Oxford Movement

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For the 20th-century "Oxford Movement" see Oxford Group.

The Oxford Movement was a loose affiliation of High Church Anglicans, most of them members of the University of Oxford, who sought to demonstrate that the Church of England was a direct descendant of the Christian church established by the Apostles. It was also known as the Tractarian Movement after its series of publications, Tracts for the Times (1833–1841); the Tractarians were also called Puseyites (usually disparagingly) after one of their leaders, Edward Bouverie Pusey, Regius Professor of Hebrew at Christ Church, Oxford. Other prominent Tractarians included John Henry Newman, a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford and vicar of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, John Keble, Archdeacon Henry Edward Manning, Richard Hurrell Froude, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Wilberforce, Isaac Williams and Sir William Palmer.

1 Early movement
2 Criticisms
3 Converts to Roman Catholicism
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Early movement

The immediate impetus for the Movement was the secularisation of the Church, focused particularly on the decision by the Government to reduce by ten the number of Irish bishoprics in the Church of Ireland following the 1832 Reform Act. Keble attacked these proposals as 'National Apostasy' in his Assize Sermon in Oxford in 1833. Its leaders attacked liberalism in theology, and more positively took an interest in Christian origins which led them to reconsider the relationship of the Church of England with the Roman Catholic Church. The movement postulated the Branch Theory which states that Anglicanism along with Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism form three "branches" of the one "Catholic Church." In the ninetieth and final Tract, Newman argued that the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, as defined by the Council of Trent, were compatible with the Thirty-Nine Articles of the sixteenth-century Church of England. Newman's conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1845 as a result of his being taken further than he had expected by his own arguments, followed by Manning in 1851, had a profound effect upon the movement.

[edit] Criticisms

The Oxford Movement was attacked for being a mere Romanising tendency, but it began to have an influence on the theory and practice of Anglicanism. It resulted in the establishment of Anglican religious orders, both of men and women, and an emphasis on liturgy and ceremony. In particular it brought the insights of the Liturgical Movement into the life of the Church. Its effects were so widespread that the Eucharist gradually became more central to worship, vestments became common, and a huge number of Catholic practices were introduced into worship. Inevitably this led to controversy which often ended up in court. Partly because bishops refused to give livings to Tractarian priests, many of them ended up working in the slums giving rise to a critique of social policy, local and national. The establishment of the Christian Social Union which debated issues such as the just wage, the system of property renting, infant mortality and industrial conditions, and to which a number of bishops were members, was one of the results. The more radical Catholic Crusade was much smaller. Anglo-Catholicism, as this complex of ideas, styles and organisations became known, has had a massive influence on global Anglicanism which continues to this day.

[edit] Converts to Roman Catholicism

As mentioned above, the principal writer and proponent of the Tractarian Movement was John Henry Newman, who after writing his final tract, Tract 90 became convinced that the Branch Theory was inadequate and that in conscience he had to convert to the Roman Catholic Church. His conversion set off a series of similar conversions to the Catholic Church among Anglican clergy, and intellectuals throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which to a lesser extent continues to the the present.

Other major figures who became Catholic as a result of the movement were:

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Jesuit priest and renowned poet
Henry Edward Manning, later created a Cardinal of the Catholic Church
John Chapman OSB, became a Benedictine scripture scholar
John Dobree Dalgairns, along with John Henry Newman, entered the Congregation of the Oratory and was ordained a Catholic priest.
Robert Hugh Benson, former Anglican priest and son of an Archbishop of Canterbury, ordained a Catholic priest.
Thomas William Allies, Church historian and former Anglican minister.
Augusta Theodosia Drane, Dominican prioress.
Frederick William Faber, former Anglican of Calvinist influence; theologian, hymn writer, Oratorian and Catholic priest
Lady Georgiana Fullerton, English novelist
Robert Stephen Hawker, former Anglican priest of Catholic leanings, deathbed Catholic convert
James Hope-Scott, English lawyer, influential Tractarian, converted with Manning
George Jackson Mivart, English biologist banned from Oxford University for entering the Catholic Church
Henry Nutcombe Oxenham, former Anglican minister; Catholic Church historian.
Augustus Pugin, influential English architect, designer of Parliament and many English churches.
Edward Caswall, hymn writer
William George Ward

[edit] References

Essays Catholic and Radical Kenneth Leech & Rowan Williams (1983) Bowerdean.
Norman, Edward R. Church and Society in England 1770–1970: A Historical Study. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976. ISBN 0-19-826435-6.