You
can find Part 1 of my posts on Robert
Hugh Benson’s confessional memoir, Confessions
of a Convert, here. I presented this little chapter by chapter
summary on that post but I think it’s a handy enough guide to post again.
Chapter
I: Describes his upbringing and spiritual development.
Chapter
II: His first doubts about the Church of England.
Chapter
III: His four years at the Community of the Resurrection gave him an
appreciation for Roman Catholic type of devotions.
Chapter
IV: In 1902, while writing one of his books, “The Light Invisible” he began to
realize the inherent contradictions within Anglican theology and began
realizing the harmonious integration within the Roman Catholic Church.
Chapter
V: While reading various theological treatises, and then especially finding the
claims of Rome as having primacy among churches in the New Testament itself,
Benson was satisfied that the Church of Rome had full authority concerning
doctrine.
Chapter
VI: Having come to that realization, Benson is now thrown into a state of
uneasiness and tries to give the Church of England another chance at resolving
his intellectual and spiritual crises.
Chapter
VII: He makes a final decision to renounce the Church of England and enters the
Roman Catholic Church.
Chapter
VIII: His full expression of joy in joining the Church Christ instituted and
what it has meant to him.
Here
are my comments from chapters three through seven. Chapter Eight is such a magnificent piece of
writing that I will dedicate an entire final post to it. So stay tuned.
On
Chapter III.
(1)
"Benson spends four
happy years with the community of Mirfield Brethren, a religious community
whose “external life was a modification of the old Religious Rules and
resembled, so far as I understand, a kind of combination of the Redemptorist
and the Benedictine.”
It's hard to imagine what
a "combination of Redemptorist and the Benedictine" community would
be like. Redemptorist are missionary while Benedictine are monastic.
(2)
It was his time in
Mirfield that set him into doubt about the Church of England. This passage I
think is very important:
Originally, as a
"Moderate High Churchman," I had held that the Church of England, in
her appeal and in her supposed resemblance to the "Primitive" Church,
was the most orthodox body in Christendom; that Rome and the East on the one
side had erred through excess; and the Non-conformist bodies on the other
through defect, and these, further, through their loss of episcopal succession,
had forfeited any corporate place in the Visible Body of Christ. But this
doctrinal position had long ago broken down under me. First, I had seen the
impossibility of believing that for about a thousand years the promises of
Christ had failed—between, that is, the fifth or sixth century and the
Reformation period—and that corruption during all this space of time had marred
the original purity of the Gospel. Next, I had begun to perceive that in the
Church of Christ there must be some Living Voice which, if not actually
infallible, must at least be taken to be such—some authoritative person or Council
who could pass judgment upon new theories and answer new questions. I had
attempted, strangely enough, to find this Living Voice in the Book of Common
Prayer and the Articles—to seek in them, that is to say, a final immediate
interpreter of remote Primitive and Apostolic Faith. But now I had learned the
fallacy of such an attempt, since even these formularies could be, and were,
taken in completely divergent senses: the Ritualist, for instance, finds that
the Prayer Book Catechism teaches the Objective and Real Presence of Christ in
the Sacrament, and the Low Churchman claims it as teaching Receptionism. Then,
when I had looked despairingly to the only elements in the Church of England
which bear any resemblance at all to a Living Voice—the decisions of
Convocation, the resolutions of Pan-Anglican Conferences, and the utterances of
Bishops—I found, either that these were divided amongst themselves, or that
they refused to answer, or, at the worst, that they answered in a manner which
I could not reconcile with what I was convinced was the Christian Faith. The
"Moderate High Church" theory, then, had broken down so far as I was
concerned, and I had been forced, it seemed to me, both by logic and the
pressure of circumstances, to seek some other theory as the foundation of my
faith. This I found, for the time, in the Ritualistic School. It was as
follows.
It's probably hard for us
to understand what a "moderate High Church" is, but the fact of such
a fine categorizations existed I think shows the turmoil that the CofE was
undergoing. There was an incredible tension within its theology. If it became
too Papist, the congregants saw the error of its ways; if it became too
Calvinist, it didn't feel theologically sound. So it tried to create fine
distinctions.
On
Chapter IV:
(1)
“I was an official of a
church that did not seem to know her own mind even on matters directly
connected with the salvation of the soul.”
Yes, that is what I was
referring to when I gave that outline of Anglicanism. The inherent
contradiction between the low church (Evangelical from Calvin) with the high
Church Catholic.
Joseph Pearce, who has
written many books and is a great scholar and I believe a convert to
Catholicism from Anglicanism has often talked about how deeply Roman Catholic
England was before Henry VIII. It wasn't just Catholic, it was as devout as any
country. Even Henry VIII was supposed to be "defender of the faith"
before he became completely egotistical. Somehow I suspect he lost his sanity.
But it caused an incredible convulsion in English life from which it could only
stabilize with an theologically flawed religion.
One of the great old
Catholic shrines in England is that of Our Lady of Walsingham. You can read
about it here.
I still hold out hope
that the land of Catholic William Shakespeare will one day return to its proper
faith. OLofW, pray for us and pray for the British people.
