Pride and Prejudice: "Anglo-Catholic" fantasies

Here is evidence that the more remote and indefensible of "Anglo-Catholic" historical fantasies can still find a home in the bosom of at least some Anglicans, even today when there is simply no excuse for anyone to believe such unhistorical nonsense.

Here is a post I received from one such correspondent:

"The Anglican Church is one of the three great Catholic faiths: Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican. A study of the history of the time demonstrates that the Church of England did not leave Catholicism, it only left the authority of popes and the Vatican political apparatus. There was no effort to "reform" the faith, only to reform the political machinations which taxed the English people (rents paid to monastic foundations), then gave the money to the rulers of France and Spain so they could make war on England. Henry VIII closed the monasteries to stop that practice.

The simplistic reason often given for the break with Rome is that the pope wouldn't give Henry a divorce from Catherine of Aragon so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. The more complicated reason is that England had suffered terribly through civil war, and without an heir (Catherine did not bear a son), more civil war was a very real threat. (It is quite true that Henry became every woman's worst nightmare husband, and a glutton and a tyrant. That doesn't change the history of the Church of England.)

The beginnings of education of the common people led to and was furthered by translating the Bible and the liturgy into the vulgate -- the common language. This had its precedent when Scripture was translated from Hebrew and Greek into Latin, culminating with Saint Jerome's Vulgate translation.

Anglican priests are ordained in the apostolic succession. Anglican religious orders include Benedictines, Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, Claretians and many others. See: http://orders.anglican.org/arcyb/communities.html.

Since its inception, Anglicanism has been influenced by "dissenters," who wanted to eliminate any traces of Roman Catholicism from their liturgy and doctrines. This has led to "the Church with an identity problem," in which there are Protestant-leaning parishes and Catholic-leaning parishes. But in its pure form, Anglicanism is correctly referred to as Anglo-Catholic".




I had to correct such nonsense even if it meant bursting this correspondent's particular fantasies.

"Your particular fantasies have been so completely, so utterly and so thoroughly demolished by better scholars than I (Newman, for one) that it is hardly necessary for me even to comment.

The Anglican Church is not a church. It is a cautionary tale as to what happens when men try to invent a faith of their own after ignoring God's law.

A study of the history of the time demonstrates amply that the Church of England was the invention of men like Henry VIII and William Cecil to serve their own selfish and political ends.

It is a pure construct of men.

William Cecil, 1st Lord Burghley, the effective consolidator of the Church of England - liar, cheat, robber, murderer and political villain of the first order, he was responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent men and women for no other reason than their religion

Moreover, it could not have left 'the Vatican political apparatus' since there wasn't one.

The popes lived in the Lateran palace at that time, not the Vatican, and began to live in the Quirinal palace more and more after it was built by Pope Gregory XIII in 1573.

They continued to do so until the Italian revolutionaries seized the Papal States in 1870 and later forced the popes to live in the Vatican palace.

Whoops! Another historical boo boo by yet another ill-informed Anglican.

Anglicans make ridiculous statements about the Papacy and the popes without ever bothering to read and research the truth. There is simply no excuse for it.

Go and find out the truth instead of regurgitating prejudice and fiction!

There is, of course, no evidence that English monasteries gave all their rents and taxes to France and Spain, let alone to make war against England.

Henry VIII closed the monasteries in order to steal their property and income which, since they used their income to feed and clothe the poor, was effectively stealing from the poor.

Gin Lane by William Hogarth.
The Protestant Reformation reduced the common people of England to extreme poverty and, often enough, utter destitution and degradation as Hogarth so well illustrated.

You will see that Henry closed the small monasteries first precisely because they were easier prey to his greed.

Read Cobbett's History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland, if you dare. You will get a true picture of what the syphlitic, wife-murdering, robber of the poor, Henry VIII, really did. And Cobbett was an Anglican, by the way.

There is nothing 'complicated' about the fact that Henry divorced Catherine and then took up with other women. Lechery was but one of his many vices.

There is nothing simplistic about condemning his destruction of the monastic system of welfare for the poor just to satisfy his own endless greed.

Ditto his odious murder of his mistresses and many others who got in his way.

The common people were never so persecuted, hunted, harried, down-trodden, ill-educated, starved, beaten and mercilessly oppressed as they were after the Protestant Reformation, as Cobbett amply proves.

