Some Reflections on the Enlightenment

René  Descartes 

I was raised in a very Catholic environment and before the Second Vatican Council.  I lived in a strong Catholic Ghetto in which public school education was anathema and you didn’t go to the YMCA even though they had an indoor swimming pool.  The Sisters of Mercy taught me in primary school—from which I graduated in 1962, the year Vatican II opened.  I had the Jesuits in High School and Vatican II held its final session in December of my Senior Year.  These were formative years for me and there was great harmony between the faith that I was being taught in school and the faith my parents, both devout Catholics, were conveying to me and my siblings at home.  My Mom was a member of the Parish Altar and Rosary Society; my Dad a member of the Holy Name Society.  Together they were members of the Christian Family Movement and hosted in our home bi-weekly meetings of other couples who, with one of the parish priests, studied the faith together.  My Dad was a daily communicant and devoted to the rosary.  Our home was consecrated to the Sacred Heart.  We regularly—often two or three nights a week—had various priest friends at our home for supper.   All this is to establish my credentials as having been raised an authentic dyed-in-the-wool Roman Catholic in the best of pre-Vatican II faith. 

That being said, we believed that somewhere just slightly after the Blessed Mother and somewhere up the ranks from the seraphim and cherubim stood robed in the glory of God, Franklin D. Roosevelt.   We believed that, while we each have a personal responsibility for charity, through the collective agency of society represented by government, we have an joint obligation to assist those less fortunate members of society and to level—to some authentic degree—the playing field so that all had a relatively equal access to building a future for themselves.  We were taught to believe that workers had a God-given right to organize and had as much right to the profits of their work as did the owners of capital.   This was before Mater et Magistra or Laborem Exercens, or Popolorum Progressio, but we were schooled in reverence for Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno.    While it was in the day before LGBT issues emerged from the social closet, we were taught to believe that discrimination against individuals for any reason—racial, ethnic, religious—was inherently unjust and that while we might disagree with a person whose opinions were different than ours, there were rules of civility to be followed.  And we were taught that while the Middle Ages represented a flourishing of our Christian Faith, and the Protestant Reformation represented a breakdown of the social order, that the Enlightenment was the foundation of all that is good in our modern world and especially in these United States. 

I still agree with most of what I learned in those years of my Catholic youth but I am seriously questioning the Enlightenment.  In fact, the more I look at it, the more insidious I see its effects. 

The name attempts to sell the basic goodness of the period.  Enlightenment.  Don’t we all want to be enlightened?  First of all, the name, Lumières,  was coined by one of its leading proponents, the Abbé Jean Baptiste Dubos.  Always be aware of self-advertising. Dubos, though a priest, did not practice his ministry but was noted for his work as a historian and litterateur.  He was a member of the Académie française and elected perpetual secretary of the same in 1723.  Kant introduced the term into German as Aufklärung (from aufklären—to make clear, to enlighten) in 1784.  The term Enlightenment only came into English in the second half of the 19^th century, long after its havoc had been wreaked on the western—and in particular, the American, mind. 

In many ways the intellectual revolution of the 17^th and 18^th centuries that we sanctify with the title “the Enlightenment” was a consequence of the Protestant Reformations and the breakdown of Traditional authority structures that the Reformations both represented and caused.  This breakdown of Traditional authority structures, structures that were petrifying into absolutism both in Church and State, was far from all bad.  Monolithic power—whether represented by Royal Absolutism in Tudor-Stuart England, Bourbon France, Hapsburg/Bourbon Spain, or by the growing power of the papacy in post-Trent Catholicism was putting western society on an intellectually and politically suicidal trajectory that the intellectual challenges raised by Enlightenment scientific and philosophical figures were able to thwart before we sank back into a new Dark Ages.  Protestantism, from the mild variety of Luther to the radical strains of the Anabaptists and Unitarians, made sure that the western mind knew that there must be nothing beyond questioning yet Protestantism itself, when once established by the State in Anglican England, Lutheran Denmark, Calvinist Geneva, took itself as seriously as the Inquisitorial Catholicism of Spain.  It took the post-Christians philosophes to continue to insist on the freedom of the intellect to inquire and challenge. 

In many ways the Church’s lock hold on intellectual life began to crack not only before the philosophes of the Enlightenment but even before the Reformers posed their theological challenges.  William of Ockham (1287-1347), an English Franciscan Friar who taught Philosophy at Oxford challenged the established thought of his time by pioneering Nominalism—a philosophy that denies the existence of universals or abstractions and posits that things exist only in their individual realities.  Ockham also posited, in distinction to Aquinas, that theological truths could only be apprehended by faith and that reason plays no part in theology.  This opened a philosophical chasm by which theology—or even faith in God—could be separated from science and scientific reasoning.

