Do Anglicans Pray To Mary

[Vin Raichur]

Fromstart to finish, Erasmus writes in the voice of Folly, a female jester, who opines on the state of religion. She concludes that there is one fundamental problem with pilgrimages, prayers to saints, and excessive liturgical pomp (not to mention overcurious scholastic speculation): each is a distraction which marginalizes the fundamentals of Christian faith and life. Consider the following statement on devotion to the Blessed Virgin:

What a crowd of them can be seen lighting candles to the Virgin Mary, and in broad daylight, when there is no need for them! Yet how few of the same crowd try to imitate her in the chastity and modesty of her life, in her love for celestial things?[1]

One might argue that in his criticism, Erasmus was unkind; only a fine line can occupy the ground between satire and cynicism. Yet at the same time, I suspect that we agree with his primary concern. Devotion should always be intentional; it should deepen self-knowledge and strengthen virtue. If devotion becomes a means of distraction or escape, it can become a form of self-deception, indulgent delusion, or an idol. (The same is no less true of theological study, I might add.) First things must come first.

Cranmer and other reformers were inspired by a far higher vision of the Eucharist than was prevalent at the time. Because of this, they rejected Eucharistic adoration, which made the Eucharistic something seen but not received. (And just for the record, the first Eucharistic Adoration actually took place in Lige, although it was certainly popular in England.)

But what of today? Despite ecumenism, one of the great, unresolved issues in the Church concerns popular devotion. At a basic level, popular devotion always implies a theology, even if its practitioners are not theologically articulate. In condemning Eucharistic adoration, for example, Cranmer did far more than just condemn one expression of popular devotion: he condemned both a liturgical practice and the divorce of elaborate sacramental theology from frequent sacramental participation.

How should we apply this passage? In particular, should the mediation of Christ cut us off from the wider Church? That is, if I have access to the Father through Christ, does this mean that my brothers and sisters in Christ, both the living and the dead, are irrelevant to my prayers? Clearly this cannot be the case. Otherwise, one cannot explain why Christians pray in the Apocalypse and elsewhere in the New Testament.

The mediation of Christ is all-sufficient for its intended end: the justification of the faithful. The mediation of Christ is not all-sufficient for other ends because the mediation of Christ is not given for the attainment of other ends. Thus the intercessions of the Church, whether by the living or the dead, are not and cannot be set against the mediation of Christ. The end of the latter is not the end of the former.

I notice you do not quote Scripture at all in any of your assertions guyer. Are we not people of the book? To the Law and to the Testimony then. I think you will find your post to be quite vacuous when you do.

Very nicely explained. Thank you. As an Anglo-Catholic who graduated from Wycliffe College (you can see the inherent conflict) I felt as if I was between a rock and a hard place as a seminarian on issues such as these.

To give you a little about my background so you understand where I am coming from, i was raised a confessional Lutheran, but have been attending a Traditional Anglican parish for the last 2 years. I often deliberate between the two Traditions. Sometimes Anglicans win the debate in my mind and other times Lutherans do. My Anglican Priest will pray the rosary as a group and I was just wondering if this is proper. Asking the saints to continue their intercessions for us makes more sense now that you mention it. The fact that the saints pray for us in heaven is an objective truth. Thanks.

4. We will have the sacrament hung over the high altar, and thus be worshipped as it was wont to be, and they which do not thereunto consent, we will have them die like heretics against the holy Catholic faith.

In many respects, there are no differences between the two churches. They are both Christian churches, springing from the same ancient source as the Eastern Orthodox churches. As such, Anglicans and Roman Catholics read the Bible with not only the two Testaments but also the Apocrypha, those books of the Hebrew Bible written in Greek. Both churches recite the Nicene and Apostles Creeds. Both administer Baptism and Confirmation, and celebrate the Holy Communion, as well as the four other sacramental rites of Penance, Matrimony, Anointing of the Sick, and Holy Orders. Their clergy are ordained deacon first, then priest, unless they are called to be perpetual deacons. From the priests bishops are chosen and consecrated by no fewer than three bishops belonging to a scrupulously conserved line of bishops that reaches back to the earliest churches.

