Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 35, 27 August 1903, Page 18

Notes

' Catholic Bishop of Dunedin ' In a communication with which he recently favored us for publication, the) Right Rev. Dr. Nevill correctly described himself as ' Anglican Bishop of Dunedin. At the close of a letter in last Saturday's ' Otago Daily Times ' his Lordship took a different title and added to the gaiety of the newspaper-reading public by styling himself ' Catholic Bishop of Dunedin. The claim is presumably based upon an extraordinary ; branch ' theory which makes ' the Church ' mean t,in the language of an Anglican writer), not any one particular denomination, but a great corporate body of Christians ' spreading through East and West, and serving God in all languages. Some of our Anglican friends maintain that their Church is a ' branch ' of this great speckled body that (they say) constitutes ' the Church Catholic' There is only one thing the matter with this pretty theory : no such corporate body exists. No such corporate body has ever existed. Nor is there any trace of any such multitude of men, as described, that by any stretch of fancy can be called a ' body 'or an association of any kind. Not a scrap of evidence of the existence of such an association has ever been offered. There is none to offer. This idea of the Church is a new one. It has no place in history. Who, for instance, are the members that compose this mythical corporate body ? Catholics ? But Catholics ridicule the idea that any such association has ever existed. Greeks? But the Greeks are equally energetic

in denying that any such body exists or that they have ever had any connection with it. Protestants ? But Protestants generally repudiate such a new-fangled view of the Church. Nobody in the wide world at the present time believes in it except a small party in the Church of England. And they are hopelessly unable to determine who are the members of this imaginary association, what is the nature of its organisation, or any of the other points which it is essential to know about any corporate body existing amongst men. They try to force into an imaginary body a thousand hostile creeds that are diametrically opposed to each other on, ._ the most important subjects—creeds, too, nineteen-twen-tiefchs of which do not admit the existence of such, an association, much less membership thereof.

As for the term 'Roman Catholic ' : it is none of our making. It is merely a legal designation forced upon us by an Act of a Protestant Parliament. In itself, and apart from legal convention, « Roman Catholic ' means a Catholic who is a native of, or resident in, the city of Rome. And this is the meaning which the combination carries in Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and every modern language with which we are acquainted. ' Catholic ' is our name, not ' Roman Catholic' The word ' Roman,' in the sense of limiting the meaning of the title ' Catholic,' was repudiated by the Vatican Council. It is, in this signification, theologically wrong. With us, the word ' Roman,' when applied to the Church, is descriptive or explanatory, not restrictive. It indicates that Rome is the centre of our unity. It is, of course, not meant to convey a limitation of the circumference or sweep of the Church's catholicity or universality, for that would be a contradiction in terms. Ours is the only Church that claims and bears the simple title, ' the Catholic Church.' Apart from legal necessities created for us by Acts of Parliament, ' Catholic ' is the only name we acknowledge. To say 'Roman Catholic ' is, in its way, as bad a tautology as to say ' a round circle.' All circles are round, and all Catholics are ' Roman '—in the sense explained above. There are no other Catholics. And his Lordship the Anglican Bishop of Dunedin can learn as much from the first person— learned or simple, medico or lawyer, hodman, street-cleaner, or schoolboy^— that he meets upon the street. If he inquires for the residence of the ' Catholic Bishop of Dunedin,' one and all will direct him, not to the Anglican See House, but to ' Rockmont,' opposite St. Joseph's Cathedral.