You were looking round my church just now. Didn't it remind
you of an English church?"
Mark agreed that it did very much.
"That's my secret: that's why I've been the most successful mission
priest in this diocese. I realize as an Englishman that it is no use to
give the English Irish Catholicism. When I was in Rome the other day I
was disgusted, I really was. I was disgusted. I thoroughly sympathize
with Protestants who go there and are disgusted. You cannot expect a
decent English family to confess to an Irish peasant. It's not
reasonable. We want to create an English tradition."
"What between the Roman party in the Anglican Church and the Anglican
party in the Roman Church," said Mark, "It seems a pity that some kind
of reunion cannot be effected."
"So it could," Monseigneur declared. "So it could, if it wasn't for the
Irish. Look at the way we treat our English converts. The clergy, I
mean. Why? Because the Irish do not want England to be converted."
Mark did not raise with Monseigneur Cripps the question of his doubts.
Indeed, before the plaice had been taken away he had decided that they
no longer existed. It became clear to him that the English Church was
England; and although he knew in his heart that Monseigneur Cripps was
suffering from a sense of grievance and that his criticism of Roman
policy was too obviously biased, it pleased him to believe that it was a
fair criticism.
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