St Jerome's vulgate translation was done by, with and through the express authority of the Holy See by whom St Jerome was made a prelate and, later, Doctor, of the Church.

Anglican priests are not ordained in the apostolic succession.

Anglican religious orders are a nice idea but they are outside the Church.

There is no 'pure' form of Anglicanism.

Anglicanism is incorrectly referred to as Anglo-Catholic or Catholic. It is Protestant and has no authority from the Holy Spirit to teach.

That does not mean that Anglicans won't be saved but they must take care to avoid knowingly turning away from what they know (or ought to know) is the truth.

The Anglican 'church' is a false 'church' but with some good people in it.

I encourage you to leave it, join the true Church and so save your soul.

If you wish me to recommend some good clergy to whom you might go for instruction in the true faith, I would be very happy to do so.

In the meantime, God guide and bless you and, above all, help you to instruct yourself accurately about historical truth".

And there is a great deal more one could write about the Anglican Church but that will do for the present, I think.

Queen Elizabeth I: one of the most odious of tyrants ever to mis-govern England

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Replying to the Animal Libbers: man is not a beast but made in God's image

I have been replying to an Anglican who claims that animal liberationism is Biblical and who criticises the Catholic Church for not being interested in rights.

Once again, we see the image of Satan trying to get Christians to accept beliefs that are fundamentally opposed to Christianity and to pretend that there is no difference between them and Christian beliefs. Thus does the Father of Lies work.

Between radical Animal Liberationism and God there can never be any compromise because they are utterly opposed to each other. God is truth and love; animal liberationism is an attempt to turn man into a beast.

Here's what I wrote to him:

"There is always something peculiarly odious about an Anglican attempting to lecture Catholics about human rights, especially when one considers the utterly appalling – nay, near-satanic – abuse by Anglicans of the human rights of Roman Catholics that has been, for most of its history, one of the primary hallmarks and dirty little secrets of the Anglican Church.

For sheer hypocrisy there are few things as rank as Anglican hypocrisy toward Catholics and especially on the issue of human rights.

Some of the most odious penal laws ever then invented to oppress Christian men were devised by an Anglican Parliament for the ill-treatment of British and Irish Roman Catholics.

They included, among others: 25 Henr. VIII c.22 (1534); 26 Henr. VIII c.1 (1534); 1 Eliz. I c.1 (1559); 1 Eliz. I c.2 (1559); 13 Eliz. I c.1 (1571); 13 Eliz. I c.2 (1571); 23 Eliz. I c.1 (1581); 27 Eliz. I c.2 (1585); 1 Jac. I c.4 (1604); 3 & 4 Jac. I c.4 (1606); 3 & 4 Jac. I c.5 (1606); 3 Carol. I c.2 (1628).

King Henry VIII, the wife-murdering founder of the Church of England who was the first to bring in horrific laws persecuting Catholics and depriving them of their human rights

Thereafter, came the Test and Corporation Acts.

The Corporation Act of 1661 required that, besides taking the Oath of Supremacy, all members of corporations were within one year after election to receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper according to the rites of the Church of England.

This act was followed by the Test Act of 1673 (the full title of which is “An act for preventing dangers which may happen from popish recusants”).

This act enforced upon all persons filling any office, civil or military, the obligation of taking the oaths of supremacy and allegiance and subscribing to a declaration against transubstantiation and also of receiving the Anglican sacrament within three months after admittance to office.

Catholics were thus precluded from holding any kind of public office, in the state, in the law, in the Services, in the Universities, even as Schoolmasters, both by reason of their being Catholics and also by reason of such office-holders having to swear an anti-Catholic oath.

At that time the Penal Laws against Catholics meant that those who did not attend the services of the Church of England every week and take the Anglican Communion 3 times a year were guilty of “recusancy” and were to be fined either £20 a month (a vast sum then) or 2/3rd of their income as the government chose.

This was a requirement most offensive to the consciences of Catholics who were only permitted to receive the Catholic Holy Communion and were, in conscience, forbidden to attend the services of non-Catholic churches.

Furthermore, it was felony to attend the Catholic mass and Catholic priests and those who sheltered them were to be hanged until half dead, then, while still alive, gutted from the genitals to the rib-cage and their internal organs removed and burnt before their eyes, their hearts being ripped out last and held up to the gaze of a blood-thirsty crowd, and then, finally, the lifeless body cut into four parts and displayed on pikes on the city gates or elsewhere.

