The Henson Journals

[158]

Saturday, February 9th, 1924.

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Cardinal Mercier's letter to his diocese, i.e. an English translation of it, is printed in full in the "Church Times". It can hardly be agreeable to the Archbishop of Canterbury, &, indeed, provokes a protest in the leading article of the C.T. Nor is it easy to reconcile it with the Archbishop's statement, though the narratives may be said fairly to harmonize. It is when the Cardinal sets forth the reasons which induced him to promote the "conversations" that the difference becomes apparent:

"Not for the whole world would I that one of our revered brethren should have the right to say that he knocked trustfully at the door of a Roman Catholic bishop, & that this R.C. bishop refused to open it…. We Catholics, kept safe by the grace of God in the whole truth, we weep over the criminal sundering which four centuries ago tore the (English) nation away from the Church our Mother. And, forsooth, there are Catholics who would that, like the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan, a Catholic bishop shd Pass his way, superbly unfeeling, & refuse to pour oil in this gaping wound, to tend it, and try to lead the invalid to God's house whither God's mercy calls him!"

The Cardinal proceeds to quote those conciliatory pronouncements of Leo xiii "Ad Anglos" and "Apostolicae Curae", which moved Archbishop Benson so deeply in 1896.

[159] [symbol]

I decided that I would shirk attendance at the Assembly, and Bishop's Meeting next week, and wrote to announce the fact to everybody whom it concerned. Then I spent the day in my study reading and writing. In the afternoon I was visited by Jimmie Dobbie, who talked for an hour, had tea, and went his way. Also an Ordination Candidate came for an interview. Ella went off to lunch & pay calls. Clayton went away for Sunday duties at Jarrow.

Fawkes writes to me:

"The Archbishop seems to me to shuffle: & Card. Mercier to "protest too much". But the person who comes worse out of it is, I think, Headlam – who must know the difference between a revision of the Canon Law and a revision of dogmas – that there is no parity of matter"……" Have you heard of the condemnation of the Sulpician Manual Biblique by the Index? A friend writes to me "on commence à regretter Pie X". and this is the system which our friends wish to set up here!"

Bishop Hamilton Baynes writes to ask me to preach in the Cathedral at Birmingham, which "is swarming with a rather extreme type of Anglo–Catholic, & your vindication of the principles of the C. of E. would be really valuable".

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