cost of Faith
Two letters (August 3) may at first sight seem to have little connection — that from Dr Micklewright captioned "Unity with Anglicans basically unsound" and that from Ian Caws on "Protestant prejudice".
However, those who view protestantism in these islands and especially in England, both in historical perspective and from the centrality of Catholic truth (once considered a vantage point, before the mists of ecumenism!) should regard them each as, necessarily, facets of the same phenomenon.
That is, the historical fact and the theological truth that in 1535, for reasons different persons may consider good or had, the Church of England voluntarily cut itself off from the Universal Church in England. Go and read some of the old Protestant
school text books! No longer grounded on the Rock of Peter, it had to make do with Acts of Parliament!
Also — although for a decade or so it has not been 'nice' to recall it — this also involved making life difficult and impossible, often literally so, for the Old Faith, and subsequent protestant splinters. Every attempt, often savage, was for centuries, yes centuries, made to stamp out any dissentient voice.
To our shame, too many Catholics either do not know, or forget (and a lot of history has been curiously rewritten!) that the Faith you and I possess was kept alive here by prayer, struggle, sacrifice, constant missionary activity, immigration and the uncosted blood of the martyrs, Dr G. Newlin Wimbledon, London SWI9