The Caroline Divines and the Church of Rome: A Contribution to Current Ecumenical Dialogue

In the early seventeenth century, as the vehement aggression of the early Reformation faded, the Church of England was able to draw upon scholars of remarkable ability to present a more thoughtful defence of its position. The Caroline Divines, who flourished under King Charles I, drew upon vast erudition and literary skill, to refute the claims of the Church of Rome and affirm the purity of the English religious settlement. This book examines their writings in the context of modern ecumenical dialogue, notably that of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) to ask whether their arguments are still valid, and indeed whether they can contribute to contemporary ecumenical progress.

Drawing upon an under-used resource within Anglicanism’s own theological history, this volume shows how the restatement by the Caroline Divines of the catholic identity of the Church prefigured the work of ARCIC, and provides Anglicans with a vocabulary drawn from within their own tradition that avoids some of the polemical and disputed formulations of the Roman Catholic tradition.

Mark Langham studied classics at Cambridge, and studied for the priesthood in the Venerable English College in Rome. After ordination, he worked at Westminster Cathedral, where he was successively Precentor and Sub-Administrator, and in 1996 became parish priest of St Mary of the Angels, in Bayswater, a busy multi-cultural parish. In 2001 he returned to Westminster Cathedral as Administrator, where he forged many ecumenical links, and was honorary member of the chapters of both Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral. In 2008 Mark worked in Rome at the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, where he was responsible for relations between the Vatican and the Anglican Communion and Methodist World Conference. During that time he was secretary to the official dialogues between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion (ARCIC), oversaw the visits by Archbishops of Canterbury to Rome, and provided the BBC commentary for the visit of Pope Benedict to England in 2010. In 2013 his Doctorate entitled ‘The Caroline Divines and the Catholic Church: A Contribution to Current Ecumenical Debate’ was awarded the Premio Bellarmino by the Gregorian University. In that year he returned to Cambridge, as chaplain to the Catholic members of the university at Fisher House.