(2)
Well, my two cents on
whether or Protestants or Catholics are more emotional is this. It depends what
you're looking at. I've seen Catholics get pretty emotional in practicing their
faith too. It depends on what angle you are looking at, if that makes sense.
Perhaps Benson is
referring to Protestants not really having a St. Augustine or a St. Thomas
Aquinas, and so not having the intellectual rigor. Or he could be referring to
Martin Luther, who was pretty emotional in his breaking with the church, or
even Henry VIII in his.
I've seen Fr. Dwight
Longenecker, a fairly intellectual contemporary Catholic make the case that
Catholicism of the last couple of hundred years has drifted into
sentimentalism. He talks about it here but he's got other articles where he
details it as well and perhaps more fully.
My point being, there are
elements of emotionalism to almost everything.
On
Chapter V
I think this section
should be quoted:
But the Petrine claim
needs no digging: it lies like a great jewel, blazing on the surface, when once
one has rubbed one's eyes clear of anti-Catholic predisposition. The "One
Foundation" declares that on "Cephas" He will build His Church:
the Good Shepherd bids the same Cephas, even after he has forfeited, it might
seem, all claims on his Lord, to "feed his sheep"; the
"Door" gives to Peter the "Keys." In all I found
twenty-nine passages of Scripture—since then I have found a few more—in which
the Petrine prerogative is at any rate implied, and I found not one contrary to
or incompatible with its commission. I published these in a small pamphlet soon
after my submission.
Yes, that is the
justification for Rome as being the central authority of Christianity.
On
Chapter VI
In this chapter Benson
has a discussion with a “dignitary” from the Church of England in the hopes
that he can persuaded him from conversion.
But just the very opposite happens:
The dignitary with whom I
stayed a day or two, and who was also extremely forbearing did not, I think,
understand my position. He asked me whether there were not devotions in the
Roman Church to which I felt a repugnance. I told him that there were — notably
the popular devotions to Our Blessed Lady. He then expressed great surprise
that I could seriously contemplate submitting to a communion in which I should
have to use method of worship of which I disapproved. I tried in vain to make
it clear that I proposed becoming a Roman Catholic not because I was
necessarily attracted by her customs, but because I believed that Church to be
the Church of God, and that therefore if my opinions on minor details differed from
hers, it was all the worse for me; that I had better, in fact, correct my
notions as soon as possible, for I should go to Rome not as a critic or a teacher,
but as a child and a learner.
Benson was so clear
headed. The customs are only an outward
form. The Church’s authority and
validity of the doctrine is what one must weigh. And in the next paragraph Benson spells it
out.
Here was one of her chief
rulers assuming, almost as an axiom, that I must accept only those dogmas that
individually happened to recommend themselves to my reason or my temperament.
Tacitly, then, he allowed no authoritative power on the part of the Church to
demand an intellectual submission; tacitly, again, then, he made no real
distinction between Natural and Revealed Religion: Christ had not revealed positive
truths to which, so soon as we accepted Christ as a Divine Teacher, we instantly
submitted without hesitation. Or, if this seem too strong, it may be said that
the prelate in question at any rate denied the existence anywhere on earth of
an authority capable of proposing the truths of Revelation in an authoritative
manner, and hence, indirectly evacuated Revelation of any claim to demand man's
submission.
Chapter six seems to be
where Benson gave one last chance for the Church of England to make a case for
him not to convert, and the Church of England couldn’t do it.
On
Chapter VII
(1)
Finally chapter VII we
get his conversion. I particularly liked
how he described his conversion
I do not suppose that
anyone ever entered the City of God with less emotion than mine. It seemed to
me that I was utterly without feeling; I had neither joy nor sorrow, nor dread
nor excitement. There was the Truth, as
aloof as an ice- peak, and I had to embrace it. Never for one single instant
did I doubt that, nor, perhaps it is unnecessary to say, have I ever doubted it
since. I tried to reproach myself with my coldness, but all fell quite flat. I
was as one coming out of the glare of artificial light, out of warmth and
brightness and friendliness, into a pale daylight of cold and dreary certainty.
I was uninterested and quite positive.
(2)
I think this paragraph
captures the reactions from his conversion.
And now began the
inevitable consequences of what I had done. I do not know how many letters I
received in the few days following the announcement in the papers of my
conversion; but I had at least two heavy posts every day. These had to be answered,
and what made it harder was that among them all there were not more than two or
three from Catholics. This was perfectly natural, as I hardly knew more than
that number of Catholics. One telegram
indeed warmed my heart; for it was from that priest to whom I owed so much and
of whose conversion I had heard with such sorrow in Damascus six years before.
The rest were from Anglicans — clergy, men, women, and even chil- dren — most
of whom regarded me either as a deliberate traitor (but of these there were
very few) or as an infatuated fool, or as an impatient, headstrong, ungrateful
bigot. Many of these kindly concealed their sentiments as well as they could,
but it was for the most part plain enough what they thought. From one
clergyman, still an Anglican, I received an enthusiastic letter of
congratulation on having been happy enough to have found my way into the City
of Peace. Eight years later he also entered that city.
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