It was a most disgustingly brutal and savage punishment deliberately preserved and made use of by the very Anglicans who claimed to be opposed to “cruel and unusual punishments”.

Utter, utter hypocrisy and cruelty of the most disgusting, foul and bloody kind.

No-one coming from this Church tradition has any business lecturing anybody else about human rights.

And yet with wonderful hypocrisy you write: “the Catholic Church... has a reputation for opposing humanitarian, progressive movements throughout history – merciful progressive causes such as slavery et alia, now animals”.

Actually, when Anglicans and other Protestants were still arguing in favour of human slavery and the slave trade, the Catholic Church had long since condemned it.

See my posts at:

http://romanchristendom.blogspot.com/2007/10/anti-slavery-and-spanish-empire-where.html

http://romanchristendom.blogspot.com/2008/01/recent-correspondent-thinks-that-all.html

The Rev Cotton Mather, a Protestant, referred to black people as “Adam’s degenerate seed” and Anglicans in large numbers were profiting from the slave trade. Even Gladstone inherited a fortune made from slaving.

But you Anglicans always have a way of going about with your eyes shut to truths that you do not like.

Actually, the Catholic Church has long since earned a reputation for being a champion of real human rights.

It is the Anglican Church which has an odious and tainted reputation for grossly ignoring the human rights of others and for spilling oceans of innocent human blood.

Try reading William Cobbett’s savage indictment of the Anglican oppression of minorities, Catholics and the poor in A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland.

And Cobbett was himself an Anglican, so he cannot be accused of bias.

Frankly Catholics and others are no longer interested in the tired old lies and hypocrisy exhibited by all too many Anglicans.

So you will forgive us if we take your talk of human rights, compassion and care with a very large mountain of salt!

Your claim to go with Abraham Lincoln does not help you either.

Abraham Lincoln was an unbeliever who planned to expel all blacks from America

Since the 1840s Lincoln had been an advocate of the American Colonization Society program of colonizing blacks in Liberia. See his 1854 speech in Illinois.

Lincoln appointed the Protestant Minister, Rev James Mitchell, as his Commissioner of Emigration to oversee colonization projects from 1861 to 1865.

Between 1861 and 1862 Lincoln actively negotiated contracts with businessmen to colonize freed Blacks in Panama and on a small island off the coast of Haiti.

The Haiti plan collapsed in 1862 and 1863 after swindling by the business agents responsible for the plan, prompting Lincoln to send ships to retrieve the colonists.

The much larger Panama contract fell through in 1863 after the government of Catholic Colombia backed away from the deal and expressed hostility to colonization schemes.

In 1862 Lincoln also convened a colonization conference at the White House where he addressed a group of freedmen and attempted to convince them of supporting his policy.

Despite the setbacks in Panama and Haiti, Lincoln discussed plans to renew his push for colonization during his second term.

About a week before the assassination, Maj-Gen Benjamin F. Butler recalls a meeting with Lincoln at the White House, in which Lincoln asked him "But what shall we do with the negroes after they are free?".

He then asked Butler to consult Secretary of State William H. Seward and devise a colonization program for Panama.

Butler would oversee the transfer beginning with the deployment of the United States Coloured Troops to the isthmus, where they would be employed digging a Panama Canal.

So much for the “great” Abraham Lincoln. In fact, Lincoln was no Christian but a self-confessed unbeliever.

If you are an animal liberationist and pro-life then you also oppose the euthanasia of animals, including fleas, pests, poisonous animals and other dangers to human life.

That is plainly ridiculous in which case, if you are honest with yourself, your position is either inconsistent or else not pro-life.

The quality of your mercy is indeed highly selective.

Your next deception is to claim – without any evidence – that Hitler was not a vegetarian.

The fact is that he was not only a vegetarian, he was also an animal liberationist.

Go to this post on my site and you can see for yourself how wrong you are:

http://romanchristendom.blogspot.com/2008/10/st-hubert-against-fanatics.html

So cut the cackle, Barry, and face the facts.

It may be inconvenient for you that Hitler was a veggie in principle and an animal-libber but truth does not become false merely because it is inconvenient.

Hitler did rarely and hypocritically eat meat but so do many moderns who call themselves vegetarians. Hypocrisy among vegetarians (or Nazis for that matter) is nothing new.

