The Henson Journals

[42]

Saturday, May 16th, 1925.

Do you know that in the R.C. Church Confirmation is only reserved to Bishops by custom? in missionary districts where dioceses have not been established, Rome gives faculties to its Vicar Apostolic, who is only a priest, to confirm. This is, of course, exceptional: but it shows what the theology of the matter is.

Revd Alfred Fawkes. May 14th, 1925.

The police knocked up Alexander at 1.30 a.m. to inquire whether I was alive, as reports of the Bishop of Durham's sudden death were current in London and Manchester!

I wrote letters, and worked at the Book. Then, after lunch I spent an hour with the dentist, & then I tried to clear up my room. It was a Herculean task, for the accumulation of books & papers had been undisciplined for an unusually long interval, on account of the book.

Then I wrote to that old humbug, Dr Charles Harris, who flatters himself that he is going to transform the E.C.H. into a society of sacred study & the home of sound learning! He assures me that the united Convocations will provide the authority to which all good Anglo–Catholics will defer!

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