Gladstone a ' Catholic' ?

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 31, Issue 44, 31 October 1907, Page 22

Gladstone a ' Catholic' ?

At least two New Zealand secular papers have recently been hosing with ridicule the story ' set afloat ', as one of them states, 'by Roman Catholics to the effect that the late Mr. W. E. Gladstone died in the communion of the See' of Komc '. An editorial paragraph in the ' Catholic Times ' of September 13 puts a new complexion on the story. We qoiote the paraVaiiti in full :— ' We remarked last week that we did not know how the idea arose that Mr. Gladstone died in communion with the Holy See. Thanßs to a letter we have re.ceived from Mr. Owen Waters, of Seven Kings, Ilford, we are now better informed. No such statement as '.Mr. Herbert Gladstone contradicted was ever made 'by a The explanation is this. The Anglican vicar 'of St. John's, toeven Kings, declared that Anglicans .■are Catholics, and that he is a Catholic priest. Mr. 'Owen Waters—not Miss Waters, as the name-was given in Ilie " Daily News "—determined to put the matter .to the test. A letter was addressed and posted to '" The Catholic Priest, Catholic Church, Seven Kings." 'The postal authorities labor under the universal delusion that Anglicans are simply Protestants, and the letter found its way, not to the Anglican vicar, but to the 'Catholic priest who has spiritual charge of the district, .-although faeven Kings does not possess a Catholic •church. Mr. Waters went further. As a reductio ad absurdum of the vicar's claim, he declared that " ac- • cording to the latest authority, Mr. W. E. Gladstone 'died a Catholic.' 7 . Apparently even the vicar himself .forgets at times his theory that Anglicans are Catholics and takes the same view as the postman, for he appears to have assumed that when Mr. Waters spolce of the deceased statesman as having died a Catholic .he meant that when he passed away he was in com-

munion with Home. Truly a singular chamipion of the Catholicity of Anglicanism \ ' We commend the paragraph to the attention of all those whom it may concern. When found,- we hope that they will follow Captain. Cuttle's advice and 'make a note on it '.