Roman Catholic Faith. No Anglican of the present day, no Protestant,
no one who is not an out-and-out Roman Catholic can be, or could ever
have been, a Cardinal, yet there were Cardinals here in the Church in
England, and, as we have stated, a long succession of them right up to
the time of the pseudo-Reformation. How can there be continuity and
spiritual identity between the Church _in_ England, which before that
change could and did have Cardinals, and the Church _of_ England
to-day, which can produce nothing of the kind? Cardinals or no
Cardinals is not a matter of great importance in itself, but it is
another "straw" which clearly shows the completely altered condition
of things. Let us pass to another point. During the period between the
sixth and sixteenth centuries there were many canonised saints in the
Church in England. I refer to such men as St. Bede, who lived in the
eighth century; to St. Odo of Canterbury; to St. Dunstan, Archbishop
of Canterbury, in the tenth century; to St. Wolstan of Worcester; to
St. Osmond, Bishop of Salisbury in the eleventh century; to St. Thomas
a Becket, in the twelfth century; to St. Richard, Bishop of
Chichester and St. Edmund, in the thirteenth century; and to many
others we could mention, whose names are enrolled in the lists of the
Catholic Church, and who are set up before her children as models of
virtue, as the most perfect specimens of sanctity, and as worthy of
our imitation--all members of the Church in England before the
pseudo-Reformation.[11] How is it that the present Church of England
has never canonised any saint? Those to whom I have referred represent
the best and truest of the Church in England before the "Reformation".
We still show them reverence. In many cases we even recite their
offices and Masses. How, then, can they be members of the same Church
as the Church of England of to-day, which we know to be a schismatical
body, cut off from the unity of Christendom some four hundred years
ago? There has been no saint canonised according to the rite of the
Church of England, but if there had been, we would not and could not
reverence them, for they would be to us outside the Church--aliens,
heretics, and, from that point of view at all events, unworthy of
imitation. Let us point out yet another "straw" which clearly
indicates the essential difference between the Church in England
before the "Reformation" and the Church of England after it. When the
young King Hen