Catholic renewal and re-enchantment
FIELD NOTES
By Rev. Allie McDougall
IT HAS BEEN SAID that the diversity of Anglican expression is one of its greatest strengths. I had the opportunity to experience this diversity on a week of study leave with clergy colleagues from the Diocese of Huron as we made pilgrimage to the historic Anglo-Catholic parish of St. Paul’s Carroll Street for the Annual Conference of the Society of Catholic Priests in Brooklyn, New York.
The SCP is an Anglican confraternity of priests who hold a commitment to Anglo-Catholic piety and social teaching, with chapters across North America and Europe. Our small delegation from Huron was keenly aware of the historical irony of clerics from our corner of the Anglican Communion attending this conference, one which has been defined by low church Protestantism since its inception.
Surely the cursus of evensong, benediction, solemn high mass, and the recitation of the Angelus at every liturgy would have been cause for scandal in the Diocese of Huron at certain points in its history. Admittedly, composing and submitting this article for the Huron Church News inspires anxiety over perceptions and assumptions that have been attached to Catholic churchmanship.
No single movement or articulation of Anglicanism is perfect or undefiled from corruption. As long as human beings are involved in the organization and worship of the Church, flaws will be present. Anglo-Catholicism has been accused of being many things: reactionary, decadent, nostalgic, snobbish, vain, misogynistic, homophobic, and white supremacist. Unmoored from the centrality of the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, these accusations may be true. But the more I explore my own attraction to catholicity and speak with likeminded clerics, the more I realize that errors of Anglo-Catholicism have been overstated, to the point of obfuscating that which is Christ-centred, transcendent, and beautiful, which may be preserved and reinterpreted to serve the needs of our present time and context.
Catholic renewal within Anglican spaces is indeed reactionary. But we must ask what is being reacted against? Why is there a resurgence of catholicity, particularly among those who are young and new to Anglicanism? Why has there been a ressourcement of the writings of the Caroline Divines and Tractarians, interest in the enrichment of liturgy, and the return of older forms of vesture, music, postures, and social teaching?
The last several decades worth of trends in contemporary Anglicanism have favoured practicality, rationalism, and cultural relevance with the intention of galvanizing mission in a rapidly changing world. This is well-intentioned strategy but can lend itself to the Church being formed into the image of the world, not the image of Christ. The world has become disenchanted, without mystery, deferential to frosty utilitarianism, and increasingly void of beauty. This is not reflective of the consummate hope of the Gospel nor a viable option for persistence of the Church of Jesus Christ. Neither is it particularly reflective of the Anglican foundation of Scripture and tradition, bonded by reason.
Catholic renewal is not the only path to the broader renewal of the Church, but it is a legitimate one. The Anglo-Catholic commitment to beauty as the highest expression of praise to God (see Fr. Gordon Maitland’s work on the via pulchritudinous) is not about being fancy and luxurious but founded on the belief that Christ is worthy of our very best and that Christ’s people are deserving of the transcendence beauty affords. People who feel burned out, atomized, frightened, and spiritually stagnant are being spiritually renewed and formed through the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacraments and the recovery of embodied, beautiful, ancient tradition. Souls are coming to Christ, wounds are being bound up, and the downtrodden are being served and uplifted in the name of God. Catholicity is bearing fruit and this fruit should not be ignored.
Rather than persisting in our quest to appeal to a culture that is beholden to individuality and functionalism, that is often at odds with the values of Christ, and is showing itself to be persistently disinterested in what the Church has to say, what if we made allowances for a recovery of the treasures contained in the breadth of Anglican identity? To paraphrase Mtr. Sarah Coakley, the SCP conference keynote speaker, strong mission has never been formed out of panic. Panic as we might about church decline, it is incumbent upon us to live into our identity and respond with the gifts and wisdom of our Anglican inheritance, in all of its forms and permutations, so that we may be shaped evermore as the image and Body of Christ.
Rev. Allie McDougall is the Vicar of St. Paul's and St. Stephen's, Stratford.