Catholic Thought discussion

This is the longest chapter in the entire book. Benson tells us of his childhood and upbringing, and there is so much packed into it, it is hard to do justice to all. So I will touch upon a few highlights.

Benson opens the chapter with these words:

“I have been told that I became a Catholic because I was dispirited at failure and because I was elated at success; because I was imaginative and because I was imperceptive; because I was not hopeful enough and because I was too hopeful, faithless and too trusting, too ardent and too despairing, proud and pusillanimous. I have been told, since the first publication of these papers, that I have never truly understood the Church of England”

Naturally, Benson accepted the tenets of the church during his childhood, the Caroline divines, “I was taught to be reverent, sober-minded, anti-Roman; to believe in the Real Presence without defining it.” Of his faith he states,

”I do not think that I loved God consciously, but at least I was never frightened at the presentation of Him or the threat of hell. I think I accepted Him quite unemotionally as a universal Parental Presence and Authority. The Person of Our Lord I apprehended more from the Gospels than from spiritual experience; I thought of Him in the past and the future tenses, seldom in the present.”

His father was a larger than life figure. He was a high-ranking clergyman in the High Church Anglican tradition, eventually to become the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the highest office in the Anglican Church. “He had an intense love of dignity and splendor in divine worship, a great sense of Church authority, a firm orthodoxy with regard to the main foundations of the Christian Creed.”He also had a great love for history and the church fathers. Looking back Benson sees inconsistencies, some of which he had already questioned during his youth, to which his father had no satisfying answer. Benson especially highlights what I would call a poorly defined understanding of morality.

Benson’s personal faith received a spark while in London as a young man and visiting St. Paul’s Cathedral. He was fascinated by the worship and music – the liturgy. He attended communion every week and attended services as often as possible. “It was the music, first and last, and it was through that opening that I first began to catch glimpses of the spiritual world; and my sense of worship was further developed and directed by an absolute passion that I conceived for Mr. Shorehouse’s book, “John Inglesant: a Romance.”

“And then – even to this day I do not know why – I decided to become a clergyman. “ … “But it did not even enter my head for an instant that there was anything but the Church of England to represent Christ’s original institution.” … “The Roman Catholics, I thought, were obviously corrupt and decayed, the Ritualists were tainted, and the extreme Protestants were noisy, extravagant, and vulgar.”

Benson was ordained a deacon in 1894. He finds himself drawn to the ideas of High Church, especially confession and how it fits into the divine economy. However, his assignment for now is in a parish where the views were more Evangelical. Before his ordination as “priest” (quotation marks in text) he takes the very seldom practiced step and makes his first confession, after which he felt like walking on clouds.

The chapter ends with his father’s sudden death and he himself having health issues for which he was ordered to go to Egypt to recuperate.

* * *
Anglicanism: Within its larger body there are different expressions of worship. The way I understand it, High Church is the more conservative, liturgical expression fairly close to the Mass; and Low Church the more liberal, Evangelical, praise and worship type taking more liberties in worship structures and music.

One of the things that I couldn't understand in the first chapter was why he became an Anglican priest. He doesn't describe a childhood that was devout or passionate for Christ.

I do not think that I loved God consciously, but at least I was never frightened at the presentation of Him or terrified by the threat of hell. I think I accepted Him quite unemotionally as a universal Parental Presence and Authority. The Person of Our Lord I apprehended more from the Gospels than from spiritual experience; I thought of Him in the past and the future tenses, seldom in the present.

That doesn't strike me as someone who would become a priest. But he does seem to grow into it.

Manny wrote: "One of the things that I couldn't understand in the first chapter was why he became an Anglican priest. He doesn't describe a childhood that was devout or passionate for Christ.

I do not think th..."

The English character isn't exactly exuberant :) I think we have the family precedent, there is a familiarity with this profession that he's known all his life.

