The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-07-26
MO CATHOLICISM
N OLD ENGLAND
Significant Ceremony Is Wit
messed at Charing Station.
BENEOICTINES WELCOMED
The Wheel Is Come Full Circle
Indeed Think Many.
BENEOICTINES WELCOMED

London. July 25.-A strangely significant
little ceremony has just taken place at
Charing Cross Station. where a deputa-
ton of English Roman Catholics well
coined back 10 their own country the
English Benedctines. expelled from
Douai The wheel is come full circle.
indeed, when France banishes and Eng
land welcomes the brethren Of ST. Bene-
dict. and three hundred years and more
of perilous and intricate history were
summed up in that meeting on the plat
form of Charing Cross. Nor was the
place as unapt settling for such
scene as might appear 10 casual glance.
, though a railway station is not as rule
instinct with the romance of history. For
almost within a stones throw stands all
that yet remains TO us of old Whitehall,
and but a little farther. il one follows
the curve of the street past the enerance
TO ST. James Park, where the Horse
Guards keep watch like statues of scar
let and steel, the spire and buttresses OF
Westminster lift mist-gray by steel
gray river OF all that is suggested by
the great Benedictine abbey it is impos-
sible TO speak in passing, for IT is in truth
no less than English history. from the
days of Edward the Confessor 10 our
own. But Whitehall has its own links
with the Order of st. Benedict 1t has
been truly observed that when Henry
VIII. removed his court from Westmin-
ster with its traditional sanctties he
smyboized the breaking away of the ma
ton from the dominance of the Church
Wolsey's York House, claimed from its
magnificent owners, became royal White
hall and witnessed strange vicissitudes
of warning faiths. Dairy days for the old
faith were those times of levelling the
ancient structure and laying the new
foundations.
James IL being no adept in his recon-
Citation of this world and the next. the
penalty for his allegiance 10 the Church
of Rome Sardonic last memorial of the
last Stuart king. Whitehall was to keep
the weathervane surmounted by cross.
which James watched in fear of the winds
which were bringing William of Orange
to England. With the fight of James
passed away the Catholics hopes of a
political supremacy in England. and the
exiled King went forth to rest at last in
the shelter of a Benedictine abbey, though
it was that of ST Edmund in Paris. and
not of St Peter in royal Westminster.
And now exiles in turn from France.
the brothers of ST Benedict return 10 an
England which is stirred by a deep and
wistful interest in the ancient church,
an interest revealed in lituI gical modi-
fications theological discussions. and In
the sensitive record OF the moments fic-
tion. To enter into the question of neo-
Catholicism in England would be. how
ever. TO stray in paths more bewilderins
than those of historical Renaissance.
Without specializing as to the future. ii
may suffice that the power OF the Black
Monks has reached from the rocky gorge
of Subiaco, near Rome, where Benedict
in his hermit cell received the homage
Of Totila. the Gothic King. and has
stretched to the shores Of the New World.
For when Bishop John Carroll the
founder of the American hierarchy. was
consecrated at Lulworth it was an Eng
lish Benedctine who laid hands upon
him" So much Of ancient dominion and
new achievement was suggested when
the English Catholics welcomed back
the Benedictine exiles OF Douai.