The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1922-05-06


Sermon By ARCHBISHOP BOWLING |
Continued from Page -
through papal exemptions there was
nothing left for them to do in their
dioceses Yet the absence of the Bsh-
OPP from his diocese and his failure to
function as Bishop when in resi-
dence, was recognized to be one of the
chief causes of the Reformation.
Bishops During Reformation.
Time and again, the history of the
Church has shown that the role of
the episcopate, as it is of divine in
stitution, is indispensable to the life
of the Church in any given country.
When Henry VIII broke with the Holy
See, the center of Catholic unity, he
drew with him all the courtier Bish-
ops of the land, save only the martyr
Fisher. They remained with him in
schism until his death. Then with
the coming of Edward, they saw clear
ly the drift of the movement they had
done so little to check. Mary's short
reign meant the restoration of the old
hierarchy. Then came Elizabeth at
moment when, the Primate dead,
many sees were vacant, many held by
! extremely aged Bishops. Yet only one
of the sixteen, Kitchin of Llanlaff,
| took the oath of supremacy and was
| not deprived of his see. A general be-
wilderment possessed Catholic coun-
ellis. All sorts of remedies were
| thought ola Scottish queen, Span
| ish king, among others-but the old
| Bishops died, one after the other,
some in the Tower, some in the care
] of their usurpihg successors. One,
Geldwell of st. Asaph, absent upon
| the continent at the time of the depri-
walton, lived for many years, but new
er ventured to return. AS see after
see became vacant, no attempt was
| made to fill them, and soon the strong
| est opposition was raised to the es-
| tablishment of an episcopal govern
| ment by misguided Catholics who
| forgot the catacombs. The whole
country began to receive priests from
the new colleges of Douay, of Rome,
| of SPAIN They came with the cOur-
age of martyrs and many Of them met
their tragic deaths on places as sa-
cred to Catholic memories as Tyburn
| Hill. The Jesuits soon came as ca
! pable, as fearless, as the best of their
| brethren. The Benedictines, the Fran
ciscans sought equally to labor in a
country so suddenly turned from the
deepest devotion to the Church into
the bitterest hatred of it. There is
no more thrilling page than that
which tells of the steadfastness, the
constancy the courage of these brave
men and women who laid down their
lives so gladly for the old faith. Yet
in large measure, it was thrown
away, for though they were saints and
blessed martyrs, yet in human way,
they lacked cohesion, prudence, direc-
ton. The priests became chaplains of
the gentry and the surviving Church
the prey of a partisan cause. When
| Bishops came, a century later, the
Catholics of England were hopelessly
divided and only "the new people,
the converts and the Irish immigra-
tion-which the sanity Bishop Chal-
Toner foresaw, saved that Church from
utter extinction. Yet wise and holy
| men once thought that in a field so
unprepared for heresy, so richly at
| tuned to Catholic thought as was the
England of Elizabeth's day, the
Church could survive and be restored
| through other means than that of a
devoted episcopate.
| Had not Napoleon restored the hier-
archy in France in 1903, the Church
would be nonresident there today.
| Not that there were not millions of
loyal Catholics left in that afflicted
| country after thirteen years of epis-
| copal deprivation, but that the life of
| religion was ebbing away. There
were many with the courage of mar
tyrs but none with the sense or the
warrant of direction, none appointed
to rule the Church of God which He
had purchased with His blood.
Origin of American Episcopate.
The Church of this country began in
the old Colonial days as a mission
from England in which Bishops were
neither welcomed nor desired IT
endured for one hundred seventy
years without vigor, without growth.
Reduced, inundated, isolated, it min
istered to it's few chapels without con-
seriousness of the increase of the Cath
Ollie population or sense of respon-
sibility towards any other field than
that which it had inherited Almost
unwillingly, as if violating sacred
tradition of inertia, John Carroll be-
came the first Bishop of Baltimore in
1890. The day of his conservation,
however, marked the beginning of a
new era for the Church of America.
Its horizon was enlarged, it's courage
i renewed, it's scope made ample as its
needs. A new spirit possessed it,
and it was here to stay, to enlarge it's
i tents, to be part of a nation whose
language. thought, life it shared and
sympathized with.
The hierarchy thus happily begun
has grown in hundred and thirty
years one hundred fold, and we now
number one hundred sees, dioceses