As the story unfolds we see time and again that he responds to "High Church", to liturgy. His spirituality is more cerebral not emotional, and if I would hazard a guess, it goes in the Augustinian direction. All parts have to make a harmonious whole, no matter from which direction you probe. So far I don't see the more pointed probing of a Thomist.
Right now he loves the liturgy and the sacred music, though at this point it is form only. It is clear he senses a deeper meaning here, especially his heightened awareness of communion, but it isn't a sacrament, and he doesn't know yet what's missing.

We do see a pattern emerge already, Catholic answers to his questions satisfy him more than what often amounts to Anglican ambiguity.

Kerstin wrote: "The English character isn't exactly exuberant :) ."

LOL, yes, perhaps he's just understating. Perhaps he was following in his father's footsteps at the beginning but then became devout. Obviously he continued and joined some devout groups as well as we see I think in the next chapter.

Now that's decidedly unhelpful! Which version of the book are you using?

In my copy the last paragraph in the first chapter begins with "A week later my health suddenly and completely broke down..."

I'll add the last sentence and/or paragraph of each chapter from now on, Nadine, so you and everyone else in the same boat has a reference point.

You're welcome :)

Great introduction to this reading Kerstin.

I also asked myself why he followed his father’s footsteps. I keep in mind this is Victorian England, the very heart of the times, and what class of people he belonged into. He was apparently not of the noble Benson family which originated in the Middle Ages and therefore not of high class. His grandfather was a chemical manufacturer from Birmingham, a major industrial city which identifies them with the middle class. What were his options? The clergy profession was dynastic. We don’t know what directions his brothers chose but it was natural for one son to follow the father. I do not doubt the sincerity of his calling as it comes out more in the middle of this autobiography. His transformation from Anglican Church of England parson to Catholic I think tells us even more about the depth of his faith but at the beginning of his choice in life it was natural for him to fallow his father and choose the religious calling.

Sorry I am behind on reading. I just finished chapter 1. I am surprised how read-able it is, none of the distractingly flowery language I often anticipate with 19th century thinkers.

I was struck by the respectful tone of this memoir. Early in chapter 1 he states that equally intelligent minds experiencing similar events will come to different conclusions. He never puts down (at least not in the part I have read) those who come to a different conclusion than he did. In a world where so little respect is shown to those who think differently, I find his voice so refreshing.

I wonder if he would have converted if he did not feel the marginalization he found when spending several months in the Middle East. I know he reports questioning some of the beliefs and practices of Anglicanism as a youth, but he accepts the answers he receives so easily that these don't seem to bother him as much at the time as they do after the conversion. And, what teen does not question the faith of his/her upbringing.

I also wonder if he would have converted if he had been surrounded with high Anglican priests and parishes. Had he experienced the more formal ritual of high Anglican liturgy, the traditional practices of fasting and Liturgy of the Hours , sacramental practices such as Confession promoted, would his spiritual needs have been met in the tradition of his childhood.

He definitely seems to be searching for a felt spirituality which he is not getting in the Anglican seminary or his Anglican parishes.

Irene I'll respond by putting your statement in block quotes and I'll respond below it.

I was struck by the respectful tone of this memoir. Early in chapter 1 he states that equally intelligent minds experiencing similar events will come to different conclusions. He never puts down (at least not in the part I have read) those who come to a different conclusion than he did. In a world where so little respect is shown to those who think differently, I find his voice so refreshing.

My experience with conversions mostly comes from EWTN's The Coming Home Network and reading other books. Most conversions to the Catholic Church harbor no bitterness to their previous Protestant denominations. They usually are grateful for their upbringing and learning to embrace Christianity. They usually find Roman Catholicism to be the fullness of Christianity. Benson is following in that vein. Now Catholics who convert away usually have a chip on their shoulder and can be bitter.

I wonder if he would have converted if he did not feel the marginalization he found when spending several months in the Middle East. I know he reports questioning some of the beliefs and practices of Anglicanism as a youth, but he accepts the answers he receives so easily that these don't seem to bother him as much at the time as they do after the conversion. And, what teen does not question the faith of his/her upbringing.

