The Reply to Father Vernon

Extract

Vernon Johnson’s book, One Lord, One Faith really needed no reply. It was not a challenge, not controversial : it was itself a reply to innumerable inquirers who sought to know why he had thought it necessary to leave the Church of England and seek reconciliation with the Catholic Church. In explaining why he had so acted, he made a very simple, straight-forward and sincere statement of what had happened in his own soul. His explanation is written with a very rare courtesy and there is not a word which could be seriously interpreted as offensive to his Anglican friends. The Rev. E. Milner-White and the Rev. W. L. Knox are not satisfied with Father Vernon’s explanation. In effect they think hel has acted foolishly; but their object is not so much to convince him of his folly as to warn the many readers of his book from following too rashly in his footsteps. This ‘Reply’ is not studiously courteous nor is there the careful avoidance of giving offence which distinguished Father Vernon’s statement. In fact we have heard the book curtly described as ‘bad temper, bad history, bad theology, bad morals and bad taste’ —a severe indictment, but not entirely unmerited.

Is it good history, for instance, to say that the Churches of England and Rome ‘definitely claim unbroken descent from the Apostles through their similar ministries (a claim which history, that is to say, fact, allows to be equally strong in each case)’? And is this good theology?