I could be accused of beating up on Anglicans. I am sorry if I am. The Church of England, though, claims to be an episcopal church. It believes in Apostolic succession. Until very recently, the Church of England was more closely united with the Roman Catholic church than any mainstream Protestant church.
It is because of the Anglican church’s proximity to Rome that I desire its internal reformation.
The Anglicans gave us Dr. Johnson, G.K. Chesterton, Cardinal Newman, and C. S. Lewis. Those men would scarcely recognize the Church of England today. Chesterton, indeed, crossed over to Catholicism late in life. Lewis’s personal secretary and offical biographer, an ordained Anglican clergyman, has, too, become Catholic.
In the case of Dr. Hooper, he says that Lewis led him, and many, many others, to the steps of the Catholic church, leaving him there to make his own decision. Having become convinced, by close participation in its internal workings, that the Church of England had given up on Christ for man, he felt he no other choice.
Hooper says that, after meeting Pope John Paul II in Rome to discuss C. S. Lewis (whom the Holy Father dearly loved), he decided that Christ would not leave his church without someone in charge. After spending decades trying to save the Anglican church, he was now ready to have a church save him.
How fitting.
They will know us by our love, said Christ. Let us remember that, despite prejudices and misguided theologies, all of Christianity looks to Rome for authority. When the Catholic church places a higher premium on politics and the opinions of men than on truth and the Word of God, she leads the whole world astray. Were it not for the deliberate misinterpretation of the documents of Vatican II, one can only presume that the Anglicans, the Presbyterians, and the other mainstream Protestant sects would be less licenscious today. But many in the Roman Church failed God by imposing their personal political agendas onto the church Jesus Christ established. These “reformers” placed more trust in they opinions of professors than in Christ’s teachings. And the whole world suffers.
Anglican brothers and sisters: I love you. I hope that you will restore true episcopal authority to your church. I pray that the Holy Spirit moves your leaders to return to truth and die to the world. And I pray that the Roman Catholic church and all of her clergy and laity set the example.