That separation would be put to the test in the work of Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish/Prussian astronomer.  Copernicus was a true polymath and was educated in Poland and in Italy with backgrounds in mathematics, geometry, philosophy, classical languages, medicine, Canon Law, and astronomy.  Although he was never ordained a priest, his maternal uncle Lucas Watzenrode, Prince-Bishop of Warmia, arranged for him to be a canon in his cathedral.  His duties as a canon, since he was not a priest, were mostly administrative but also included the practice of medicine.  Through his entire life he was fascinated with astronomy and during his studies in Italy he shared a residence with Dominico Maria Novara de Ferrara whose chief assistant he became for the years he studied in Bologna.  His interest in astronomy continued and he began to acquire the writings of ancient astronomers such as Aristarchus of Samos, Cleomedes, Heraclides Ponticus, and Ecphantus the Pythagorean.  His studies led him to return to the ancient Greek theory that the earth revolved around the sun rather than that the sun and planets revolved around the earth. 

This idea that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the solar system was perceived to be a direct threat to Christian faith by Church authorities for whom the Bible clearly taught that the earth and its inhabitants are the very reason for the existence of creation and therefore must be its center.  In fact, several of the ancient astronomers had long posited that the earth revolved around the sun, but the triumph of Christianity in Western Europe and Islam in the Near East, North Africa, and Spain both theologically demanded a geocentric universe.  (To be fair, Aristotle and Ptolemy both held to a geocentric model so it was not without its advocates outside Judaic/Christian/Islamic sphere.) 

Copernicus’ theories did not raise a lot of theological dust within his lifetime, but it sure got Galileo in a boatload of manure despite his friendship with Pope Urban VIII who was a strong admirer of Galileo and who often spoke with him about heliocentrism.  Unfortunately in one of his books defending a heliocentric universe Galileo used the Pope’s conversations in a way that made Urban look foolish and that brought down the theological establishment both on the astronomer and his theories.  Of course, while in the short run Galileo paid for his intellectual adventurism, in the long run the Church came out looking absolutely stupid for its opposition to contemporary science.  (Hmmm, is there a lesson to be learned here.)

In many ways the Enlightenment is rooted in the scientific discoveries of the 16^th and 17^th centuries, which not only challenged but overturned the received wisdom of earlier ages.  The Englishman, Francis Bacon (1561-1626), is considered to be one of the founders of modern science.  Bacon was both a philosopher and a scientist—and, for that matter, a man of religious faith. (He was Church of England.) Bacon advocated the use of experiments and observation to advance scientific knowledge rather than abstract philosophical argument.  It seems elementary to us today that one advances knowledge by observation of the facts but in the theologically dominated world of the time all truth was seen as needing to be conformed to theological and philosophical principles rather than having an integrity of its own.  This was basically the same problem faced by Galileo: when our observation of physical realities conflicts with biblical texts or theological principles, which “truth” is to be accepted?   And so we have this famous quote

God made dinosaurs 4,000 years ago as ultimately flawed creatures, lizards of Satan really, so when they died and became petroleum products we, made in his perfect image, could use them in our pickup trucks, snow machines and fishing boats.

Well, maybe she didn’t really say that, but there are people who believe something mighty close to this freakish idea because for them religion still trumps science. 

Another figure on whom the Enlightenment is founded is René  Descartes (1596-1650).  Descartes was a mathematician, the founder of analytic geometry.  But he is remembered precisely for his philosophical role.  Descartes considered himself to be a devout Catholic and indeed, though he lived much of his life in the Calvinist Netherlands and Lutheran Sweden, he remained constant in the practice of his faith and was ultimately buried in one of my favorite Parisian churches, Saint Germain de Prés.  Descartes is famous for his Cogito ergo sum: I know, therefore I am.  This is theologically revolutionary.  No longer is it that the certainty of my existence is contingent on God’s being, but rather I can be certain of my existence because I am self-aware.  The philosophical center has shifted from God who has created to the human person who is aware of his own being.  Note, this self-awareness does not deny the existence of God, nor does it deny that God is creator, but it does rob God of some of his thunder because it permits me my own existence on my own terms.  I no longer need God—or the Church—as an authority because I can rely on my own knowledge that comes not from outside “givens” but from my own observation and reflection.  The human intellect, not the Bible, not the Church, now is the arbiter of truth.Descartes sent the pious Pascal into paroxysms of religious fury and ended up after his death with his works on the Index of Forbidden Books. 