Of course we'll never know the outcome of something that didn't happen but I suspect he would. I don't know if Kerstin provided an overview of the historical situation in Britain in the late 19th century but quite a large number of intellectuals either left Anglicanism for Roman Catholicism or joined a subset of Anglicanism which is known as Anglo-Catholic. Off the top of my head, there was Blessed Cardinal Newman, the poet Gerard Manly Hopkins (which we read a few poems a couple of months ago here), and G.K. Chesterton, who we also read earlier. The great poet TS Eliot became an Anglo-Catholic but couldn't cross over to Roman Catholicism. Anglicanism has been disintegrating under its inherent contradictions for the past couple of hundred years. Pope Benedict XVI created a means for Anglicans clergy to become Roman Catholic clergy if they wanted to cross over. Many have. Right after Vatican II, there was an expectation that the two would re-unite, and I suspect some of the liturgy changes from Vatican II was a step to making it easier. However, during the last twenty to thirty years the Anglican Church has gone off the rails with women priests, homosexual marriage, and I even think condoning abortion. That became a non-starter in the reunification.

I also wonder if he would have converted if he had been surrounded with high Anglican priests and parishes. Had he experienced the more formal ritual of high Anglican liturgy, the traditional practices of fasting and Liturgy of the Hours , sacramental practices such as Confession promoted, would his spiritual needs have been met in the tradition of his childhood.

Perhaps you missed it. He was an Anglican priest before he converted. He said he did all that as an Anglican. In fact his father was an Anglican priest as well, though I don't recall if it was high church Anglican. High Church Anglicans have many of the same devotional practices as Catholics.

By the way, for those that don't understand some of these terms, let me explain. Because of the Protestant/Catholic civil wars that occurred in Britain in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Church of England (otherwise known as Anglican) was a sort of synthesis of Calvinism and Catholicism. That's how they resolved the civil wars. But they never really synthesized as one theology. People were left to personally believe whichever their hearts preferred but ministered under one church. Those that preferred Catholicism were called high church Anglicanism, because they used a sort of Catholic high liturgy. Those that preferred Calvinism were called low church. As you read English literature from the time, you can kind of guess who was high church and who was low. Jane Austen I believe was high church. The great religious poet George Herbert was high church. John Milton (of "Paradise Lost") was low church.

During the 19th century, this inherent theological contradiction began to make itself felt. That's when the Anglo-Catholic movement started. Calvinism and Catholicism could not be synthesized without turning yourself into a philosophic pretzel. This is from where Robert Hugh Benson is coming from in his intellectual struggles. And once the Fathers of the Church began to get studied, then even the Anglo-Catholicism alternative started to fall apart because they found that the early church was quite Catholic. That's when Blessed Cardinal Newman famously said, "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant."

O No, I seem to have done a very bad job of expressing myself once again.

When I wrote of people not respecting those who hold different opinions, I was not thinking specifically of religious conversions but of the deep divisions in society right now. I encounter general disrespect or simple disregard for those who are on the other side of any opinion.

Yes, I did catch that he was a priest. Imentioned the seminary in my post. But, his father seems to have been more toward the low church side. He talks of how he was devout, but never engaged in such traditional practices as fasting from meat on Fridays. He speaks of how his upbringing never spoke of confession, or if he did hear of it, it was only spoken of but not practiced. So, I am wondering if he had been in a high church or Anglo-Catholic environment, seminary and parish, would he have found there what he wanted and would he have stopped short of converting.

You will see in the next chapter or the one after, he did all those things as a high church priest.

Also in a later chapter he does speak of people who disrespected him for his conversion.

Irene wrote: "I wonder if he would have converted if he did not feel the marginalization he found when spending several months in the Middle East."

Every convert has these key experiences, where for the first time you are confronted with a reality that doesn't quite fit one's understanding of the world. There is a universal aspect of this, we all have had such experiences regardless of whether faith was involved or not.

