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Stand Up for Jesus: Anglo-Catholics rally for priestly ideals
By Glyn Paflin
CHURCH TIMES
LONDON: FIVE THOUSAND Anglo-Catholics gathered from across the world at the Royal Albert Hall in London last Saturday to celebrate 150 years of the Society of the Holy Cross (SSC).
They heard calls from the Society's Master and the Bishop of London to maintain a strong identity within Anglicanism.
The Society, whose membership numbers 1100 priests, 750 of whom work in the UK, was set up to promote Catholic priestly discipline, devotion, and brotherhood.
For the celebration, entitled "Stand Up for Jesus", the Royal Albert Hall had been transformed into a dramatic stage for worship: a red-and-gold fronted altar supported six giant candles, behind which sat 24 bishops.
Seven hundred priests concelebrated. The chief concelebrant, the Bishop in Europe, Dr Geoffrey Rowell, wore Bishop Edward King's squat mitre and matching gold vestments, and was flanked by enormous photographs of founding fathers of the Society, the slum priests Charles Lowder and Alexander Mackonochie. Fr Mackonochie's words in the face of persecution, "No desertion! No surrender!", were recalled.
Participants had the previous day made a pilgrimage to Walsingham, and the image of Our Lady of Walsingham was brought from the Shrine. But the ceremonial coup de théâtre, organised by the Revd Beaumont Brandie, was a 30-foot cross, which, when charged with the Society's relic of the True Cross, was raised above the altar, to the singing of "Lift high the Cross".
The Revd David Houlding, as Master General of the SSC, urged the congregation to ensure that the Anglican Church remained a fully Catholic part of God's one holy Church - a rallying cry taken up by the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Richard Chartres.
Catholics should not be content to settle for being merely a party within the Church, said Fr Houlding. "This is a shabby second best. The claim of the Oxford Movement was that the whole Church of England is Catholic by its very nature, and they started to behave like it."
Earlier in the day, participants heard Bishop Paul Richardson talk about mission. The biggest cheer of the day was reserved for the former Bishop of Chichester, Dr Eric Kemp, 90 later this month, who was in the Royal Box.
The Society had held a synod at St Alban's, Holborn, on the previous Tuesday, followed by a two-day Christological conference attended by 500 priests.
They were addressed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, before he left for Rome, Professor David Brown, Professor Ann Loades, the Bishop of Guildford, and Dr Mary Tanner.
Many of the lay people present on Saturday had come on from a conference in Caister, also on the theme "Stand Up for Jesus".
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