Catholic Thought discussion

Chapter VI

Benson is now at a point where he senses his final step to becoming a Catholic is imminent. He is at home in his mother’s place to sort things out and writes a book, By What Authority?, a historical novel looking a the English Reformation during the reign of Elizabeth I from a Catholic perspective.

Writing the book is a welcome diversion to his spiritual struggles, but the research also gives him new insights on the solid claims of Catholicism.

“I began to marvel more than ever how in the world I could have even imagined that the Anglican Communion possessed an identity of life with the ancient Church in England. For years past I had claimed to be saying Mass, and that the Sacrifice of the Mass was held as a doctrine by the Church of England; and here in Elizabethan days were priests hunted to death for the crime of doing that which I had claimed to do. … I began to wonder at myself, and a little while later gave up celebrating the Communion service.”

Here the very center of his life as an Anglican priest is pulled right out from under him. Can you imagine?

Benson follows his mother’s wish to consult with three “eminent members of the Church of England,” and he complies. These conversations happened on a very civil level, though the results were rather mixed for him. One gets the sense again that what he tried to convey is not truly being heard. His status as a brother at the Mirfield religious community is also dissolved, for he couldn’t return when requested.

After more struggles he finally takes the step and contacts a friend at a Dominican Order, and three days later he departs.

”I had no kind of emotional attraction towards [the Church], no illusions of any kind about it. I knew perfectly well that it was human as well as divine, that crimes had been committed within its walls; … But for all that it was divine; it was built upon the Rock of rocks; its foundations were jeweled even if its streets were as hard as gold; and the Lamb was the light of it.

But the setting out towards its gates was a hard task. I had no energy, no sense of welcome or exultation; I knew hardly more than three or four of its inmates. I was deadly sick and tired of the whole thing.”

Benson's conversion is isolating him more and more, and he is utterly alone. The loneliness he experienced must have been crushing.

Last sentence in chapter:
My mother said good-bye to me at the station.

In this chapter Benson has a discussion with a “dignitary” from the Church of England in the hopes that he can persuaded him from conversion. But just the very opposite happens:

The dignitary with whom I stayed a day or two, and who was also extremely forbearing did not, I think, understand my position. He asked me whether there were not devotions in the Roman Church to which I felt a repugnance. I told him that there were — notably the popular devotions to Our Blessed Lady. He then expressed great surprise that I could seriously contemplate submitting to a communion in which I should have to use method of worship of which I disapproved. I tried in vain to make it clear that I proposed becoming a Roman Catholic not because I was necessarily attracted by her customs, but because I believed that Church to be the Church of God, and that therefore if my opinions on minor details differed from hers, it was all the worse for me; that I had better, in fact, correct my notions as soon as possible, for I should go to Rome not as a critic or a teacher, but as a child and a learner.

Benson was so clear headed. The customs are only an outward form. The Church’s authority and validity of the doctrine is what one must weigh. And in the next paragraph Benson spells it out.

Here was one of her chief rulers assuming, almost as an axiom, that I must accept only those dogmas that individually happened to recommend themselves to my reason or my temperament. Tacitly, then, he allowed no authoritative power on the part of the Church to demand an intellectual submission; tacitly, again, then, he made no real distinction between Natural and Revealed Religion: Christ had not revealed positive truths to which, so soon as we accepted Christ as a Divine Teacher, we instantly submitted without hesitation. Or, if this seem too strong, it may be said that the prelate in question at any rate denied the existence anywhere on earth of an authority capable of proposing the truths of Revelation in an authoritative manner, and hence, indirectly evacuated Revelation of any claim to demand man's submission.

Chapter six seems to be where Benson gave one last chance for the Church of England to make a case for him not to convert, and the Church of England couldn’t do it.

Manny wrote: "Chapter six seems to be where Benson gave one last chance for the Church of England to make a case for him not to convert, and the Church of England couldn’t do it."

Yes. Benson has reached the essence, if you will, from which the Church springs. Protestantism can't reach this level and has no more answers to give. I felt this profoundly during my conversion journey and share this experience with many.

From this Catholic core everything else in our faith takes its form. It is not that Mary or the saints, etc. are secondary in the sense that they matter less, but like Creation itself, are a natural extension. Once you understand this, the aspects which are yet unfamiliar are not contradictions, superstitions, or how ever they were categorized before, but something to become familiar with and learn how they are connected.

Kerstin wrote: "It is not that Mary or the saints, etc. are secondary in the sense that they matter less, but like Creation itself, are a natural extension. Once you understand this, the aspects which are yet unfamiliar are not contradictions, superstitions, or how ever they were categorized before, but something to become familiar with and learn how they are connected."

That is incredibly insightful Kerstin. It's profound.