When it comes to Copernicus or Galileo or Descartes and the interplay between religious faith and scientific knowledge, I don’t have a problem and indeed I would argue that science, even the broader sense of all human knowledge,  has to be able to pursue its exploration without having its conclusions short-circuited by religious doctrines.  But we have only scratched the surface of the Enlightenment.  In future postings I think we can see some of the serious problems the rationalism of the Enlightenment will spawn.   

Foundations of the Anglican Church LXV

I found an interesting article about the conservative take on Pope Francis and want to pass it on. http://theweek.com/article/index/256251/what-do-conservative-catholics-want-from-pope-francis    I hope to get around to commenting on this down the line but I do want to go back for awhile to the History of the Church of England.  I do notice that every time I leave Pope Francis and his making history for the

Edward VI

drier bones of the past, the readership of this blog falls off markedly.  I feel bad about that as the past has much to contribute to help us understand the present.  In particular, I think it is important to look at the history of the Church of England to help us undo some of the popular myths that cloud our Catholic judgment about the Anglican Communion and prevent us from reaching a deeper relationship with the Anglicans.  So we will put Francis aside for awhile—maybe a week or so—and go  back into the sixteenth century.

Let me just recap for people that might just be picking up the thread—and it will be important for them to go back and trace this series from the beginning—that the Church of England does not have its origins in Henry VIII.  The Church of England can be traced back to the late first and second-century Roman settlements in Britannia.  While the Romans brought Christianity to Britain, Britain was not a “daughter Church” of Rome but always an independent Church.  There was no universal jurisdiction of the Roman See in the first, second, or—for that matter—first five centuries of Christendom.  Churches were “in communion” with one another which means that as long as they were in doctrinal harmony they shared access to the Eucharist and other sacraments and recognized the apostolicity of each other’s ministry, but they were all self-governing.  The Anglo-Saxon invasions of the fifth and sixth centuries drove British Christians to the western regions of the island where, under the influence of the Irish missionaries and monks, they picked up certain features of the Celtic Church that were markedly different from Roman customs.  The Anglo-Saxons were Christianized by missionaries coming in the North from Ireland and in the South from Rome.  The Bishops who followed the Celtic traditions refused to recognize the authority of the Roman-sent Primate, Augustine who came to Canterbury (the capital of the Kentish Kingdom) from Pope Gregory in 597. The breach was healed at the 664 Synod of Whitby and the English Church was reunited.  The union brought strong ties to the Church of Rome but the English Church retained its autonomy with unique canon law and its several distinct rites.  Those unique rites would remain until the Reformation. The Roman Rite was not used in Britain until the late sixteenth century, long after Henry’s break. 

It is with the Norman Conquest of 1066 that Roman authority begins gradually to be introduced into the English Church and it was not without resistance.  Bishops are chosen by their Cathedral Chapters (usually with some Royal nomination) and gradually the custom evolved of sending the election to Rome for confirmation.  An important exception to this process is the 668 appointment of Theodore of Tarsus as Archbishop of Canterbury by Pope Vitalian, but this was done in conjunction with King Ecgberht of Kent and King Oswy of Northumbria who had sent their candidate, Wighardt to Rome for consecration.  When Wighardt died en route, Pope Vitalian—with the advice of several counselors—chose the Greek monk and scholar, Theodore, in Wighardt’s place and sent him back to Canterbury.  His successors in that see were elected in the traditional way—by the monks of the Cathedral priory at the urging of the King for his particular candidate.)  An other variation in this process took place when Stephen Langton was elected by a delegation of Canterbury monks in Rome after Pope Innocent III refused to accept either the monks’ original choice of one of their own or the King’s choice of the Bishop of Norwich.   In the fourteenth century Parliament passed a series of laws prohibiting appeals from England to the papacy and limiting papal authority in Britain.  It was these laws that Henry used between 1531 and 1536 to snap the ties with Rome.

Henry’s break with Rome was a schism such as the schism of 1054 that has divided the Catholic and the Orthodox.  Henry was an avid persecutor of Protestantism both before and after his break with the papacy.  Catholic doctrines such as Transubstantiation, efficacy of prayers to the saints, use of images were all maintained.  Monasteries were closed and monks and nuns sent home but that was an economic measure to appropriate the monastic wealth for the impoverished royal treasury.    Henry insisted on clerical celibacy (though, never chaste himself, not on clerical chastity) refusing to allow clergy (and ex-monks and ex-nuns) to marry.  Masses for the dead were maintained, as was the doctrine of purgatory.  The liturgy remained unchanged in England’s ancient rites.  Most people thought that the schism would be temporary and that all would be well again in the future with the Roman Communion eventually restored.  They were naïve.

