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 is a priest of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Westminster. From 2008 to 2013 he 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 was co-secretary to the official dialogue between the Catholic Church and Anglican Communion (ARCIC). In 2010 he provided the BBC commentary for the visit of Pope Benedict to England, and is currently based at Cambridge as Catholic chaplain to the University.