacles in our own minds, which lead to the presentation by us of that faith in a form which is in fact incapable, psychologically speaking, of penetrating the non-Catholic receiving mind, and preparing it for the bestowal of the gift.
A paper read at the Conference of Ecclesiastical Studies, Downside, April 9th, 1958.
2 The figures are not meant for more than a rough approximation.
3 The The Pattern of Christian Truth; Bampton Lectures, 1954, by H. E. W. Turner, Lightfoot Professor of Divinity in the University of Durham. Chapter IV. (Mowbrays, 1954.)
4 Catholicity—A Study in the Conflict of Christian Traditions in the West, being a Report presented to His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury; Dame Press, 1947.
5 Spiritual Authority in the Church of England. An enquiry by Edward Charles Rich, Canon Emeritus of Peterborough, sometime Chancellor and Cathedral Librarian, Longmans, 1953. p. 210.
6 Vide Professor H. E. W. Turner in Theology, May 1957: ?We (Anglicans) accept a doctrine as authoritative because it appears to be true; we do not believe it to be true simply because it comes to us on authority? (page 184).
7 Archbishop Temples? address was subsequently printed in Blackfriars under the title ?Thomism and Modern Needs?, together with a series of Reflections by Fr Victor White on the Archbishop?s points, the last of which concerned the nature of Revelation. (Blackfriars March, 1944. pp. 92 and III.) For St Thomas? conception of revelation see God and the Unconscious, by Victor White, O.P., Harvill Press, 1952. Chapter VII.
8 Methuen, 1957
9 There was perhaps some excuse for this a year or two ago. There are now, however, several popular books in English which make the Catholic position clear, as The Two‐Edged Sword by J. L. McKenzie, s.j. (Bruce Publishing Co.), Path through Genesis by Bruce Vawter (Sheed and Ward), Unless Some Man Show Me by Alexander Jones (Sheed and Ward). There is also The Bible Atlas by Grollenberg (Nelson) with useful letterpress and A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture (Nelson). In French there is the invaluable Bible de Jeacute;rusalem, and in it in particular, on the point of inerrancy, the Introduction to and Commentary on Genesis by Père de Vaux. Scripture, the Quarterly Journal of the Catholic Biblical Association (Nelson), always contains valuable and upto‐date material.
10 Bible and Tradition. A sermon preached before the university of Oxford by C. F. Evans, Fellow and Chaplain of Corpus Christi College, Theology, December, 1957.
11 An article on this sermon and its implications for eirenic theology will appear in the July‐August issue of Blackfriars.
12 See Instruction to Local Ordinaries on the Ecumenical Movement, issued by the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office (Ecclesia Catholica), December 20th, 1949. Documents on Christian Unity, Fourth series, 1948?57. O.U.P., 1958.
13 See Instruction (op. cit), para 5, p 26. In the words of Bishop G. K. A. Bell in the Introduction, p. xv: ?Perhaps this is the most obvious advance?.
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