There had been some minor destruction of shrines in 1539 and 1540.  These had, for the most part, been either sites connected with Saint Thomas Becket or such images as the Rood of Boxley which were either fraudulent or obviously superstitious.  The Becket cult was ended because Becket was the very embodiment of Church resistance to royal authority and Henry was not about to let that continue.    Some of the shrines of saints were dismantled for the great wealth that had accumulated there as votives over the centuries.  In these cases, such as Saint Frideswide at Oxford or Saint Cuthbert at Durham, the relics were duly reburied and the gold and silver votives carted off to fund Henry’s projects.  The cult of the saints continued however without the shrines.

Beneath the surface of Henrician Catholicism was a whirlpool of Protestant innovations just waiting for their season.  Thomas Cranmer, Henry’s Archbishop of Canterbury, continued to celebrate Mass and the Sacraments in the ancient rites but he spent his evenings in his extensive library reading both the continental reformers—Zwingli, Calvin, Luther, Bucer—and the Greek Fathers.   His own theology was somewhat eclectic but tended toward the ever more radical.  Thomas Cromwell, Henry’s chief Minister after the fall of Sir Thomas More, advanced crypto-Protestants to whatever offices of State and Church he could.  The Bishops, on the other hand (and except for Cranmer) tended to be ultra-orthodox and resisters of the Protestant cause.  Bonner of London was a particular hunter of heretics and under Henry those who were openly Protestant were subject to the most brutal punishments and executions. 

The problem was that Henry would not live forever.  His heir was his son, Edward, who was born in 1537 and thus a child.  Henry had no brothers to serve as regents—just as well given the recent history of Richard III and the Princes in the Tower.  Henry was the marrying sort of man, but the only one of his many wives who would have known how to be a regent was his first, Katherine of Aragon, and she had died in 1536.  And Henry had been estranged from her in any case and would never have given her the regency.  Henry therefore needed to appoint a Council of Regency.  The heir’s closest relative was his uncle Edward Seymour, first earl of Hertford.  Seymour actually had custody of Edward’s person, which gave him an advantage in the power market.  Henry appointed a council of 16 men.  They included Seymour, his brother Thomas Seymour---Lord High Admiral, Archbishop Cranmer, John Dudley—the Earl of Warwick, Sir William Paget, Thomas Wriothesley—Earl of Southhampton, Sir Anthony Denny, Sir Anthony Browne, Sir Edward Montagu, Sir Edward North, Sir Thomas Bromley, Sir William Herbert, Baron John Russell, Cuthbert Tunstall—Bishop of Durham, Sir Edward Wotton, and Thomas Wotton, Dean of Canterbury.  (I have seen two lists of this Council that differ, one excluding Thomas Seymour but including Sir William Paulet.  While only one or the other could have been on the Council, both were men of considerable power in the first years of the reign of Edward VI.)  Notably excluded from the Council were Stephen Gardiner—Bishop of Winchester and leader of the religious conservatives and Thomas Howard—Duke of Norfolk.  Norfolk was in prison and awaiting execution for treason and while he had supported Henry’s break from Rome was a religious conservative.  Gardiner had been maneuvered out of the King’s favor by those who knew he would block religious reform once the Protestant party could come out into the open after Henry’s death. 

Henry tried to balance his council to draw on the talent of the Protestant faction but with the orthodox party strong enough to hold them in check but in the end he was unsuccessful.  Henry’s increasing health problems left him largely incapacitated in the final years of his reign and his plans for continuity with his policies went all awry.   The omission of Gardiner from the Council of Regency was a huge problem for those who wanted England to stand firm in its ancient faith.  Cranmer, Seymour, Dudley, and Russell were convinced Protestants and anxious to push for radical religious revision once Henry was dead.  Browne was a religious conservative who would have opposed them on the council, but he died in 1548 and so was removed from the group trying to check the Protestants.  Paulet blew with the wind religiously, changing his opinions to suit whoever was in Power, but under Edward that was the Protestant side.  Paget and North seem to be uncommitted religiously, though North tilted a bit to the Catholic side.  Denny and Nicholas Wotton were in the Gardiner party and Edward Wotton presumably shared the religious conservatism of his brother.      Herbert leaned to the Protestant cause.  Tunstall was a rabid conservative who was not only opposed to any religious change but anxious to restore the Roman communion.  Nevertheless, Edward Seymour and Thomas Cranmer had the greatest influence over the young king and in the end there was no checking the Protestant party.  Henry was barely rotting in his grave before a new religious wind blew through England.  

