Anglo-catholicism

Anglo-catholicism. Developing rapidly from original tractarianism in the late 19th cent., it reached its peak in the 1920s and 1930s. Charles Gore, with Halifax as lay leader for 50 years, transformed old tractarianism from a marginal phenomenon into the central force in the church; he achieved what Newman could not. Whereas tractarianism had stressed Anglican continuity from ancient times, extreme Anglo-catholicism became eventually a copy of ultramontane Roman catholicism, but at its best it was socialist in ethos, pastorally vigorous in socially deprived areas, such as east London and Portsea, with Lang and Garbett as incumbents, where the rest of the church was apathetic. After establishing more frequent communion, they added the trappings of candles, vestments, incense, reservation of the sacrament, and confession, but extremists went further with every Roman practice, including weekly non-communicating high mass and benediction, which appalled old tractarians. Bishop King of Lincoln was tried for excess (1890). Davidson, favouring comprehension, nevertheless prohibited benediction and devotions to the sacrament, but in vain. In the 1920s, with evangelicalism weakened, Anglo-catholicism was the moving force. The failure of Prayer Book revision (1928) encouraged extremists to use the Roman rite, just when a continental contrary wind, the liturgical movement, was blowing and young intellectuals such as Ramsey, Dix, and Farrer were developing a liberal catholicism. The 1960s devastated old Anglo-catholicism, while the evangelicals at Keele, by responding, weathered the radical storm. Moreover, the second Vatican Council (1962–5) by ‘protestantizing’ catholic liturgy and throwing out petty liturgical paraphernalia and birettas left the old-style Anglo-catholics an isolated group, for whom the ordination of women (1990s) became a major stumbling-block.

Revd Dr William M. Marshall