Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

278 Ritualism in its relation to Re-union.
especial doctrine of which this most venerable*
and apostolic piece of Ritual is emblematical.
Other arguments might be multiplied, but
surely what has been said is enough. In fact,
had the much-abused Roman Church decreed
that the omission of the water would invalidate
the sacrament, I do not see very well what
entirely satisfactory reply Anglicans could have
made. They would have been hampered by
their own certain knowledge, not derived through
Roman sources, that the practice was primitive
and apostolic ; and so would have been self-
convicted of breaking a Catholic tradition.
But because the Roman Church has most
mercifully
said that the omission does not
invalidate, but that the priest who omits, sins
mortally graviter peccat they take heart, and
natter themselves that, after all, the omission
is a light thing and not of any particular im
portance. I must repeat again and again,,
usque ad nauseam^ until I can get people to
listen to me out of sheer weariness at my im
portunity, that these things are of vital im
portance to the unity of Christendom. Can
any one be so deluded as to imagine that Greece
or Rome will have anything whatsoever to do
with us, or to say to us, so long as we continue,,
as a Church, to differ from the whole of the
rest of the Catholic and Christian world?
There has been an interesting correspondence