1 was particularly interested in Fr David Forrester's article entitled, "Is Britain still anti-Catholic'?" (Joly I) and as a convert of nearly 20 years' standing from the Anglican Church perhaps I may be permitted to make some observations about our position in England.
Fr Forrester asks whether it is
not time that "native Catholics in this country shook off their inferiority". If such a sense of inferiority still exists them most certainly it should he discarded at once, for it has no justification. Quite apart from the fact thet we are members of the vast international community, for the greater part of a thousand years England was in communion with Rome — the great Sec founded by the Apostles Peter and Paul and sanctified by their martyrdom there — and therefore English history is deeply and richly Catholic.
Many of our sovereigns have been Catholic, the last one being James II. The great universities of Oxford and Cambridge are Catholic in origin — witness the names of such colleges as Trinity and Corpus Christi still in use -as are such famous public schools as Eton and Winchester.
The glorious mediaeval cathedrals and churches of atm land were built for the offering of the Mass, and in more recent times the name of England's most famous cricket ground, • Lord's, derives from that • of a Catholic yeoman family. Countless more examples of England's Catholic heritage could be mentioned. • it is beyond question that the Catholic Church in this country, since the Reformation and until recently, has not been given a fair hearing and prejudice against her has beenpositively encouraged. Thank God that those days arc over and that the Catholic community is gradually emerging from its ghetto, so that it is now once more possible for a Catholic to be Lord Chancellor, and at least one head of an Oxford college is a Catholic. In terms of social make-up the Catholic Church has good grounds for claiming to be the most comprehensive of the English Churches, consiAing as she does of large numbers of working class men and women, a growing middle class and members of the ancient landed gentry and aristocracy. No one wishes to return to the dreadful days of un-Christian strife between Protestant and Catholic, and the Catholic Church in England -riot such a minority by any means if one counts church membership in terms of those who are communirants must play her full part enriching English life, esn.rially in cordial relationships with her sister Churches. But inferiority complex, Forrester? Most Emphatically not!
John G. Evans
Walsall, West Midlands.