DISESTABLISHMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 263, 27 January 1928, Page 13

DISESTABLISHMENT

URGED BY ANGLO-CATHOLICS REVISED PRAYER BOOK LONDON, January 20. A number of leading Anglo-Catholic clergy have circularised their sympathisers urging disestablishment of the Church of England. They declare that the House of Commons’ rebuff to the bishops and the Church assembly, and the circumstances leading thereto, were alike humiliating. Political agitation, persistent lobbying, and a deliberate minimising of the grayity and extent of the opposition were unpleasant features of the campaign. The manipulation of the newspapers was excusable. The new Bill was not likely to assist the Church to set its house in order, and to promote the Kingdom of God on earth. The Church of England must claim the right to nominate its rulers and manage its own affairs. “We believe,” the letter adds, “that freedom of election will result in the appointment of bishops who possess confidence in the working of a Church freed from the task of securing the approval of Parliament, and holding more claims to the clergy’s obedience than State-appointed bishops.” The hope is expressed that churchmen who > value church life, liberty, loyalty and order will unite in demanding immediate liberation from the fetters of the State. COMMONS CRITICISED “The really relevant question is not whether the proposed changes m the Prayer Book are consistent with what is vaguely called Protestantism, hut w’hether they are consistent with the doctrines of the Book of Common Prayer,” says the Archbishop of York, Dr. Cosmo Lang, in his monthly diocesan letter, in which he criticises the House of Commons for the speeches made in the debate on the Prayer Book measure. “Some of the most effective speeches seemed to show the least understanding of the teaching that the book contains,” he adds.