And if the organization that’s sponsoring the event draws a significant portion of its membership from Anglophiles, many of whom probably adhere to Anglican patrimony, Evensong led by a Catholic presbyter will showcase the preservation of the Anglican patrimony within the Catholic Church.But this raises an issue that's been at the back of my mind for some time. Academic specialists have traced the origin of the Oxford Movement to an identity crisis within Anglicanism that stemmed from the Reform Acts that extended civil rights in the UK to non-Anglicans. Anglicanism had been justified in some measure as a "national confession", but if Catholics, Jews, Quakers, and the like were treated equally under the law, this undermined the idea of a national confession.
My problem for some time has been why Anglo-Catholicism had any appeal in the US, since the US Bill of Rights forbids any establishment of religion, which rules out from the start the sort of discrimination that was addressed in the Reform Acts. Beyond that, the colonies were settled extensively by Reformed Protestants and Methodists who had been opting out of established Anglicanism since the 17th century. So how could US Episcopalians have any identity crisis equivalent to what led to the Oxford Movement in the UK?
My surmise, confirmed by an academic correspondent, is that US Anglo-Catholicism stems from anglophilia -- if they do it that way in the UK, it must be worth doing, irrespective of any actual motive. But in the US, Episcopalians have always been the smallest main line denomination, and far smaller than the current numbers of ex-Catholics. The anglophiles among them have been even fewer, and Anglo-Catholic parishes have been heavily "affirming".
Indeed, my regular correspondent noted,
I have nothing against Charles, King and Martyr but his cult is the definition of a certain kind of Anglo-Catholic preciousness. I can't believe there will be a straight man in attendance.The question for me is whether the Church is putting its efforts here in a good direction -- I'm told that Houston seems to be preparing to fold another group-in-formation early in the coming year.
Yeah, if a bunch of guys want to get buzzed waxing weepy and nostalgic about monarchies, let 'em do it. But the Knights of Columbus seems like a more positive activity, and I seriously doubt the Royal Stewart Club will bring anyone new into the Church.
