The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1915-01-09
PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD
ANGLICAN ARCHBISHOP'S SER
MON-ALLEGED ABUSES IN
MEDIEVAL CHURCH..
written Specially for The Catholic
BulIetin.)

One result of the present war is
likely to be deeper appreciation on
the part of Protestants of the truth
that it is a wholesome and proper
custom on the part of Christians to
pray for the dead. That this is likely
to be so amongst Anglicans is very
clear from what was said in recent
sermon by the Anglican Archbishop
of Canterbury, and the approving COM
ments upon that sermon by Anglican
weeklies which cannot be accused of
Catholic" tendencies. In the course
of the sermon to which we refer, after
abiding to the fearful toll of death
taken by the war, the Archbishop
said: Never were so many homes
in mourning, and from them often
went UP a cry, spoken or mspoken.
That cry does not, l think, mean I'M
belief. There is no lack of faith or of
courage. But we (his hear
ers and all Protestants) should be on
our guard lest in one who reverently
prayed and wondered we discouraged
the upraising of the devout soul in
prayer for the loved one out of sight"
In the first part of our quotation the
Archbishop evidently. alludes to the
attitudes Of those who in the presence
of such dreadful carnage ask if there
can be God Who permits it; in the
second part there is just such an allu-
sion to prayers for the dead as we
should expect to fall from the Arch
bishops lips. For he goes on to say:
eve CHS hearers and all Protestants)
are not unmindful of the abuses of
later medieval times. We are aware
that on account of them and to avoid
the dangers of them no explicit
prayers for the departed were admit
ted into the public Offices of the Can
glican) Church. | have no censure to
pass on the men who thus handled the
difficulties that faced them in their
time" Not in any spirit of factious
criticism, but in the spirit of Christian
charity, we are moved to ask if it
is not possible that allegations of
abuses so frequent in the writings of
controyersialists unfriendly to the
Church in those days might not be
just as likely to be exaggerations as
are many of the allegations of abuses
in the writings of similar controver-
Sialists in our own time. The abuse
of anything is to be deplored, but
when the allegation that an abuse eX-
lists proceeds from those whose self
interest it is to make it, surely we
cannot accept it as necessarily true.
True history is today so fast and SO
largely disproving so much of what we
have hitherto been taught to accept
as history that we wonder how anyone
in the Archbishops position should
accept as a fact what has been so
largely disproved. Abuses there may
have been in the medieval Church,
for abuses there must and will be in
all ages of the Church; but none know
better than learned Anglicans that, all
abuses or alleged abuses admitted
never were men so fervent in their
religion and SO punctilious in the per
Torrance of their religious duties as
when those abuses or alleged abuses
existed. DR.. Hermitage Day, an Angli-
can, in his pamphlet entitled 'The Eve
of the Reformation" page 25) writes:
''Yet when all the ills of the time
have been recounted, we can but adj
NIT that the religion of Englishmen
in the 18th century was very real and
deep-rooted. The energy and sacrifice
of their devotion has left mark on
the land Whence came all
this wealth of art? Not from the rich
only, and still less, though many cher
ish the idea, from the monks, but from
the people themselves. For
the corporate life was strong. Men
loved their churches and gave gener-