GCM+,
I appreciate your comments on Dr. Tighe's thoughts on
the English Reformation and certainly agree with your
conclusions. What I find interesting about Dr. Tighe's
paper, as well as the work of Dr. Duffy, is their
accounting of the many English clergy and lay persons
reluctance in accepting the reforms. Most of the works
that I have been pointed to on the English Reformation
just have not talked much about these things. Now I
certainly don't reach the same conclusions they do but
still I appreciate them pointing these facts out. The
truth of the English Reformation is probably somewhere
in between Morman and the Tighe/Duffy account. Thanks
again for your comments.


Joseph Patterson+  






> Joseph+,
> I've talked with Dr. Tighe a few times and consider
> him to be an extremely 
> intelligent and thoughtful historian. He's very
> generous as well and just 
> sends me books now and then. I agree with his take
> on the novelty and 
> invalidity of women's ordination. The English
> Reformation did not grant the 
> Church of England to be independent from the Faith
> once delivered. And just 
> because jurisdiction has been changed concerning
> Rome, it does not mean that 
> anyone is at liberty to create a new and different
> Catholicism. Any 
> assertions to that effect should be rejected,
> regardless of how one 
> understands the specific historical events.
> 




> Running commentary on the article you linked:
> Dr. Tighe (WT) begins with this thesis:
> Episcopalian/Anglican assertions 
> cannot be justified (as shown by history), which
> say: “Well, the Church of 
> England rejected papal jurisdiction …and so …people
> (and the CofE in 
> particular) are free to act on their own authority
> in making women priests 
> and bishops, etc.” So I think he's not primarily
> addressing APA type folk, 
> but ECUSA "conservatives" who are just fine with
> Women's ordination (and 
> often the 1979 BCP as well). As usual though, he
> will end up being a 
> passionate proselitizer of non Roman Catholics in
> general.
> 
> Then comes the historical overview:
> WT: History of Henry VIII seeking an annulment was
> political power-mongering 
> and technically illegal.
> --OK; but possession is 9/10 of the law, and Henry
> "possessed the law." This 
> doesn't make it good, but it still happened.
> 
> WT: Different Houses and Convocations of Parliament
> and Clergy did not 
> concede Henry's authority all at once, but at
> different times and degrees.
> --OK. But slow acceptance in some quarters doesn't
> mean it didn't happen.
> 
> WT: Henry resorted to crass intimidation.
> --I'm sure that was part of why everyone eventually
> went along with the new 
> structure. But not the only reason.
> 
> WT: Of the six or so major declarations effecting
> Henry's realignment, only 
> one was undisputably taken in consultation with the
> Bishops of the Church, 
> the rest were largely secular.
> --OK.
> 
> WT: Henry acted too unilaterally, and decisions were
> made that weren't 
> really decisions of the church, but just of Henry
> (and later Edward VI).
> --Well, the CofE went along, and ratified everything
> by actions and time, 
> even if the king didn't consult very much and allow
> them to "vote."
> 
> WT: Significant changes started happening such as
> Clerical marriage, 
> Communion in both kinds, English use, etc.--changes
> that circumvented the 
> Convocations.
> --They may have circumvented the Convocations, but
> most of these did not 
> circumvent the Catholic Faith. Besides, the
> Convocations of clergy *de 
> facto* ratified these changes even if not given the
> *de jure* chance at 
> first--and even if their preference was otherwise
> for quite some time.
> 
> WT: A touch of hagiography for Queen Mary. In
> effect, "Mary's was a 
> religious revival! but Henry and Edward were
> secularists at heart."
> --This is the first place Dr. Tighe's bias moves
> from 
> a-bit-slanted-but-plausible to
> rather-slanted-and-imbalanced. There was 
> plenty of religious motivation under Edward too, and
> plenty of politics 
> under Mary.
> 
> WT: "The Convocation debate early in Mary’s reign
> can justly be seen as the 
> first time since 1532 that the Church of England had
> been able to express 
> its mind freely through its own institutions.
> --No. That just seems goofy: Henry intimidated, but
> those in Convocation 
> under Mary didn't feel any intimidation and simply
> "expressed their mind 
> freely"? (Now what was Mary's nickname?) This is
> presumed to prove there was 
> a free-will consensus against ever having become
> distanced from the Pope. 
> Not likely--at least not that far. Mary, of course,
> fostered intimidation 
> very well. But it is important to note that there is
> the reality (both by 
> intimidation and no doubt spirituality too), that
> the CofE is "back to 
> square 2" and re-connected to Rome under Mary.
> Consequently, "Parliament 
> repealed all of the Henrician legislation against
> the papacy in the late 
> summer of 1554."
> 
> WT: Elizabeth was sly and a bit duplicitous by
> holding her (anti-papal) 
> cards so close.
> --She would have lost her head otherwise, methinks.
> What is noteworthy is 
> change away from Rome that the CofE and world-wide
> Anglicanism knows to this 
> day is traced to Elizabeth. One can be informed by
> Henry VIII, but he and 
> his lusts did not birth today's Anglicanism. The
> reorganization we know was 
> born of Elizabeth in company with the Bishops and
> Parliament of her reign. 
> Her motivations and justifactions were often
> different from Henry's. Dr. 
> Tighe spends some time in his final paragraphs
> begrudgingly admitting to 
> this and then discounting Elizabeth's reforms (which
> kept much Catholic 
> structure and content) as unremarkable since so
> similar to the reform in 
> Sweden and Denmark. The English Reformation finds
> its legitimate history in 
> what happened under Elizabeth, with Henry VIII being
> much less relevant, 
> despite his setting the stage and taking a trial
> run. Rome did not see 
> Elizabeth as an enemy of the Faith, at least not for
> about eight years after 
> her reign began, when the Pope finally
> excommunicated her. The Pope's 
> support and patient hopes of getting her married to
> some Roman Catholic 
> royal undermines the sweeping claims that
> Elizabeth's reforms were 
> illegitmate from the get-go.
> 
> WT's concluding assertion: "All churchmen (in
> Elizabeth's first years) voted 
> against both acts (Uniformity & Supremacy)...a case
> of laymen (alone) 
> authorizing an alteration in the doctrine and
> discipline of the Church 
> against the will of the clergy" And 16 of 17 Bishops
> were eventually forced 
> to resign who would not subscribe the Act of
> Supremacy. And WT further 
> relates that Convocations (of clergy) were inclined
> toward Rome, as seen in 
> its draft Articles (never voted on or submitted to
> Parliament). THEREFORE, 
> according to Dr. Tighe, "the conclusion is easy to
> draw. Far from seeking 
> “independence” from the papacy, far from approving
> its “reformation,” the 
> Church of England throughout this period opposed
> such measures on every 
> occasion that, through its own organs of government
> and self-expression, it 
> was able to voice its sentiments. To effect the kind
> of “reformation” that a 
> few desired for religious reasons and that many more
> desired for political 
> reasons, the Church had to be bludgeoned into
> submission."
> --I believe this is rather overstated. The CofE did
> not 
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