Anglo-catholicism

Developing rapidly from tractarianism in the 19th cent., it reached its peak in the 1920s and 1930s. Charles Gore transformed old tractarianism from a marginal phenomenon into the central force in the church; he achieved what Newman could not. Whereas tractarianism had stressed Anglican continuity from ancient times, extreme Anglo-catholicism became a copy of ultramontane Roman catholicism, but at its best it was socialist in ethos, vigorous in socially deprived areas. After establishing more frequent communion, they added the trappings of candles, vestments, incense, reservation of the sacrament, and confession. In the 1920s, with evangelicalism weakened, Anglo-catholicism was the moving force. But the second Vatican Council (1962-5) by ‘protestantizing’ catholic liturgy left the old-style Anglo-catholics an isolated group, for whom the ordination of women (1990s) became a major stumbling-block.