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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 August 2024
Educated Catholics today are at least dimly aware that considerable changes are taking place among Protestants in regard to the problems set by Christian disunity. It is doubtful, however, whether the majority, even of educated Catholics, know just how considerable these changes are; still less do they envisage them as important. In this paper I propose to outline some of the facts concerning these changes and to attempt to interpret their significance for us.
From the Reformation in the sixteenth century, Constant fragmentation became a commonplace and accepted condition of Protestantism. On the continent, from the first, the two great movements initiated by Luther and Calvin were antagonistic, and in due course each produced its sub-divisions. Here in Britain Scottish Presbyterianism suffered, in the course of its history, at least a threefold fission, and the Elizabethan settlement of Anglicanism produced a number of non-conformist bodies, Baptists, Congregationalists and Methodists; and these in turn soon began to sub-divide.
1 The substance of a paper read at the Regional Conference of the Newman Association, “Mtenham, November 9th, 1957.
2 Fundamentalism and the Church of GOd. By Gabriel Hebert, s.s.M. (S.C.M. Press, 1957. pp.14-15)
3 In the same way membership of a schismatic body is often instrumental in the reception of the sacrament of matrimony, since it can be received apart from a validly ordained ministry.
4 An exception to this statement might be the possible absence, among the Orthodox, of the jurisdiction necessary for the valid administration of the sacrament of penance, Upon this question however there does not appear to be unanimity among theologians.
5 Latin text, A.A.S.; Vol. XLII, No. XVI. English translation, Tablet. March 4th, 1950.