Another Animal rights loony who wanted to change the world his way

Your Scripture quotes are also a mendacious deception.

You mention Gen 1:29-30 but omit verses 26-28 which say:

“26 And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth. 27 And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth.”

Plain as a pikestaff! Animals are under man’s dominion, Barry. And Man was made in the image of God but no mention of animals being so made.

Isaiah 11:6-9 (“the lion shall lie down with the lamb) is a reference to heaven and the new earth at the end of time since – plainly – the lion does NOT currently lie down with the lamb but instead eats it.

Revelation 5 is also about heaven and the new earth but – please note – it also talks about the “lamb that was slain” which is both Christ and the Passover lamb. No Passover lamb – no Christ. The eating of meat was central to the religion of the Jews. No veggies they!

Proverbs 12:10 confers no rights upon animals but merely enjoins the just man to regard his beasts i.e. to tend them so that they can later be used for food and –arguably – not to be unnecessarily cruel to them. But that is an obligation upon humanity for man’s own good – not because the animal has any “rights”.

Genesis 9 says the opposite of what you say:

“And God blessed Noah and his sons. And he said to them: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth. 2 And let the fear and dread of you be upon all the beasts of the earth, and upon all the fowls of the air, and all that move upon the earth: all the fishes of the sea are delivered into your hand. 3 And every thing that moveth and liveth shall be meat for you: even as the green herbs have I delivered them all to you: 4 Saving that flesh with blood you shall not eat.”

“Everything that moveth and liveth shall be meat to you” – what could be clearer?

Jews follow the Old Testament and are happy to eat meat

The only flesh that cannot be eaten is flesh with the blood still in it which, as we know, is what orthodox Jews and Moslems continue to do to this day in Kosher and Halal kitchens.

But note this, Barry: THEY STILL EAT MEAT.

Got it?

Animals are not merely “companions” for men. A true companion for man must be another being with a rational soul e.g. other men, angels or God. Animals are for man’s “use”.

It is quite clear even from your own quotes from the Bible that animals were made for man’s use. Yet you still claim that you “go with the Bible”. Sorry, Barry, but you just don’t.

Romans 8:19-23 does not confer any rights upon animals it merely says that corruption shall cease in heaven. That is hardly surprising since there can be no corruption (i.e. death and decay) in heaven, even of animals.

Your chatter about Greek influences on Aquinas shows how little you know him or his work since the greatest influence on him is Scripture and the teaching of the Church.

The only thing you are right about is that the current concept and terminology of human rights isn’t old or Biblical but based upon secular values brought in by the Enlightenment 200 years ago.

You are also correct to say that for a Christian “rights are rooted in God’s creation of us, His sustenance, redemption and concern for our welfare”.

But this is not only for Christians.

This is the meaning of the phrase “the Natural Law”. It is a law of God that is written in the hearts of all men, including those who are not Christian. It is a creation ordinance for men e.g. like not doing murder.

You go wrong in the very next sentence when you say “but all this also applies to animals”.

Says who?

No-one except the loony animal liberationists.

You have no Scriptural, doctrinal or any other Christian authority for your additional claim, at all.

None whatsoever.

It’s baloney.

Not only that, it is baloney that came in with the Enlightenment – the very secular values that you claim to repudiate.

You write: “We are made in the image of God, which means we should behave better”.

Better than what?

Better than animals?

Ah, so they are NOT made in the “image of God” then? Well, then, they are inferior.

On the other hand, if you say they ARE made in the “image of God” then why should we behave better than them when, by your own analogy, they should also behave “better” for the same reason.

But, of course, they don't. They brutally savage each other, kill each other, rip each other up and eat each other, every day.

It is customary to refer to a brutal or savage person as "an animal" indicating that they are behaving like a mere beast instead of a man and that the two are fundamentally different in kind and character and soul.

Your whole argument is an illogical non-sequitur from beginning to end.

It is also totally, completely and radically unbiblical.

Indeed, it is a reversion to that savage, cruel heathenism in which men behaved like animals and treated each other like animals because they thought of themselves as mere animals.

The sad reality is that it is loony animal liberationists like Hitler who have often been the biggest disaster for mankind and for creation.

Is that the destination you really want to travel to?

Take care – you will certainly find Hell at the end of it".

