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The Archbishop of Canterbury's Visit to Palestine: An Issue in Anglo-Vatican Relations in 1931

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Thomas E. Hachey
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Extract

The strain placed upon Anglo-Vatican relations as a result of the Archbishop of Canterbury's visit to the Holy Places in 1931 and the furor which that event provoked, although reported in part by the newspapers of the day, has remained undisclosed for nearly forty years. The British Parliament's Public Record Act of 1967, which reduced the waiting period on that country's official correspondence to thirty years, affords the student of the period with an invaluable, hitherto unattainable, view of the diplomatic involvement of the London Government with the Holy See in 1931. The aura of apprehension, suspicion and distrust which inhibited Anglo-Vatican relations at that time contrasts sharply with the spirit of benevolence and ecumenism manifested in the Holy See's contemporary contacts with both the English Government and the Anglican Church. Scenes like the one depicted in the widely published photograph of Pope Paul VI warmly receiving the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Arthur Michael Ramsey, highlight the progress which has been made since the none too distant past when relations were less cordial than today.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , June 1972 , pp. 198 - 207
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1900

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References

1. Under the provisions of the Act, the documents employed in this study were first opened to scholars in 1968. They were not, however, processed or made available until the following year. A few papers remain closed for fifty years by virtue of the Lord Chancellor's instruments under Section 5 (i) of the 1958 Public Records Act.

2. Dr. Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, had long been a prominent figure in British life. His attempts to improve slum conditions while serving as Canon at St. Paul's Cathedral had made him a controversial personality some years before. He was also an acknowledged leader in the House of Lords and had supported in Parliament the proposed revision of the Book of Common Prayer in 1928. Cf. Lockhart, John G., Cosmo Gordon Lang (London, 1949).Google Scholar

3. Archbishop Lang was ordered to take three months of complete rest by his physician after a severe attack of neuralgia. Dr. Lang and Mr. Morgan, a senior warden of the Episcopal Church of St. John's at Lattington, New York, were close friends. The archbishop had recuperated from an earlier illness several years previous while on a Mediterranean cruise aboard the Corsair.

4. The Daily Herald, 6 March 1931.Google Scholar American newspapers reported that Rome was suspicious of the increasing friendship between the English Church and the Greek Orthodox Communion, especially since the Patriarch of Alexandria had led an Orthodox delegation to the Anglican Lambeth Conference in 1930. See New York Times, 6 March 1931.Google Scholar The possibility that Dr. Lang's visit to Palestine might spark religious demonstrations and civil disturbances was dismissed as unlikely by a Government spokesman in the House of Commons. Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 9 March 1931. Vol. 249, p. 810.Google Scholar

5. New York Times, 12 March 1931. When the British took over the administration of Palestine, they simply continued the arrangements which various religious groups had made with the Turks concerning the Holy Places.

6. George Ogilvie-Forbes, British Legation to the Holy See, Rome, to George W. Rendel, Foreign Office, London. Letter, 12 March 1931, F.O. 371/15332.

7. George W. Rendel, Foreign Office, London. Minute, 18 March 1931, F. O. 371/15332.

8. George Ogilvie-Forbes, British Legation to the Holy See, Rome, to the Foreign Office, London. Telegram No. 11, 17 March 1931, F.O. 371/15332.

9. George W. Rendel, Foreign Office, London. Minute, 18 March 1931, F.O. 371/15332. One of Rendel's Foreign Office colleagues noted in the minutes: “I regard this as well night intolerable. The Archbishop after being seriously ill is about to go yachting and to visit Jerusalem. If on arrival there he visits the Holy Sepulchre, it may be that he will be received with the respect due to his position. But for the Vatican to see fit to make any representations appears to be, in my mind, quite unwarranted.” In observing that the Colonial Office had reported no knowledge of the Archbishop's plans, another Foreign Office official remarked: “… In some ways I could have wished that he had chosen another time.” Foreign Office, London. Minutes, 19 March 1931. F.O. 371/15332.

10. Arthur Henderson, Foreign Office, London, to Lord Passfield, Colonial Office, London. Dispatch (unnumbered), 23 March 1931, F.O. 371/15332.

