Book Description

This is a reply to 'The Validity of Papal Claims, by F. Nutcombe Oxenham, DD, English Chaplain (Anglican) in Rome. IT is never a pleasing task to have to deal with an opponent who delights in sophistry, but when a writer forgets his good manners and finds it necessary to couch his specious reasoning in terms which are offensive and discourteous, the task becomes more displeasing still. Dr. Oxenham, in his little book entitled "The Validity of Papal Claims "-a book in which he endeavours to reply to the Pope's Encyclical on the Unity of the Church-appears to revel in abusive epithets, and he accuses Leo XIII. of "deliberate mistranslations and forgeries," of "most presumptuous" and "profane Impostures," just as on a previous occasion he did not hesitate to charge the venerable Pontiff with having uttered a "deliberate and audacious falsehood." But abuse is not argument, and I fancy that most people will be inclined to suspect that his position must be a weak one if it requires such weapons for its defence. The main point at issue, as Dr. Oxenham himself acknowledges in the opening chapters of his book, is no other than this: -Did S. Peter hold the privileges of supremacy and infallibility now claimed for him, and were those privileges recognised by all the venerable Fathers of antiquity, and by all the holy and orthodox Doctors of the Church, as the Vatican Council asserts, and the present Pontiff teaches in his Encyclical on the Unity of the Church, according to the divine promise of our Lord and Saviour given to the Prince of His Apostles? 1. Now, as regards Dr. Oxenham's manner of dealing with the subject, I must first point out that he seems to have experienced considerable difficulty when he came to translate the very simple text of the Vatican Council. No one in the least familiar with the terms of ecclesiastical language, or indeed with the etymology of words, would venture tv translate "discipulorum principi" by "the wisest of His Apostles." And yet, this is the version as it appears on page 8 of Dr. Oxenham's little book. However, after he had printed his book, Dr. Oxenham discovered his mistake, and in the copy which I possess,l there is inserted a strip of paper with some Errata, and we are asked to read Prince instead of wisest. It is not easy to pass over the mistranslation as a printer's error, and we are led to wonder how far we can trust Dr. Oxenham's manner of handling the texts which he quotes, and whether he is in any way competent to pronounce upon atranslation given by Leo XIII., whom he accuses of deliberately falsifying" the testimony of one of the Fathers. 2. Dr. Oxenham proceeds at once to abandon the main point at issue, mentioned above, and, after the manner of the hero of Cervantes, to combat an imaginary foe. He adds page to page in order to prove that the Vatican Council and the Pope were wrong in saying that which they never did say. For nowhere has the Councilor the Pope asserted that all the venerable Fathers and orthodox doctors of the Church, at all times and on every occasion, even when dealing with a subject other than the supremacy of S. Peter, have expressly described or expounded at length the position of S. Peter, or that each one of the Fathers has been at pains to mention that doctrine every time that he may have had occasion to refer to one or .other of the three famous texts quoted by Dr. Oxenham, viz.: -" Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, it shall be bound also in Heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in Heaven" (Matt. xvi. 18). "Simon, Simon, behold Satan has desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not: and thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren". "Feed my lambs . . Feed my sheep".