Why Are They Afraid of Pope Francis? 9

In his interview with La Civilta Cattolica/America, Pope Francis said

Pope Francis: Looks friendly--but not to the

pezzi grossi monsignors who are afraid of

losing their desk jobs

Discernment is always done in the presence of the Lord, looking at the signs, listening to the things that happen, the feeling of the people, especially the poor. My choices, including those related to the day-to-day aspects of life, like the use of a modest car, are related to a spiritual discernment that responds to a need that arises from looking at things, at people and from reading the signs of the times. Discernment in the Lord guides me in my way of governing.

Discernment, at least in the tradition of Ignatian spirituality, is something new to the process of governing the Church.  The Church has, at least in the past four centuries, been governed primarily as a rational autocracy—and probably at least since the illnesses of Pius XII in the 1950’s, as a rational bureaucracy.  What do I mean by these terms?

With the rise of royal absolutism in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries as the theories of “Divine Right” and absolute monarchy determined the politics of secular Europe, a corresponding notion developed in the Church—in part, no doubt, by the confusion of roles of the Pope between being a secular monarch and an ecclesiastical superior.  Popes had not always been absolute.  Their direct governance had in the first millennium been pretty much limited to their own See while their influence—as distinct from power—spread over the Western Church.  As papal power began to grow with the popes of the 11^th century Gregorian Reform it was checked and balanced by the power of local bishops, synods, and Councils.  From the 13^th-the 15^th century it was understood that the Roman Pontiff was subject to the authority of an Ecumenical Council. But after the Fifth Lateran Council and especially at Trent, the same sort of absolutism claimed by the Tudors and Stuarts in Britain and the Valois and Bourbons in France, as well as the royal houses of Spain and Portugal, was claimed by the Popes.  One can say that from Lateran V (1512-1517) until today, the Pope is an absolute monarch.  And while Pius IX made some feeble efforts at introducing governmental reforms—one cannot go so far as to say democratic reforms—in the Papal States upon his accession in 1846, there was no corresponding attempt to share governance of the Church until the Decree Christus Dominus of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. 

