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The Oxford Movement by the End of the Nineteenth Century: The Anglo-Catholic Clergy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
Extract
To its leaders the Oxford Movement was “the Romance of the nineteenth century” while to its opponents it was nothing less than “disloyalty to Christ and His Truth.” Then, as now, the chief difficulty lay in delineating various characteristics, and this is especially the case with the Anglo-Catholic or “Ritualist” clergy by the end of the Victorian era. The following will be an attempt to place the phenomenon of Anglo-Catholicism, or Ritualism, into its proper historical context while examining more closely its role within the Oxford Movement and especially its tradition of the “slum priest.”
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References
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39. The percentages are: men in their 20s, 18% in their 30s, 34% in their 40s, 22%; in their 50s, 14%; in their 60s, 9%, and in their 70s, 3%.
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44. This view is confirmed if we examine the Sunday communions by dioceses. The ten dioceses with the highest number of communions were: London, Winchester, St. Albans, Oxford, York, Norwich, Manchester. Rochester, Canterbury and Peterborough. The dioceses of London, Winchester, St. Albans, Oxford, Rochester and Canterbury were in the Southeast or South of England while Norwich and Peterborough were in East Anglia. York diocese included the eastern part of Yorkshire. The exception was Manchester in the Northwest; Canterbury's number was due to the outlying suburbs of London in the western part of the diocese.
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47. The percentages were: men in their 20s, 28%; in their 30s, 36%; in their 40s, 20%; in their 50s, 11%; in their 60s and over, 5%. Thus 64% of those surveyed were under 40 while th high church percentage was 52; 28% were in their 20s as opposed to 18% for the high church. Anglo-Catholic priests were noticeably younger men.
48. Of the 114 clerical livings the major holdings were: bishops, 42; clergymen, 35; Oxford colleges, 17; Cambridge colleges, 1; and cathedral chapters, 11. The bulk of lay patronage was as follows: laymen, 52; trustees, 29; the Crown, 8; societies, 4 (for example, Society for the Maintenance of the Faith).
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