There are Roman Catholic and Anglican shrines to Mary. Some Anglicans pray the rosary. Both churches maintain calendars of saints, with special prayers and readings for their feast days. Both churches have orders of men and women religious, vowed celibates who live in monasteries and convents.

If you were to visit an Anglican parish (they both use the term for a congregation) and then a Roman Catholic parish, you would observe many other similarities. In the United States, at least, the liturgies are almost identical, as are the customary vestments worn by the clergy and lay assisting ministers.

The differences are in the details, for the most part. These differences flow from one central issue: who is in authority. The Roman Catholic Church has over the centuries steadily increased the power and prestige of the Pope, the Bishop of Rome. In our day, the combination of an extraordinarily gifted pope, John Paul II, with the mass media and globalization, have raised the office of pope to its highest level ever. The peripatetic pontiff has traveled far more than any of his predecessors. When he visits a country, it is to speak, not to listen, however. His bishops around the world act more as his prefects than as overseers of the regional Christian community. St Augustine's famous saying, Roma locuta causa finita est (Rome has spoken and that settles the matter) has never been more true than today.

Despite the attempts of Vatican II to create local synods at the diocesan and national levels, they serve still in a purely advisory capacity. No other body has any authority over the pope, either. For example, when Pope Paul VI issued the encyclical Human Vit forbidding birth control, he ignored the recommendations of the commission he had appointed to advise him. The Vicar of Christ holds all the reins. Authority flows from him down and outward.

The churches of the Anglican Communion have resolutely sought to disperse that absolute authority among several places. A famous report on authority in Anglicanism spoke of this peculiarly Anglican view of authority, which flows, it says, from the edges to the center. Each Anglican Church belongs to the Anglican Communion because it is in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury and seeks to uphold the catholic faith and reformed order inherited from the Church of England. Yet each one is independent. The Archbishop has no legal authority outside of the Diocese of Canterbury. He serves as spiritual leader and symbol of unity.

The laity have real power at all levels of the Anglican churches (though with local variations). Anglicans look to their diocesan and national synods of bishops, clergy and laity to interpret matters of faith and order. Unlike the Church of Rome, with its admirable clarity of decision-making, the Anglican churches are messy and often disagree with each other. For instance, some churches ordain women to all three orders of ministry. Many do not at all, and the Church of England ordains women to the diaconate and the priesthood, but not the episcopate at this time of writing. Women bishops were present at the 1998 Lambeth Conference, the worldwide gathering of Anglican bishops every ten years. But since the decisions of Lambeth have no authority other than as recommendations, their presence was not disruptive.

This 'messiness' means that Anglicans have greater latitude officially than Roman Catholics do both individually and in their dioceses and national churches. In general, the laity are expected to use the resources of the church, especially regular common worship, in developing a Christ-like character, and ability to reason morally. The different emphases present in Christianity find their adherents among Anglicans. Thus some Anglicans have elaborate liturgies modeled on medieval English worship. Others emphasize evangelistic preaching and relatively simple worship. Still others show the influence of the Pentecostal movement, or the iconography of the Eastern churches. Some Anglicans are mystic; others are intensely concerned with social justice. Moreover, each national church adapts the faith and order to its own culture.

Since Roman Catholics tie membership in their church to the person and authority of the pope, they do not ordinarily allow intercommunion. They do not recognize the validity of Anglican Orders, and so re-confirm and re-ordain Anglican converts. Anglicans on the other hand tend to practice open communion, and do not re-confirm or re-ordain Roman Catholic converts, because they recognize Roman Orders as valid. The difference is being in communion with the pope for Roman Catholics, and for Anglicans, it is adhering to the catholic faith as it has been inherited from the earliest Christians. One permanent feature of Anglicanism has been seeking to restore the faith and order of the primitive church. This is the principle of its reformation, while Rome's counter-reformation was to restore and enhance the medieval concept of papal authority.

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