ed his
Catholicity and his loyalty to the Vicar of Christ in more
unmistakable or in more explicit terms.

Whom shall we believe? King Edward III. himself, who, in the above
words, declares he is a staunch Roman Catholic, and an obedient son of
the Pope, ready to defend his rights against all, or the present
Bishop of London, who declares he was not?

There is one sentence in the King's letter which is especially worthy
of consideration, as it is so pregnant with meaning. We refer to the
following: knowing that "your Holiness presides over every creature,
_which to deny is heresy_".

You will observe that the King not only believes, but that he here
practically makes an explicit profession of faith in the spiritual
supremacy of St. Peter and his successors, the Popes. In fact, he not
only admits and confesses the Pope's supremacy to be true, which is
one thing, but he declares it to be a _revealed_ truth, taught by Our
Blessed Lord Himself, which is a great deal more. How does he do this?
Suffer us to explain.

To deny any truth of religion is wrong and sinful, but it is not
necessarily and always heretical. Heresy is not the denial of any kind
of truth: it is the denial only of a special form of truth. It is the
denial of those truths which have been taught by Jesus Christ and the
Apostles. But the King explicitly declares in his letter to the Holy
Father that to deny the Pope's spiritual supremacy over all is not
only wrong, not only sinful, but that it is to be guilty of the
specially horrible sin of heresy. His words are: "It is to maintain
heresy". Yet Anglicans still fondly cling to the delusion that the
Church in England in the time of Edward III. is in unbroken continuity
with the Church of England in the time of King Edward VII.!

But, to continue. It is interesting to note that the Pope, Benedict
XII., in due course replies to this letter from his "devout and humble
son," as Edward describes himself. He begins by expressing his
satisfaction that His "most dear Son in Christ King Edward of England"
should thus "follow the commendable footsteps of your progenitors,
Kings of England who," he goes on to say, "were famous for the fulness
of their devotion and faith towards God and the Holy Roman Church".

Will the present Bishop of London, we wonder, be good enough to
explain how Pope Benedict XII. could possibly tell a renowned King of
England that his progenitors, that is to say, the Kings of England who