By Randall Smith
In Homer’s Odyssey, when Odysseus returns to Ithaca disguised as a poor wanderer, the swineherd Eumaeus gives him food and shelter. The ancient Greek code of hospitality toward strangers, xenia, was considered a sacred obligation under the gaze of Zeus. Eumaeus’s duty would have been to bring the stranger to his lord’s house to be cared for. But he knows that the suitors who have invaded Odysseus’s house will treat him badly—a violation of xenia that could bring down the wrath of the gods upon them. So he cares for the man himself, uttering those magnificent lines: “Stranger, it is not right for me to turn away any stranger, even one in worse condition than you, for strangers and beggars all come in the name of Zeus.”
Yet the scene, moving as it is, makes it very clear that something is wrong; there is a fundamental disorder in Ithaca. A swineherd takes upon himself the lord’s obligation, and the lords of the palace act like pigs. The pigsty shelters the nobles, and the palace has become a sty full of pigs. The disorder of the places reflects a deeper moral disorder.
Consider how a similar disorder of place is expressed and experienced in the modern world when a structure built over centuries by craftsmen and workers as a place of sacred worship is used as a bar and nightclub (as in several recent British cathedrals). Some people may like it. The suitors in Odysseus’s palace were also having fun. But they lived in a state of disorder, and that disorder should have alerted them to their own corruption.
It is not merely that the bar and nightclub fail to respect the sacredness of the space, though that is also true. The deeper problem is that such an arrangement does not respect the human spirit’s longing for a transcendent Source that surpasses the difficulties and disorder of everyday life.
Bars and nightclubs may offer temporary relief from worries, but they do little more than anesthetize people to the darkness and despair that arise in a life seemingly without meaning, especially since we flourish only for a short time, and we all must die eventually. That is why bars and nightclubs close early, but cathedrals and other places of worship last for centuries.
Thus, given the lack of understanding among some Anglican clergy of what a church is for, I have a “modest proposal”—not as outrageous as Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, but probably no less provocative. If the Anglican hierarchy no longer needs the Catholic churches they appropriated during the reign of that misogynistic tyrant, Henry VIII, perhaps it is time to return them. It would be a grand ecumenical gesture.
There are precedents. Utrecht’s Catholic cathedral, St. Catherine’s, housed a Protestant congregation from 1580 until 1815, when Catholicism was banned in the Netherlands. It was returned to Catholics in 1815 as a garrison church. In 1842 it was allowed to become a parish church, and when the Catholic episcopal hierarchy was reestablished in 1853, St. Catherine’s was chosen as the cathedral. St. Martin’s, which had been the cathedral before the Protestants seized it, remains in Protestant hands, but a tornado struck it in 1674, causing the nave to collapse, and it has never been rebuilt.
Even in England there have been examples.
St. Etheldreda’s Church in London, built in the late thirteenth century, was “absorbed into the Church of England in 1534” by Henry VIII. It was purchased at auction by the Catholic Rosminian Order in 1874 and restored. Mass returned in 1878.
The Black Abbey of Kilkenny, Ireland, was built in the thirteenth century for the Dominicans, but confiscated by the Crown under Elizabeth I in 1558. The Dominicans managed to lease the property again in 1776. It was finally opened for public Catholic worship in 1864.
Why Catholics had to buy what was theirs in the first place, built by them and for them, is perplexing. But, in essence, if there is any Catholic church in England in a building constructed before 1580, it was once a Protestant church when Catholicism was banned.
And while Anglicans follow what is fashionable, a little research shows that returning antiquities to their original owners is very much in fashion these days. Look online and you will see that hundreds of antiquities are being “repatriated” these days to Egypt, Italy, Greece, and places around the world. I imagine it is only a matter of time before the famous “Elgin Marbles,” which adorned the Parthenon, are sent back to Athens.
So it seems a small thing to ask the very open-hearted and open-minded Anglican hierarchy—so open-minded that they awarded a major prize to a Muslim cleric who had praised Osama bin Laden (they had to withdraw it several days later when the truth emerged)—to exercise that open-heartedness and open-mindedness toward restoring some underused Anglican churches and chapels to another of England’s “faith communities” that has been persecuted and marginalized: the Catholics.
I have often said that if a group wants to leave the Catholic Church, I am saddened, but God bless them. The thing is, when they leave, they should not take the church building built by Catholics for Catholics. They should build their own churches.
So look, if Anglicans want to use St. Paul’s in London as a dance club, fine. It’s their building; they can do with it what they want. But if it is a church they “appropriated” from Catholics, well, again, if they are not using it, they might as well return it. Although an estimated 582,000 people attend Church of England services weekly, about 575,000 people attend Sunday Catholic Mass in England and Wales. So we could use the space.
And rest assured, if any Anglican wants to visit to pray or attend Mass, we will leave the sanctuary lamp lit for them.
About the Author
Randall Smith holds the J. Michael Miller Endowed Chair in Theology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. His most recent book, Mapping the Itinerarium: A Companion to Bonaventure’s Journey of the Mind into God, has been published by Emmaus Press. His articles can be found here: Randall Smith Portfolio.