While Popes in this period could be considered—for the most part—to be wise and discerning shepherds of the faithful, “discernment” was not part of their operating mechanism.  While always cloaked in the most pious of language, decisions and decrees were made for all variety of reasons.   The 1773 Bull, Dominus ac Redemptor which suppressed the Jesuits, can hardly be said to reflect the Divine Will.  It was issued as a result of political pressure from the Courts of France, Spain, and Portugal where strong Masonic influence governed the religious policies and saw the Jesuits as the main resistance to the liberal Enlightenment ideologies they, the Masonic societies, were trying to advance.  Other policies—such as the 1896 Bull, Apostolicae Curae—were motivated by ecclesiastical politics, in this case a desire to undermine the credibility of the Anglican Church so as to maintain the number of converts to Roman Catholicism stemming from the Oxford movement.  Sometimes, Papal Decrees such as Pascendi dominici gregis and Lamentabili sane of Pius X addressed real problems but from a perspective that reflected a failing of personal intellect as well as what might even be termed a paranoia on the part of the Pope himself.  There were, of course, remarkable Popes and some excellent governance in this period, but while Bourbon France and Czarist Russia could also be used as outstanding examples of malfeasant authority, nothing proves the inadequacy of autocracy better than papal government as we have seen over the period of papal autocracy from the sixteenth through the twentieth century.   I think to a great extent that the Second Vatican Council was an attempt to re-direct the barque of Peter from the shoals of such unwise (and unholy) waters such as Mortalium Animos—in which Pope Pius XI condemned the Ecumenical Movement—or Jamdudum cernimus, which provided the basis for the notorious proposition found in they Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX that condemned the idea the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.  Similarly the Conciliar decrees swept away other embarrassing relics of papal absolutism such as condemnations of democratic government and the rights of freedom of conscience.  At the same time, the Council drew from and built on the extensive repertoire of sound papal decrees such as Rerum Novarum, Quadrigesimo Anno, Mediator Dei, Divino Afflante Spiritu, Mystici Corporis, Tra le Sollecitudine, and others.  All in all, the mixed record of Papal autocracy demonstrates that that the governance of the Church was no better—nor no worse—than other autocratic states.  Just because the Holy Spirit is available to those who call on Him (Her?), doesn’t mean that He(She?) is always consulted or that His(Her?) consultation is followed.  But then, when I look at my life, I would have to say the same for my own decision making.   
As for the allegation that rational bureaucracy replaced the rational autocracy that had been the modus operandi of modern popes sometime in the 1950’s, what I mean is that the serious illness and decline in health of Pius XII after 1952 led to that papal autocracy being exercised sub rosa not by the Pope personally but by the machinery of the Papal Curia in the Pope’s name but by their own  authority.  Most papacies through the history of the Church have known the torpor of a Pope’s declining years.  If they are given the opportunity, Popes, like the rest of us, are subject to becoming aged, feeble, and even senile.  For centuries this has not been a problem.  Without modern media it was easy to draw a veil of discrete dignity between a decrepit Pope and the credulous faithful.  Public appearances could be kept to a minimum.  There was no pressing need for an encyclical that couldn’t wait until the new reign.  Most papal business could grind to a halt for a year or two—or five.   Committees could meet and function to confirm elections to episcopal sees (bishops being more normally elected by their chapters than appointed by Rome until the 19^th century).   Government by ministers could function in the Church as it did in the Great European Monarchies during the dotage of the king.  But just as a succession of a new king to the throne gathered power back into the royal hands from the late king’s ministers, so too a new pope quickly overshadowed the Curial bureaucracy and gained control.
The decrepitude of Pius XII presented a different challenge.  While papal ceremonies could be shortened and audiences cut back, the day to day functioning of the Church could not be allowed to slow down in the turbulence of the Post-World War II/Cold War world.  There were huge challenges to be met from the spread of International Communism to the spread of Protestant missionary inroads in Latin America.  An intellectual renaissance triggered in part by Pius’ own 1942 Encyclical Divno Afflante Spiritu was causing concern about a revival of Modernism.  The ideas of Teilhard de Chardin—the Jesuit paleontologist/mystic were causing an uproar about orthodoxy as were the political ideas being advanced by the American Jesuit scholar John Courtney Murray.  In France advocates of the Nouvelle Theologie were upsetting those clinging the neo-Thomism mandated by Leo XIII.  This was no time for a Pope who was not running at full steam.  As usual the Vatican bureaucracy, especially the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office  (formerly known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition—how’s than for a bone-chilling title?) stepped in and took charge.  The final years of Pius XII were not happy ones for the internal life of the Church, but more perilous was that the new Pope, John XXIII, had considerable difficulty trying to wrest power back from the Curia Romana and in particular from the indomitable Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, Head of the Holy Office.  The Curia was taken aback when John, only three months into his papacy,  called a Council.  There was no need, they assured the Pope, of a Council.  He was infallible.  They—no, we meant “he,” the Pope (no, they meant “they” the Curia) could do anything a Council could do.  After writing a lineamenta (agenda) for the Council that would produce some window-dressing but no substantial change, the Curia officials were appalled that the Pope threw their schema out and permitted a commission of Council Fathers to re-set the agenda.  In session after session of the Council, the Curia prelates and their allies battled John’s successor, Paul VI and the proponents of collegiality (shared governance of the Church by the College of Bishops).  When the Council documents were signed, sealed, and delivered the Collegialists had won.  But they went home and the Curialists stayed to “implement the Council.”  They violated a key safety maxim: never leave a wounded animal.  I don’t have to tell you what a disaster that was, especially once John Paul II became Pope.  No Pope—John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I or II, or Benedict XVI—has been able to curb the power of the Curia.  The bureaucracy has taken on a life of its own.  Pope Francis has called in a commission of eight cardinals to “reform” the Curia and not one of the eight is a curialist himself.  Cardinal Guiseppe Bertello who administers the Vatican City State itself is the closest thing to a Curia prelate, but as his duties involve the temporal administration of the Vatican and not ecclesiastical responsibilities for the Holy See he is only on the “margins.”  We will see how successful Pope Francis shall be but there are those who fear, if not for their jobs, for their power and influence.  Good.    

