One hundred years ago there existed in England the Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom.
Representing as it did the efforts of only unauthorized individuals of the Roman and Anglican Churches, and urging a communion of prayer unacceptable to Rome, this association produced little fruit, and, in fact, was condemned by the Holy Office in 1864.

Now again in 1961, in England, there is perhaps nothing in the religious sphere so popularly discussed as Christian unity.
The Church Unity Octave, January 18-25, was enthusiastically devoted to prayer and discussion by the various churches.
Many people seem hopeful, yet it is difficult to predict whether or not there will be any more real attainment of Christian unity in 1961 than there was in 1861.
But it must be readily seen that the religious picture in England has so greatly changed during these hundred years as to engender hope, at least on the Catholic side.
For the "tide is well on the turn", as the London Catholic weekly Universe has written.

I came to England last summer to do research on the unpublished letters of Cardinal Newman.
As an American Catholic of Irish ancestry, I came with certain preconceptions and expectations;
being intellectually influenced by Newman and the general 19th-century literature of England, I knew only a Protestant-dominated country.
Since arriving here, however, I have formed a far different religious picture of present-day England.
In representing part of this new picture, I will be recounting some of my own personal experiences, reactions and judgments;
but my primary aim is to transcribe what Englishmen themselves are saying and writing and implying about the Roman and Anglican Churches and about the present religious state of England.

Since the Protestant clergy for the most part wear gray or some variant from the wholly black suit, my Roman collar and black garb usually identify me in England as a Roman Catholic cleric.
In any case, I have always been treated with the utmost courtesy by Englishmen, even in Devonshire and Cornwall, where anti-Catholic feeling has supposedly existed the strongest and longest.

Nowhere have I seen public expression of anti-Catholicism.
On my first Guy Fawkes Day here, I found Catholics as well as non-Catholics celebrating with the traditional fireworks and bonfires, and was told that most Englishmen either do not know or are not concerned with the historical significance of the day.
A Birmingham newspaper printed in a column for children an article entitled "The True Story of Guy Fawkes", which began:

"When you pile your "guy" on the bonfire tomorrow night, I wonder how much of the true story of Guy Fawkes you will remember?
In the 355 years since the first Guy Fawkes Night, much of the story has been forgotten, so here is a reminder".
The article proceeded to give an inaccurate account of a Catholic plot to kill King James 1.

In spite of the increase in numbers and prestige brought about by the conversions of Newman and other Tractarians of the 1840's and 1850's, the Catholic segment of England one hundred years ago was a very small one (four per cent, or 800,000) which did not enjoy a gracious hearing from the general public.
The return of the Catholic hierarchy in 1850 was looked upon with indignant disapprobation and, in fact, was charged with being a gesture of disloyalty.
In 1864 Newman professedly had to write his Apologia with his keenest feelings in order to be believed and to command a fair hearing from English readers.

Now, in 1961, the Catholic population of England is still quite small (ten per cent, or 5 million);
yet it represents a very considerable percentage of the churchgoing population.
A Protestant woman marveled to me over the large crowds going in and out of the Birmingham Oratory (Catholic) Church on Sunday mornings.
She found this a marvel because, as she said, only six per cent of English people are churchgoers.
She may not have been exact on this number, but others here feel quite certain that the percentage would be less than ten.
From many sides come remarks that Protestant churches are badly attended and the large medieval cathedrals look all but empty during services.
A Catholic priest recently recounted how in the chapel of a large city university, following Anglican evensong, at which there was a congregation of twelve, he celebrated Mass before more than a hundred.

The Protestant themselves are the first to admit the great falling off in effective membership in their churches.
According to a newspaper report of the 1961 statistics of the Church of England, the "total of confirmed members is 9,748,000, but only 2,887,671 are registered on the parochial church rolls", and "over 27 million people in England are baptized into the Church of England, but roughly only a tenth of them continue".
An amazing article in the Manchester Guardian of last November, entitled "Fate Of Redundant Churches", states than an Archbishops' Commission "reported last month that in the Church of England alone there are 790 churches which are redundant now, or will be in 20 years' time.
A further 260 Anglican churches have been demolished since 1948".
And in the last five years, the "Methodist chapel committee has authorized the demolition or, more often, the sale of 764 chapels".
Most of these former churches are now used as warehouses, but "neither Anglicans nor Nonconformists object to selling churches to Roman Catholics", and have done so.

While it must be said that these same Protestants have built some new churches during this period, and that religious population shifts have emptied churches, a principal reason for this phenomenon of redundancy is that fewer Protestants are going to church.
It should be admitted, too, that there is a good percentage of lapsed or nonchurchgoing Catholics (one paper writes 50 per cent).
Still, it is clear from such reports, and apparently clear from the remarks of many people, that Protestants are decreasing and Catholics increasing.

