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 RITUALISM

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RITUALISTS

the Dead, absolutions at the grave on later days, funerals of infants; VII, Matrimony and churching of women; VIII, Blessings of holy water, candles, houses (on Holy Saturday), and many others; then blessings reserved to bishops and priests who have special faculties, such as those of vestments, ciboriums, statues, foundation stones, a new church (not, of course, the consecration, which is in the Pontifical), cemeteries, etc.; IX, Processions, for Candlemas, Palm Sunday, Rogation Days, Corpus Christ i, etc.; X, Exorcism and forms for filling up parochial books (of baptism, confirmation, marriage, status animarum, the dead). The blessings of tit. VIII are the old ones of the Ritual. The appendix that follows tit. X contains additional forms for blessing baptism- water, for confirmation as administered by a mission- ary priest, decrees about Holy Communion and the "Forty Hours" devotion, the litanies of Loreto and the Holj- Name. Then follow a long series of bless- ings, not reserved; reserved to bishops and priests they delegate, reserved to certain religious orders; then more blessings (no\-issima?) and a second appen- dix containing yet another collection. These ap- pendixes grow continuall}'. As soon as the Sacred Congregation of Rites approves a new blessing it is added to the next edition of the Ritual.

The Milanese Rite has its own ritual (Rituale Amhrosianutn, published by Giacomo Agnelli at the Archiepiscopal Press, Milan). In the Byzantine Rite the contents of our ritual are contained in the Evxo\6yLov. The Armenians have a ritual (Mashdotz) like ours. Other schismatical Churches have not yet arranged the various part s of this book in one collection. But nearly all the Uniats now have Rituals formed on the Roman model (see Liturgical Books, § IV).

Babcffaldi, Ad rituale romanum commentaria (Venice, 1731); Catalan:, Rituale romanum. . . perpetuis commentariis eiornalum (Rome, 1757) ; Zaccaria, Bibliotheca Ritualis (Rome, 1770); Thalhofer, Handbuch der kalh. Liturgik, II (Freiburg, 1893), 509-36. ADRIAN FORTESCUE.

Ritualism. See Ritualists.

Ritualists. — The word "Ritualists" is the term now most commonly employed to denote that ad- vanced section of the High Church party in the An- glican Estah)lishment, which since about 1860 has adhered to and developed further the principles of the earlier Tractarian Movement. Although this desig- nation is one that is not adopted but rather resentwl by the persons to whom it is applied, it cannot exactly be called a nickname. "Ritualism" in the middle of the nineteenth centur>' not uncommonly meant the study or practice of ritual, i. e. ecclesiastical ceremo- nial; while those who favoured ritualism were apt to be called "ritualists". For example, the Rev. J. Jebb, in a pubhcation of 1856 entitled "The Principle of Ritualism Defended", defines ritualism equivalently as "a sober and chastened regard for the outward accessories of worship", and insists further that "we nee<^l srjmething more than a lawyer's mind to examine fairly eccUjsiastical questions. The Church requires that divines and ritualists should be called into counsel". It was only some time later, about 1865 or 1806, that the word came to be used as the name of a party and was printed with a capital letter.

Unlike many other party names which have grown up in the coursf; of cxjntroversy, the word "Ritualists" drxis ver>' fairly indicate the original, if not the most fundamental, charact^iristic which has divided those so designated from their fellow-IIigh-Churchmen. The movement headed by Newman and his friends ha/J b<«n primarily doctrinal. Pusey always stated that the leaders hari rather discouraged as too con- spicuous anything in the way of ceremonies, fearing that they might awaken prejudice and divert atten- tion from more imp^jrtant issues. Nevertheless the Bj'mpathifjs awakened for the traditions of a Catholic past, and esixMjially the revival of faith in the Real

Presence and the Eucharistic Sacrifice, could not fail in the long run to produce an effect upon the externals of worship. Many of the followers were more ven- turous than the leaders approved. Moreover, the conversion of Newman and other prominent Trac- tarians, while somewhat breaking up the party and arresting the progress of events at Oxford, had only transferred the movement to the parish churches throughout the country, where each incumbent was in a measure free to follow his owm light and to act for himself. ^ The Rev. W. J. E. Bennett, Vicar of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, became notorious for a number of innovations in ritual, notably in such details as the use of altar lights, cross, and coverings which brought him into conflict with his bishop (in 1850) and led in the end to his resigning his benefice. In 1859 still greater sensation was caused by the "Romish" cere- monial of the Rev. Bryan King at St. George's in the East. The roughs of the district, with some violent Evangelicals, for months together continued to inter- rupt the services with brawling and rioting. The Enghsh Church Union, however, founded at about this period to defend the interests of the High Church movement, lent effective aid, and public opinion turned against the authors of these disturbances.

During the j^ears that followed ceremonial innova- tions, imitating more and more pronouncedly the worship of the Catholic Church, spread throughout the country. A regular campaign was carried on, organized on the one side by the English Church Union and on the other by the Church Association, which latter was called into existence in 1865 and earned amongst its opponents the nickname of the "Persecution Company Limited". The lovers of ornate ceremonial were for the most part sincerely convinced that they were loyal to the true principles of Anglicanism, and that they were rightly insisting on the observance of the letter of the law embodied in the so-called "Ornaments Rubric ", which stands at the head of the Morning Service in the Book of Common Prayer. It could not of course be denied that the

{)ractices which the Tractarians were introducing had ong been given up in the Church of England. But though these had fallen completely into abeyance, the party contended that the letter of the Prayer Book made it a duty to revive them. It may be said indeed that it is round the Ornaments Rubric that the whole ritualistic controversy has turned down to the present day. For this reason a somewhat full account of it is indispensable.

The first Prayer Book of Edward VI, which came into use on 9 June, 1549, has the following rubric at the beginning of the Mass: "Upon the day and at the time appointed for the administration of the Holy Communion, the Priest that shall execute the holy ministry shall put upon him the vesture appointed for that ministration, that is to say a white Alb plain, with a Vestment or Cope." This first Prayer Book of Edward VI remained in use for three years when it was supplanted by the second Prayer Book of Edward VI (1 Nov., 1552). In this, under the in- fluences of Continental reformers, the rubric just quoted was expunged and the following substituted: "And here is to be noted that the Minister at the time of the Communion, and at all other times in his minis- tration, shall use neither Albae, Vestment or Cope". After the accession of Elizabeth a revised Prayer Book was issued in 1559, which contained the rubric in the following form: "And here it is to be noted that the minister at the time of the Communion and at all other times in his ministration shall use such orna- ments in the Church as were in use by authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI according to the Act of Parliament set in the beginning of the book." In spite of a brief sup- pre.ssion un(l(!r the Ix)ng I^arliament and during the Commonwealth, the same rubric was restored in sub-