The Foundatios of the Anglican Church XXV

Henry VII Tudor

Well, our story of the Church of England is coming to its crunch—the break with Rome.  We have seen that there has been an uniquely English Church since at least the second century with the early Christian communities in York, Chester, London, and other Roman towns.  These local churches were in communion with the Church at Rome but, given the geographic distance, were quite independent of it.   While they maintained the same beliefs as Christian communities throughout the Empire, they selected their own bishops, developed their own liturgy, and maintained their own practices. At this point of history, the Church at Rome and its bishop served as a focus of unity and orthodoxy among Christians around the known world but did not in any way supervise the vast network of Christian communities stretching from India in the east to Britain in the west.  This English Church only marginally survived the Anglo-Saxon invasions and did so with an infusion of leadership and vitality from the Irish Church which also has an ancient and very distinct (from the Continental Churches, most especially from the Roman Church) history.  This is not to say that the English or Irish Churches were not in communion with Continental Churches but it is to remember that they had their own peculiar customs and rites as well as a hierarchy that was not influenced (much less appointed) by Rome.
We also saw that with Augustine’s mission, sent by Gregory the Great, a second strain of Christianity, one that was influenced by Rome, was introduced into Britain and that it took a while for the these two strains to join together and that in their joining together the English Church retained its ancient rites of Sarum, York, Hereford, and Lincoln as well as a variety of distinctly English customs and usages.  And while the devotion of the Anglo Saxon kings and faithful to Saint Peter strengthened the bonds of England with the papacy, the policy of later kings such as Henry II, John, Edward I, Edward III and Richard II, was to enact legislation limiting papal power in England.  Note, “limiting” not “eliminating.”   The royal policy was to protect the rights of the King in England against intrusions whereby appeals were made over the King to Papal authority both in secular and ecclesial matters.  The Kings saw themselves as governors of the Church as well as of the State, but remember in the Middle Ages, Church and State were inextricably joined in the reality of the nationhood. 
One of the crucial areas where papal and royal authority came into conflict was over the naming of bishops.  While bishops were “elected” by their Cathedral Chapters, both the Crown and the Papacy demanded a voice in the election.  Nominations to a See were usually carefully negotiated so that both King and Pope were satisfied.  However, with the 1393 Statute of Praemunire (there was a 1353 Statute of the same name and a 1306 Statute of Provisors that provided a foundation for these later acts) it was explicitly claimed to be the right of the King alone to “present” candidates for ecclesiastical preferment.  Moreover, the same act declared that "… if any purchase or pursue, or cause to be purchased or pursued in the court of Rome, or elsewhere, any such translations, processes, and sentences of excommunications, bulls, instruments or any other things whatsoever ... he and his notaries, abettors and counsellors" shall be put out of the king's protection, and their lands escheat.” It was forbidden by these various statutes as well for any Englishman to pay any tax or fees to powers outside the realm.   While such was the law, Rome expected its due and in fact the Crown looked the other way while English churchmen applied for their appointments to be confirmed by Rome and while they, the English churchmen, paid the appropriate (or at times, inappropriate) fees to the Roman Curia.   So what we in fact have is a dual allegiance of the Church to both Crown and Papacy and, while the law claimed, or attempted to claim, one thing, in fact the relations of the English Church and Rome were quite cordial and correct.
There was political trouble in England, however.  In 1399 Henry Bolingbroke seized and deposed his cousin, Richard II and claimed the throne for himself.  Richard was a weak and vacillating man at a time when England needed a strong king and Bolingbroke was strong; nevertheless, Bolingbroke—now Henry IV—did not have as strong a claim to the throne as did Edward Mortimer and England entered a period of political instability and civil war.  Henry IV’s grandson, Henry VI, himself was overthrown by Edward Duke of York, a descendent of Edward III.  This was the period known as the Wars of the Roses—the conflicts between the House of York (the white rose) and the House of Lancaster (the red rose).  The Wars of the Roses came to an end when in 1485 Henry Tudor (a Lancastrian) defeated Richard III (of York) who himself had seized the throne by murdering his nephew, Edward V, a boy of twelve. 
To cement the peace, Henry (a Lancastrian) married Elizabeth of York, the daughter of Edward IV.  (A curious side note:  The portrait of Elizabeth of York is the model for the four queens of playing cards: Spades, Clubs, Diamonds, and Hearts.)   

The point of all this is that England, after 1485, was in a newly found and yet unstable peace.  HenryVII Tudor was on the throne but there were other claimants whose rights, by strict rules of primogeniture, were stronger.  Civil War was always a possibility.  England was still a feudal state with a strong nobility and should leading men of that nobility desert King Henry for another claimant such as Edward Plantagenet, the Earl of Warwick or the brothers Edmund and John de la Pole, Dukes of Suffolk, Henry could have been in deep trouble.  In fact, well into the reign of Henry’s son, Henry VIII, the House of Tudor had to worry about maintaining their hold on the Crown.  Political stability was the chief policy of all the Tudors.  And it was the need for political stability in England that would eat away at the bonds of union between the Church of England and the Catholic Communion.  

