Lawless Clergy

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 420, 31 July 1928, Page 9

Lawless Clergy

DR. HENSON SPEAKS OUT

Home Secretary Assailed

(United I*.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association.)

Received 1.16 p.m. • LONDON, Monday. THE Bishop of Durham, Dr. H. Hensley Henson, says the extreme unpopularity of Anglo-Catholicism, as disclosed.by the House of Commons debate on the Prayer Book, merits the gravest consideration.

If the Ango-Catholic clergy had created such a dead-weight of suspiicon and dislike against themselves, their good influence must largely be paralysed. “I have never concealed the belief that the clergy’s lawlessness discred-

- ited their spirtual claims and' lessened 1 their moral influence. This lawlessness - has developed a cunning sophistry, emptying legal obligations, even the ordination vows of valdity. 111-faith is i infecting the very sanctuary of truth - and character. “Parliamentary discussion carries the subject into larger connections. It is freely admitted that establishment itself is jeopardised by the agitation against the revised Prayer Book, which rekindled fires of religious passion to an unexpected degree. “Sir William Joynson-Hicks. Home Secretary, is a thorough-going Erastian. His profession of faith is vitiated by linguistic ambiguity, inaccurate statements of facts, the suppression of important truth, and suggestion of important error. “Disestablishment is not a political issue. Responsible politicians generally shrink from it. “The relations between Church and State must be cleared of this confusion, so as not to allow related and gross violation of the Church’s rights, as the rejection of the Book implies. To acquiesce in such a suborj dination of the Church to State is to allow the claim of Caesar to over-ride the claim of God. Whatever fortunes ge reserved for the Church of England, may God in His mercy preserve it from the ignominious security of a tame Church in a secularised State.”