A person who converts is usually one who has a strong desire to seek and follow truth. In which way this truth begins to reveal itself is really irrelevant. Sooner or later you are confronted with an inconsistency that needs to be explained. All of this often happens rather innocently. You have no inkling that this is the first step into a greater journey involving a paradigm shift. My hunch is that if it hadn't been Benson's trip abroad, it would have been something else that would have set the rock in motion.

In my own conversion this happened back in 2003 when the Episcopal Church was rendered asunder along politically correct lines. I asked myself, where would I stand if that happened to my own Lutheran denomination. Innocently as can be I quipped to my husband, a cradle Catholic, "I'll become Catholic." Little did I know that this was exactly what was asked of me six years later when my own ELCA church body voted on the Bible's sexual teachings and unleashing a firestorm not unlike the one that was devastating the Episcopalians with congregations turned upside down and the "undesirables" pushed out of the fold. It was ugly. Where do you go? Do you make a stand, or is it time to jump ship? Am I abandoning my church home now in peril, or is the denomination leaving me? All these questions race through your mind... It was the fall of 2009, and I felt rather unhappy in my skin for having to deal with all this stuff thrust upon me. At this time I had already read a bunch of Ratzinger and other Catholic books. I prayed with the Magnificat daily. To anyone watching from the outside my trajectory was crystal clear, except for me! Long story short, one year later, on the Fast Day of St. Augustine, 28 August 2010, I came into full communion. I haven't looked back since.

Kerstin I had wondered what made you convert. Thanks for sharing! And God bless you. As I say to converts I come across, we are blessed to have you.

Manny wrote: "By the way, for those that don't understand some of these terms, let me explain. Because of the Protestant/Catholic civil wars that occurred in Britain in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Church of..."

Thanks Manny! I didn't know all of that, especially the later development of the 19th century with the tensions of low and high church within one Anglican Church body. It makes sense this would cause ripple effects, how can it not?

You're welcome. Actually I think I got my centuries wrong up above. It's 16th and 17th, not 15th and 16th. I corrected it.

Manny wrote: "Kerstin I had wondered what made you convert. Thanks for sharing! And God bless you. As I say to converts I come across, we are blessed to have you."

You're welcome! and thanks for your kind words, I am really touched.

Kerstin, Thank you for sharing your conversion story. I am fascinated by the way the Holy Spirit leads people on their faith journey. You are right, if God wants us to make a move and we are sincere about seeking God's will, then if one set of events does not move us or if they don't happen, something else will.

Manny, I did finish the book. I was aware that he had practiced confession, embraced the rosary and other Catholic devotional practices, etc when I wrote my response. My question was not that he did not find that in the Anglican tradition, but rather that he did not feel himself strongly supported in those practices. He felt like an outlier. I was wondering if he had been in a more strongly and pervasively Anglo-Catholic environment, would that have met his need. Had his religious community been undivided on these issues, had he not been sent into mission preaching, but just surrounded by this culture, would he still have felt the need to convert. Of course, this is purely speculative. As Kerstin said, if the Spirit is pushing and we are listening, God gets us where we need to be.

Kerstin wrote: "Irene wrote: "I wonder if he would have converted if he did not feel the marginalization he found when spending several months in the Middle East."

Every convert has these key experiences, where f..."

Thank you Kerstin for your story. It was wonderful reading.

He was not specific about the boy leading a Bible Study in his room, about the boys being evangelized to. But, I assumed (and that is always dangerous) that it was a Methodist impetus, given the time. I think the more liturgical branches of Christianity were still uncomfortable with that type of Bible based revivalism.

Nadine wrote: "also, i’m confused about the part where someone was evangelizing to the boys and they were horrified, why?."

Nadine you would have to show me the exact passage for me to get the context, but the British are and have been more sensitive to proselytizing than we are in the US. Actually our country in the last twenty years has been drifting toward that too. But I think we feel much more comfortable discussing religion than they do. The British probably because of the civil wars over religion developed a social taboo to bring up religion in social settings. At least that's my understanding. Again I have to look at the specific passage to see if that's what's implied.