RITUALIST APPEAL TO ROME.
A RECENT statement says that several Ritualist clergymen in the English Church formulated the terms on which they propose to secede to Rome. 1. That the present married clergy may be re-ordained, continuing in the married state, and allowed to act as priests not possessing the cure of souls (this would exclude their hearing confessions). 2. The privilege of reciting the Anglican rite for Communion Service in English, with the exception of the canon of the Mass, which would be in Latin. 3. That these regulations shall entail no precedent, but be distinctly regarded as an exceptional concession to clergymen in the English Church, all priests, notwithstanding these privileges, to be allowed to follow the present rules of the Latin Church if they choose. This would permit them, for example, to recite the whole service in Latin if so disposed. These are the points on which Rome is invited to grant a relaxation of church discipline for the accommodation of certain clerical rebels now in the English Church. The concession as to marriage is evidently the main difficulty; but they say that they are only claiming the same indulgence as Rome already grants to priests in the Uniat Greek Church, not the Orthodox Russian Church, but that branch which flourishes in Greece and Poland. The practice there is to a large extent for young men in training for the priesthood to get married before they are made deacons, and they are then admitted to the regular priesthood as married men, and have the cure of souls in all respects except the hearing of confession. These English Ritualists want the same tolerance of a married priesthood, with the same limitation as to hearing confession.—Religious Intelligencer.