Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

Postscript on Catholic Unity. 193
to the possibility of Corporate Re-union when
a single example has been produced from
Church History of any other method of recon
ciling separated communities. And the same
testimony which proves the possibility, demon
strates of course the fitness of the Church s
manner of procedure. There was the less need
for dwelling on this
part of the subject in my
Letter, as it had just before been elaborately dis
cussed in Father Lockhart s review of the
Eirenicon. To quote his words :
"
Corporate
Re-union cannot be impossible, since it has been
realised by the Church at the Council of
Florence, as well as in various other transactions
with separated bodies .... if the Church
attempted it, clearly the principle is sound."* I
may now refer for a fuller drawing out of the
same argument, with special reference to the
case of Anglicans, to the preface to the second
edition of his pamphlet. It would be, as he
justly observes,
and indeed
"
gross uncharity
grossly irrational to question the good faith of
at least the immense majority of those who are
fighting the battle of Catholic principles
in the
Church of England. Nor does any reasonable
man doubt the sincerity of the author of the
Eirenicon.^ Whether Cardinal Wiseman s
* Possibilities and Difficulties of Re-union (Longmans),
pp. 5, 6.
t It is stated by a writer in the Dublin Eeview for *
O
July