An Anglican clergyman in Oxford sadly but frankly acknowledged to me that this is true.
A century ago, Newman saw that liberalism (what we now might call secularism) would gradually but definitely make its mark on English Protestantism, and that even high Anglicanism would someday no longer be a "serviceable breakwater against doctrinal errors more fundamental than its own".
That day is perhaps today, 1961, and it seems no longer very meaningful to call England a "Protestant country".
One of the ironies of the present crusade for Christian unity is that there are not, relatively speaking, many real Christians to unite.

Many English Catholics are proud of their Catholicism and know that they are in a new ascendancy.
The London Universe devoted its centenary issue last December 8 to mapping out various aspects of Catholic progress during the last one hundred years.
With traditional nationalistic spirit, some Englishmen claim that English Catholicism is Catholicism at its best.
I have found myself saying with other foreigners here that English Catholics are good Catholics.
It has been my experience to find as many men as women in church, and to hear almost everyone in church congregations reciting the Latin prayers and responses at Mass.

They hope, of course, to reclaim the non-Catholic population to the Catholic faith, and at every Sunday Benediction they recite by heart the "Prayer for England":

"O Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and our most gentle queen and mother, look down in mercy upon England, thy "dowry", and upon us all who greatly hope and trust in thee.
Intercede for our separated brethren, that with us in the one true fold they may be united to the chief Shepherd, the vicar of thy Son."
A hymn often to be heard in Catholic churches is "Faith Of Our Fathers", which glories in England's ancient faith that endured persecution, and which proclaims: "Faith of our Fathers: Mary's prayers Shall win our country back to thee".
The English saints are widely venerated, quite naturally, and now there is great hope that the Forty Martyrs and Cardinal Newman will soon be canonized.

Because they have kept the faith of their medieval fathers, English Catholics have always strongly resented the charge of being "un-English".
I have not seen this charge made during my stay here, but apparently it is still in the air.
For example, a writer in a recent number of The Queen hyperbolically states that "of the myriad imprecations the only one which the English Catholics really resent is the suggestion that they are 'un-English'".
In this connection, it has been observed that the increasing number of Irish Catholics, priests and laity, in England, while certainly seen as good for Catholicism, is nevertheless a source of embarrassment for some of the more nationalistic English Catholics, especially when these Irishmen offer to remind their Christian brethren of this good.

One of the more noteworthy changes that have taken place since the mid-19th century is the situation of Catholics at Oxford and Cambridge Universities.
At Oxford one hundred years ago there were very few Catholics, partly because religious tests were removed only in 1854.
Moreover, for those few there was almost no ecclesiastical representation in the city to care for their religious needs.
Now, not only are there considerably more laity as students and professors at Oxford, but there are also numerous houses of religious orders existing in respectable and friendly relations with the non-Catholic members of the University.
Some Catholic priests lecture there;
Catholic seminarians attend tutorials and row on the Cherwell with non-Catholic students.

Further evidence that Roman Catholicism enjoys a more favorable position today than in 1861 is the respectful attention given to it in the mass media of England.
The general tone of articles appearing in such important newspapers as the Manchester Guardian and the Sunday Observer implies a kindly recognition that the Catholic Church is now at least of equal stature in England with the Protestant churches.
On successive Sundays during October, 1960, Paul Ferris (a non-Catholic) wrote articles in the Observer depicting clergymen of the Church of England, the Church of Rome and the Nonconformist Church.
The Catholic priest, though somewhat superficially drawn, easily came out the best.
There were many letters of strong protest against the portrait of the Anglican clergyman, who was indeed portrayed as a man not particularly concerned with religious matters and without really very much to do as clergyman.
Such a series of articles was certainly never printed in the public press of mid-Victorian England.
There was so much interest shown in this present-day venture that it was continued on B.B.C., where comments were equally made by an Anglican parson, a Free Church minister and a Catholic priest.

Catholic priests have frequently appeared on television programs, sometimes discussing the Christian faith on an equal footing with Protestant clergymen.
A notable example of this was the discussion of Christian unity by the Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, Dr. Heenan, and the Anglican Archbishop of York, Dr. Ramsey, recently appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.
The good feeling which exists between these two important church figures is now well known in England.
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with commentary has been televised several times in recent months.
And it was interesting to observe that B.B.C.'s television film on Christmas Eve was The Bells Of St. Mary's.

Of course, the crowning event that has dramatically upset the traditional pattern of English religious history was the friendly visit paid by Dr. Fisher, then Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, to the Vatican last December.
It was the first time an English Primate has done this since the 14th century.
English Catholics reacted to this event with moderate but real hope.

Almost daily something is reported which feeds this Catholic hope in England: statistics of the increasing numbers of converts and Irish Catholic immigrants;
news of a Protestant minister in Leamington who has offered to allow a Catholic priest to preach from his pulpit;
a report that a Catholic nun had been requested to teach in a non-Catholic secondary school during the sickness of one of its masters;
the startling statement in a respectable periodical that "Catholics, if the present system is still in operation, will constitute almost one-third of the House of Lords in the next generation";
a report that 200 Protestant clergymen and laity attended a votive Mass offered for Christian unity at a Catholic church in Slough during the Church Unity Octave.