Foundations of the Anglican Church XIII

The murder of Archbishop

Thomas Becket

The dispute between Canterbury and York over Canterbury’s claim to a primatial jurisdiction over York and the northern dioceses flared up briefly in the reign of King Stephen but there were far more important issues facing England with the Crown being disputed between Stephen and the Empress Matilda, the daughter of Henry I.  This was a time of civil war as Stephen’s having grabbed the throne after the death of his uncle, Henry I, displaced the rightful heir, Henry’s daughter Matilida.  The Barons of England, and the Church as well, were divided in their allegiance.  The issue was, of course, whether a woman could inherit the throne but in this case Stephen’s claim was shaky for while he was  male, his claim to the throne was through his mother, the daughter of William the Conqueror. If a woman could not inherit the throne, her son had no right to it. Moreover, if one were to acknowledge a grandson’s claim through his mother, Matilda herself had a son whose claim would be stronger than Stephen’s—and who, in fact, did eventually succeed to the throne as Henry II.  But we are not only getting ahead of ourselves, we are wandering away from our main point—the contested claims of Canterbury and York and their involvement of the papacy in the dispute.  If faithless to the oath that he swore to Henry I to support his daughter Matilda as Queen, Stephen was otherwise a pious man, especially so when it came to the rights of the Church.  William of Corbeil, Archbishop  of Canterbury, had also ignored the oath he had sworn to Henry to support Matilda, and crowned Stephen in Westminster Abbey on the day after Christmas, 1135.  Archbishop Thurstan of York also supported Stephen’s claim against Matilda. When William of Corbeil died in 1137, Canterbury remained empty for two years until Stephen appointed Abbot Theobald of Bec the new Archbishop.  Despite this appointment, Theobald and Stephen were not to have a good relationship as the Archbishop found himself in conflict with the King’s brother, Henry, who was Bishop of Winchester. Winchester was supposedly suffragen to Canterbury, but Bishop Henry played on being the King’s brother and ignored his Metropolitan Archbishop. The King was caught between his brother and his Archbishop. Stephen also had difficulties with the See of York as King and Pope could not agree on a candidate to serve as Archbishop and candidates proposed by each were refused by the other.  Nevertheless, the issue of primacy remained on a backburner during this time until the realm was more settled with Stephen’s death and the accession of Matilda’s son, Henry of Anjou as Henry II.
During the reign of Henry II the issue of Canterbury’s claim to primacy was inextricably tied to Archbishop Thomas Becket whose turbulent relationship with the King made things way more complicated than they needed to be.  In 1163 both Becket and Roger de Pont l’Evȇque, the Archbishop of York, attended a papally convened council at Tours and argued over who was to be seated senior to whom.  After three wasted days of arguing, Pope Alexander III placed them in places of equal dignity which was a loss to Canterbury’s claim of primacy.  To add insult to injury, the following year Alexander named Roger a papal legate though he exempted Becket’s archdiocese from Roger’s legatine authority.  When Alexander did declare Canterbury to be Primate in 1166, Roger—as papal legate—still held senior honors.  Three weeks later Becket also was named a papal legate, but his authority did not extend over Roger’s Archdiocese.  This left matters somewhat at a draw as far as Roger and Becket personally were concerned, but in fact gave Becket’s Archdiocese a leg up with a recognized primacy.  Roger’s legateship would expire on his death, as would Becket’s, but the primacy did not expire but passed down to the succeeding archbishops. 
Roger infuriated Becket four years after Canterbury was named a primatial see when he, Roger, crowned Henry’s son, Henry, King.  This was in the midst of Becket’s dispute with King Henry and although it was not an unusual practice at the time to crown the successor while the king still lived, King Henry had explicitly designed the coronation of the prince by the Archbishop of York to be a slap at Becket as it was Canterbury’s prerogative to crown the monarch. 
Roger for his part aggravated Becket further by having his (Roger’s) archepiscopal cross carried before him wherever he was in England.  This practice has been discontinued only recently in the Vatican II reforms, but historically a bishop had a second processional cross carried immediately before him in a procession in his own diocese.  An Archbishop would have the cross, in this case specially designed with two crossbars, carried before him throughout his province—that is, in the dioceses suffragen to  him. By having his archepiscopal cross carried before him not only in his own Province of York but also in the Canterbury Province, Roger was claiming a jurisdiction in Becket’s territory.  Finally Pope Alexander had to intervene and demand that Roger stop this provocation.
The battle of the crosses continued, however, under the successors of Roger and Becket, Geoffrey of York and Hubert Walter of Canterbury. Each had his cross carried before him in the other’s province as well as his own and each appealed to King Richard, Henry’s son and heir, for the authority to do so.  Richard declined and referred the matter to Rome.  It was only in the fourteenth century when the Avignon Pope, Innocent VI (1352-62) confirmed the right of each prelate to have the cross carried before him throughout England and gave York the title: Primate of England while giving Canterbury the slightly higher title: Primate of All England.  After the schism under Henry VIII, Parliament enacted a bill giving Canterbury the higher position.  And so it still stands.  The chief winner in this dispute between Canterbury and York was the papacy to which both appealed and which used those appeals to further establish papal power over matters in the English Church.