11. George Ogilvie-Forbes, British Legation to the Holy See, Rome, to the Foreign Office, London. Telegram No. 10, 21 March 1931, F.O. 371/15332.

12. George W. Rendel, Foreign Office, London. Minute, 23 March 1931, F.O. 371/15332.

13. Sir Robert Vansittart, Foreign Office, London. Minute, 23 March 1931, F.O. 371/15332. The Permanent Under-Secretary of State privately conceded the possibility that another dimension to the problem might exist. In the same minute he wrote, “I don't suppose the Archbishop has any intention of seeking official limelight. If he had, it would be a rather regrettable lack of tact on his part at this juncture. But that is rather for us to feel than for the Vatican to prescribe.”

14. George Ogilvie-Forbes, British Legation to the Holy See, Rome, to Arthur Henderson, Foreign Office, London. Dispatch No. 57, 20 March 1931, F.O. 371/15332.

15. Sir Robert Vansittart, Foreign Office, London, to George Ogilvie-Forbes, British Legation to the Holy See, Rome. Dispatch No. 77, 25 March 1931, F.O. 371/15332.

16. C. J. Norton, Foreign Office, London, to The Reverend A. Sargent, Lambeth Palace, London. Letter, 24 March 1931, F.O. 371/15332.

17. George W. Rendel, Foreign Office, London, to Sir L. Oliphant, Foreign Office, London. Memorandum, 24 March 1931, F.O. 371/15332.

18. Sir Clive Wigram, Buckingham Palace, London, to Sir Robert Vansittart, Foreign Office, London. Letter, 23 March 1931, F.O. 371/15332.

19. Ibid.

20. Sir Robert Vansittart, Foreign Office, London, to Sir Clive Wigram, Buckingham Palace, London. Letter, 25 March 1931, F.O. 371/15332. The Colonial Office sent a summary of all the correspondence on the subject to the British High Commissioner in Palestine. O. J. R. Williams, Colonial Office, London, to Sir John Chancellor, High Commissioner for Palestine, Jerusalem. Telegram No. 80, 31 March 1931, F.O. 371/15332.

21. New York Times, 29 March 1931.

22. Ibid., 11 April 1931.

23. The Times, London, 15 April 1931.

24. George Ogilvie-Forbes, British Legation to the Holy See, Rome, to George W. Rendel, Foreign Office, London. Dispatch (unnumbered), 9 April 1931, F.O. 371/15332.

25. There are a considerable number of letters, minutes and memoranda among the Foreign Office papers which pertain to this subject, and they reflect the deep divisions which the continuance of the Vatican Legation created within the London Government. For a representative number of them, see F.O. 371/7671, 8886, 10790, 15254, 15985. Additionally, Foreign Office correspondence for the inter-war period includes innumerable demands, petitions and protests by religious groups and/or individuals who sought to have the British Legation to the Holy See terminated. See F.O. 371/4947, 2007, 2371, 2583, 3086, 6345.

26. Orme Sargent, Foreign Office, London. Minute, 28 April 1931, F.O. 371/15332. In the minutes for this same day, however, George W. Rendel responded to his colleague's remarks with an appeal not to allow the controversy over Archbishop Lang's Palestine visit to become a critical issue in the continuing Foreign Office evaluation of the Vatican Legation's utility.

27. For the Malta incident, see F.O. 371/4263. All of the Foreign Office papers relating to Archbishop Lang's visit to Palestine are to be found in the class referred to throughout this article, F.O. 371/15332.

28. J. R. Chancellor, High Commissioner for Palestine, Jerusalem, to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, London. Dispatch (unnumbered), 28 April 1931, F.O. 371/15332.

29. For the complete statement, see the New York Times, 15 April 1931.

30. George Ogilvie-Forbes, British Legation to the Holy See, Rome, to Arthur Henderson, Foreign Office, London. Dispatch No. 94, 4 May 1931, F.O. 371/15332.

31. George Ogilvie-Forbes, British Legation to the Holy See, Rome, to George W. Rendel, Foreign Office, London. Letter, 4 May 1931, F.O. 371/15332.

32. Ibid.

33. George W. Rendel, Foreign Office, London. Minute, 15 May 1931, F.O. 371/15332.