De Regno Christi

Christopher Dawson, 1961: “I think Catholics can learn a number of things from Protestants.  For instance, a greater familiarity with the Bible—especially the Old Testament—which we have neglected.  We can learn to value the regular performance of the daily office, even though this may involve more use of the vernacular.  We can learn greater appreciation of the English religious tradition, especially the Catholic elements in that tradition which the Anglicans have retained.  We can learn a greater sense of social responsibility.  Cardinal Manning used to insist that all the great social and humanitarian reforms of the nineteenth century were initiated by the Protestants. . . . Protestants can learn from us that the true Church must necessarily be universal and international.  They can learn from us the objectivity and authority of theological truth, which has become lost by Protestant relativism and private judgment.  They can learn from us the sense of the supernatural as a living reality manifested in the Sacraments and in the lives of the Saints.” [SOURCE: Aubrey Haines, “Catholic Historian at Harvard,” Voice of St. Jude (April 1961), 28.]