Church Reunion Is Nearer at Hand

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 353, 14 May 1928, Page 14

Church Reunion Is Nearer at Hand

VIEWS OF CANON JAMES ANGLICAN CHURCH A BRIDGE That the first phase of the reunion of Christendom will come from an understanding and harmonising of the Church of England with the various reformed communions of the Englishspeaking peoples was the view expressed by Canon Percival James at St. Mary’s Cathedral last evening. He believed the Anglican Church to be the intermediary between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. “For the time being, reunion, which includes the Churcfh of Rome, has been excluded from the field of possibility by that Church itself,” said the preacher. “Simultaneously with the report issued last January of the unofficial conversations —they were in no sense negotiations—at Malines, between Anglicans and Roman Catholics, there appeared a Papal encyclical which banged and bolted the door. “The encyclical dismissed all pleas and arguments brought forward by non-Catholics in support of unity, and declared that such unity could be achieved only by the recognition and open acceptance of the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff as the legitimate successor of St. Peter, by the return of the dissentients to the Church of Rome, and by the submission of all non-Catholics to the rule of the Pope. It is idle to conceal our regret; it is worse than foolish to disparage the ancient glories of the Church of Rome; but it is clear that the future of Christianity does not ljje with that Church as it is.” “THE BRIDGE CHURCH” At the Lausanne Conference on faith and order, at which the Church of Rome was not represented, a remarkable testimony to the position of the Church of England in Christendom was given by a leader of the Swiss Reformed Church. He gave the Anglican Church the name “Bridge Church.** “I believe that name will cling to our Church,” said Canon James. “Holy Catholic, reformed, she has been inflexibly determined to preserve and maintain all that was assuredly catholic and primitive. Truly, Protestantism in the right sense of that noble time of the younger people here,” spans the chasm between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.”

Canon James said there were bright hopes of co-operation and perhaps reunion with the ancient and heroic churches of the East. The Church of England had always regarded reunion at Home as the first stage. “I firmly believe that some measure of reunion will be effected in the lifetime of the younger pepole here,” added the canon. Some of the historic causes of division had ceased to exist, while it was not unreasonable to hope that others, examined in the new light and the new spirit of to-day, might also be removed.