Cronos devouring his children. Francisco de Goya (1746-1828).
If we are all animals and animal eat each other, then shall we be returning to the Greek "god" Cronos who ate his own children? Cronos was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titans, divine descendants of Gaia, the earth, and Ouranos, the sky. Jealous of his own children Cronos ate them. Animals sometimes eat their own children, too. Men who eat men are called "cannibals" and are regarded with horror by civilisation and civilised society.

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Assertio Septem Sacramentorum - Henry VIII defends the Catholic Church and the Pope!

Amazing but true!

Read here how the old rogue, in his earlier days, defended both Pope and Emperor against the villainous Luther.

Henry was at pains to defend Pope Leo X as well as the Roman Emperor Charles V, nephew to his wife, Catherine of Aragon.

Not a hint of Protestantism in Henry's views can be seen. Indeed, he considered himself a Catholic until the end of his days, despite his later monumental split from Rome.

In reality, the split with Rome was occasioned by his wish to divorce Catherine for giving him no sons, coupled with his desire for other women, beginning with Anne Boleyn.

However, at this time, he was a bold defender of the Catholic Church, the Pope and the Emperor and for his Assertio Septem Sacramentorum the Pope awarded him the title Fidei Defensor, Defender of the Faith, a title kept by his successors, despite their being anti-Catholic Protestants and despite the title having so papal an origin. Even today, Queen Elizabeth II retains the title of Fidei Defensor which title appears on the currency of the Realm after her name.

It was later asserted that Henry had not written the book but that it had been written by St Thomas More but More denied this and said that he had advised the King on various points of common law when asked, but no more. It was "from first to last the King's own project" said More, when under interrogation by Thomas Cromwell, Secretary to the King's Council, and principal despoiler and destroyer of the monasteries and of the Catholic Faith in England. Cromwell was beheaded only 5 years after More so his lies, destruction and murdering did him no good even in purely worldly terms.

The King's work has now been re-printed by St Gabriel Communications International at this site:

http://www.saintgabriel.com.au/store/

Henry wrote a letter to the Pope on the subject of his work which gives you a feeling for the sense of it.

Henry VIII’s Letter to Pope Leo X on the subject of his book Assertio Septem Sacramentorum

Most Holy Father:

No duty is more incumbent on a Catholic sovereign than to preserve and increase the Christian faith and religion and the proofs thereof, and to trans­mit them preserved thus inviolate to posterity, by his example in preventing them from being destroyed by any assailant of the Faith or in any wise impaired.

So, when we learned that the pest of Martin Luther's heresy had appeared in Germany and was raging everywhere, without let or hindrance, to such an extent that many, infected with its poison, were falling away, especially those whose furious hatred rather than their zeal for Christian Truth had prepared them to believe all its subtleties and lies; we were so deeply grieved at this heinous crime of the German nation (for whom we have no light regard), and for the sake of the Holy Apostolic See, that we bent all our thoughts and energies on up­rooting in every possible way, this cockle, this heresy from the Lord's flock.

When we perceived that this deadly venom had advanced so far and had seized upon the weak and ill-disposed minds of so many, that it could not easily be overcome by a single effort, we deemed that nothing could be more efficient in destroying the contagion than to declare these errors worthy of condemnation, after they had been examined by a con­vocation of learned and scholarly men from all parts of our realm.

This course of action we likewise recommended to a number of others. In the first place, we earnestly entreated His Imperial Majesty, through our fraternal love for him, and all the electoral princes, to bethink them of their Christian duty and their lofty station and to destroy this pernicious man, together with his scandalous and heretical publications, after his re­fusal to return to God.

But convinced that, in our ardour for the welfare of Christendom, in our zeal for the Catholic Faith and our devotion to the Apostolic See, we had not yet done enough, we determined to show by our own writings our attitude towards Luther and our opinion of his vile books; to manifest more openly to all the world that we shall ever defend and uphold the Holy Roman Church, not only by force of arms but by the resources of our intelligence and our services as a Christian.

For this reason we have thought that this first attempt of our modest ability and learning could not be more worthily dedicated than to your Holiness, both as a token of our filial reverence and an acknowledgment of your careful solicitude for the weal of Christendom.

We feel assured that our first fruits will be enhanced in value if it be approved by the wholesome judgment of your Blessedness. May you live long and happily!

From our Royal Palace at Greenwich, the twenty-first day of May, 1521.

Your Holiness' most devoted and humble son,

Henry,

by the grace of God King of England and France, and Lord of Ireland.


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