Aidan Nichols has achieved something quite remarkable in this conspectus of Anglo-Catholic life and teaching from the days of the Fathers of the Oxford Movement to the latter years of the twentieth century, and beyond. He introduces the reader to theologians and academics, aristocrats and other assorted lay patrons, religious sisters and monastics, architects, writers and composers, bishops, clergy and missionaries, and many other ranks and categories of persons besides, each of whom contributed to the flowering of catholic thought and practice in the Church of England. This flourishing – by turns visionary and eccentric, if not cranky – took place in the wake of the intellectual foundations laid in the Oxford of the 1830s and 1840s; foundations which were not constructed ‘ex nihilo’, but rather quarried from theological and devotional reserves which had never, in the Church of England once separated from Rome, become entirely exhausted. The book deals with the appointment of bishops; ritual controversies; the creation of societies formed to advance aspects of catholic devotion (the Blessed Sacrament, the Blessed Virgin Mary, intercession for the dead) or to engage in ecclesiastical campaigning; embroidery; and ecumenism. The cast of characters introduced, and the range of topics covered, is impressive. Those wishing to go further into any of the themes selected by the author for particular attention will be hard pressed to find a better introduction. The bibliographies, chapter by chapter, are thorough and the endnotes clear and helpful (though an index would have made a useful addition to the whole).

The comprehensive nature of this project, rendered in accessible and digestible form, necessarily means that sometimes the text can read a little breathlessly; but then there is a vast amount of ground to cover (the chapter on Monasticism and the Religious Life recounts quite a litany of exotic founders and foundresses!) The chapter on the Theologians is particularly valuable: here, the pace slows, and there is excellent analysis of the more limited number of individuals selected: Liddon and Gore; Hebert, Thornton, and Dix; Farrer and Mascall; and Kirk and Ramsey. The discussion of Liddon’s The Divinity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is excellent and might perhaps initiate a revival in Liddon studies. One future line of enquiry, suggested very much, I think, by Nichols’s account, is that of connecting Liddon with Mascall (an orthodox doctrine of the Incarnation being at the heart of the matter in both cases). Michael Ramsey receives sympathetic treatment, warmly so, despite Nichols acknowledging the question asked (by the Anglican church historian Mark Chapman) as to whether the great archbishop can properly be called an Anglo-Catholic at all. The quotations from The Gospel and the Catholic Church are just the right ones to remind us of the lasting significance of that book, first scrawled, according to the legend passed on here, by its author on the wallpaper of his study.

Equally thoughtful attention is given to the literary fruits of the Anglo-Catholic movement: Charlotte Yonge and Christina Rossetti; T.S. Eliot and Charles Williams (another candidate for the question, perhaps, ‘really an Anglo-Catholic?’); and, almost as an endnote, but a good one, Rose Macaulay, of Towers of Trebizond fame. The organisation of Nichols’s book, which switches rather between the linear narrative and the thematic approach, means that the discussion of these later writers is separated from that on Keble, and on the influence of the Romantics and the place of ‘symbol’; a pity, as there is a golden thread there worth emphasising.

What bigger themes emerge? The differences between ‘then’ (particularly the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) and ‘now’ hardly need stating: gone are the days when Prime Ministers and monarchs saw their patronage over ecclesiastical appointments as a crucial tool of policy; when parliamentarians organised themselves to defeat liturgical reform (although the Ecclesiastical Committee has twice recently – in one instance, decisively – flexed its muscles to see off legislation sent to it by the General Synod); and when Anglo-Catholic theologians fell out over how far Jesus Christ, Word incarnate, knows as God knows. But other themes and controversies seem remarkably contemporary. Chief among these is that of private – sacramental – confession. Opposition to the practice of confession to a priest – the fear of it, the horror of it – comes up again and again in Nichols’ book, beginning with Bishop Wilberforce’s tirade against Pusey’s teaching on this ministry (‘I so firmly believe’, thundered the Bishop, ‘that of all the curses of Popery this [regular confession] is the crowning curse’). Conversely, advocacy for the practice of sacramental confession forms a vital element in every Anglo-Catholic catechetical and apologetic programme. Nichols reminds us, for instance, of the Declaration of Faith sent to the Phanar in 1921 during the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Meletios IV (the chief signatory being Charles Gore) which lists the sacramental absolution of the penitent alongside the doctrines of Real Presence and Eucharist Sacrifice, and that of the apostolic ministry, as being central to Anglican faith and practice – an example of Anglo-Catholics claiming (as Nichols often points out) an acceptance for catholic doctrine on the part of the whole Church of England which was simply never the case. Today, private, sacramental confession – specifically the Seal, but in consequence the entire ministry – is under threat in the Church of England not because of fear of popery but in the name of better safeguarding. Anglo-Catholics of today who differ on other questions (women in Holy Orders, human sexuality, and marriage) are united in defence of the seal and more generally in holding the priest to be the supernaturally graced minister of absolution. Meanwhile, more clergy (and not necessarily of Anglo-Catholic tradition) are reporting an upturn in the number of penitents, the increase being especially marked among the young. Writing of the social context in the 1840s, Nichols comments that ‘despite certain references in the Book of Common Prayer the English public were convinced that confessing to a priest was a Popish practice, and they were repelled by it’. That repulsion would appear to be on the wane; not everything goes one way.

A second theme worth reflecting on in the light of recent experience is that of the role of the laity. Nichols (not unreasonably) tells of the opposition of Pusey and others to the intrusion of the lay voice into the government of the Church of England, and he comments that with the coming of [General] Synod, ‘Pusey’s worst fears had become a reality.’ However, this is to lay the blame unfairly on the House of Laity within Synod. The Standing Orders make it possible for the House of Bishops, on any and every occasion when they might so choose, to veto any proposal coming before the whole Synod. If the era of synodical government in the Church of England has coincided with some doctrinal disarray and departure from catholic tradition, that is not actually the fault of General Synod itself but of how the bishops (and all Diocesan Bishops sit on General Synod by right) have chosen to cast their votes and exercise (or not) their veto. Indeed, it is often in the House of Laity in which the ‘conservative’ voice is most consistently to be heard.

After Newman is a great gift to Roman Catholics, Anglo-Catholics and indeed all who would wish to learn more of the English church (and aspects of English and, occasionally, British society) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As one of those still ministering under the banner ‘Anglo-Catholic’, I would say – the work is not done, the pastoral mission continues, the Gamaliel test has not yet been failed. Father Nichols has always been a great friend to us still separated brethren, as well as a learned commentator on our Movement. For that, and for this book, I am most grateful.