IN THE Upper House of Convocation of Canterbury last week, the Bishops passed a resolution urging the careful study of the recently published documents referring to the Reunion negotiations, and in view of this recommendation we consider it desirable once again to urge the necessity of a realistic consideration of the problem and the avoidance of mere sentimentality. This week we print a translation of the Abbé Portal’s remarkable story of the unsuccessful attempt thirty years ago to bring Rome and Canterbury into friendly conversation, and of the beginning of the meetings at Malines. It was the ever-growing realization of its Catholic heritage by the Church of England that inspired the splendid efforts of the Abbé Portal, won the sympathy of his Holiness, Pope Leo XIII., and finally made Cardinal Mercier the apostle of union. As the English Church becomes more and more obviously Catholic, reunion both with the West and the East becomes more and more assured. But as the Church’s Catholicity is made more apparent, reunion with Nonconformist Protestants becomes the more difficult. The Church cannot journey in different directions at the same time. The intercommunion with Nonconformists, advocated by the Bishops of Ripon and Gloucester, must postpone the intercommunion with the Orthodox which may be the first great step towards the healing of the wounds in the Body of Christ and the return of both Anglicans and Easterns to communion with Rome.
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