Not Many Wise

Extract

A friend of mine, an Anglican clergyman, has written to tell me that he has just returned from his first visit to a Catholic country, thanking God that this experience has been enough to put an end, once and for all, to certain doubts and fears once entertained by him, that it might be his duty to ‘go over to Rome.’ What has caused the recoil is no part of Catholic dogma, with practically all of which (save for some academic difficulties concerning the Primacy of the Pope) he is in almost complete agreement. What has offended him is not Catholic theory, but Catholic practice. In other words, he has found himself for the first time in a Catholic atmosphere, and has discovered that it is little to his liking.

As examples of the sort of thing which has alienated his sympathies he relates how he went into the Santo at Padua, and found the Tabernacle (after some difficulty) in a deserted side-chapel, while the first thing that attracted his eye when he entered the vast church was the shrine of S. Anthony, which was thronged with worshippers. Now my friend has, in theory, a good deal of sympathy with the cultus of the saints. What disedified one who had fought so valiantly for the reserved sacrament in his own Church was the fact that the shrine of S. Anthony was so full, and the side-chapel so neglected. And this was not the worst of his experiences. Proceeding south by slow stages, punctuated by duty visits to churches containing a bewildering number of pictures alleged to be miraculous, which seemed to absorb practically the whole devotion of the people, he came to Rome.