Being I am also politically a Monarchist, I take a great interest in catching Charles Coulombe's broadcast of "Off the Menu" every Monday, and this week what Charles was talking about sort of lines up with where I am going here. The question came up in the program as to what exactly an Anglo-Catholic is, and if they can be truly called "Catholic," and what Charles did in answering the question was a brief but brilliant historical background of how the Oxford Movement and other developments evolved into what is commonly known as Anglo-Catholicism. However, he did leave out a few details, such as the St. Louis meetings in 1977 that led to the establishment of the "Continuing Anglican" movement, which I was formerly identified with and many of which are uncompromisingly Anglo-Catholic. But, that is neither here nor there in the greater point of the discussion. Simply put, I was confirmed as a Roman Catholic myself in 2000, but for about 10 years I was part of a "Continuing Anglican" parish, although in that time I have always retained my Catholic convictions and never thought I was anything other than Catholic myself. You see, my initial reception into the Roman Catholic Church was, well, somewhat spotty. I went through the RCIA process beginning in 1999, and I did receive Confirmation and First Communion on Easter Vigil of the year 2000. But, much of what I remember from my RCIA classes was a bit fuzzy, and also the Roman Catholic parishes we were part of had clergy and others who at times acted like we basically didn't exist, so I was beginning to feel it was Rome who had left me rather than me leaving Rome. When Barb and I initially started attending a "Continuing Anglican" parish in 2007, it was at that time I really began to learn what the Sacraments were, and also more about what being Catholic really entailed. Then, in January 2014, I started my graduate work at Franciscan University, and it was as if a whole other world opened up to me - I learned more in the past 4 years about the Catholic Church than I did through my entire RCIA program years ago, and after our move back home in 2017, our initial continuation of attending a "Continuing Anglican" parish was proving to not fit, nor was it really all that feasible for us to do so - it was too far away, for one thing, and also I didn't feel as if the parish shared in a lot of the vision that I felt God was giving to me in regard to how I would serve the Church. So, we began attending a Roman Catholic parish down the road from our house, and last summer I found myself coming to an important decision - it was time to "come back home," and so I did. It is a decision I feel was necessary, and I am very grateful circumstances opened up that door for us. I say all of that concerning my own story to focus on something Charles talked about in regard to Anglo-Catholics in his program, and that is this whole idea of patrimony. It is time to just sort of give an idea of how I understand its meaning, and then relate it to the rest of the discussion.
For Catholics, the teaching office of the Church is called the Magisterium, and it has as its core a conviction that Holy Tradition, as well as orthodox doctrine, must be passed down as is without alteration - in that context, it comprises what we catechists call the Deposit of Faith. Although the dogma of "no salvation outside the Church" is pretty well set, and even bad implementations of some Vatican II ideas don't change that, there is also what is known as a "hierarchy of truths" which allow for a certain amount of inclusion of other Christians in the life of the Church as a whole - much of this is spelled out in the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, and more detail can be gleaned from reading that very important document of the Church. In the "hierarchy of truths," some Christian groups have more, some have less, but they are deemed "Christian" by their subscription to what they hold that qualifies for the "hierarchy of truths." For instance, all Christians would affirm that faith in Christ is necessary, as well as the dogmas surrounding the person of Christ (His death, Resurrection, and Ascension, the Virgin Birth, the hypostatic union of Jesus as fully God and fully man, and His incorporation as a Person of the Triune Godhood) - this makes them participants in salvation due to their embrace of this aspect of the "hierarchy of truths." For some - Baptists and Pentecostals - that is really about as far as it goes, but others such as Anglicans embrace more and are closer to full Catholic doctrine and practice. Anglo-Catholics are even more so. This is why in regard to patrimony, the idea of the Anglo-Catholic tradition's existence is important. In Lumen Gentium 8, the following affirmation is made in regard to what patrimony is without expressing it specifically:
"{the single Church of Christ} subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by bishops in communion with him. Nevertheless, many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside her visible confines. Since these are gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, they are forces impelling toward Catholic unity."
According as well to the 2009 encyclical Anglicanorum Coetibus, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI sort of defines Anglican patrimony in particular by noting that Anglicans who are received into a personal Ordinariate are given the faculty to celebrate the Eucharist and other sacraments of the Church according to liturgical books proper to the Anglican tradition, although requiring approval from the Holy See, and this is done to ensure that liturgical, spiritual, and pastoral traditions of the Anglican tradition are retained and maintained as a "precious gift nourishing the faith of the Ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared." (Pope Benedict XVI, Anglicanorum Coetibus: Providing for Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans Entering into full communion with the Catholic Church (2009) at http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_ben-xvi_apc_20091104_anglicanorum-coetibus.html#_ftn11 - Accessed 2/19/2018). This is also similar in many aspects to what the late Russian Orthodox Patriarch Tikhon established in the 19th century when he blessed the use of the Western Rite in the Orthodox Church, in particular both the Roman and Anglican traditions (Benjamin Joseph Anderson, "A Short History of the Western Rite Vicariate" {2015} at http://antiochian.org/sites/default/files/wrv_history.pdf - Accessed 2/19/2018). So, essentially this patrimony is recognized - at least in regard to Anglican converts to both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches - universally. That being established, here is how it relates to Mascall's work.
Writers like Mascall, who affirm a great deal of orthodox Catholic doctrine, possess this Anglican patrimony in their writings despite the fact they never formally became part of the Roman Catholic Church in many cases. Also, given the Thomistic emphasis of Mascall's writing in particular, it can also prove valuable to study it, keeping in mind the patrimonial aspects of the writing and how they relate to Catholic teaching as a whole. This is why, as I delve into Mascall's work and share insight here, I will also be making a lot of references in Catholic literature to aspects of his text that relate. That being said, let us now talk some about who Mascall is before wrapping up this introduction.
Eric Lionel (E.L.) Mascall (1905-1993)
E.L. Mascall was an Anglo-Catholic clergyman who served as the professor of Historical Theology at the University of London, specifically at The King's College, beginning in 1962. He began his theological studies in 1931 and was ordained as a priest in the Church of England in 1933. He was a very noted Thomist, and also utilized his mathematical training. Additionally, he was a great proponent of ecumenical dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. He was also part of a rich tradition of 20th-century Anglo-Catholic theologians that also included Dom Gregory Dix. His 1965 text, The Secularization of Christianity, will be the primary reference point of many of my observations as I go through this study with you, although I will also be referencing his other seminal work, The Christian Universe, which was published a year later. Mascall's observations on Christianity's secularization are practically prophetic as well, and in examining the influences behind how all that happened, I will also be cross-referencing similar trends that happened in the field of Biblical Studies as well, being that theology and Biblical studies are interrelated and were subject to much of the same secularization, as we'll see. If a contemporary theologian in the Anglican tradition could be compared to Mascall, the closest would be N.T. Wright, although despite Wright's orthodox conservatism on some theological and moral issues, Wright is more in line with Evangelicalism than with the Anglo-Catholic tradition, but the careers of both Wright and Mascall are of interest to note in regard to comparison.
In the future, I will be taking Mascall's The Secularization of Christianity and discussing it by chapter portions. Although not a huge book, Mascall's chapters are very lengthy, and it is best to digest them in small bites - the first chapter of the book alone is 39 pages! At 280 pages of text, it will also take a while to get through, so we are in for a lengthy discussion of Mascall for a while! Any rate, in the next installment of this series, we'll start on the first chapter of Mascall's seminal book.
