Editing Anglo-Catholicism (section)

=== Oxford Movement ===
{{Main|Oxford Movement}}
[[File:Portrait of John Keble (cropped).jpg|thumb|right|[[John Keble]], priest and poet, was a prominent leader in the [[Oxford Movement]], promoting Anglo-Catholic theology.]]

The modern Anglo-Catholic movement began with the [[Oxford Movement]] in the [[Victorian era]], sometimes termed "[[Tractarianism]]". In the early 19th century, various factors caused misgivings among English church people, including the decline of church life and the spread of unconventional practices in the Church of England. The British government's action in 1833 of beginning a reduction in the number of [[Church of Ireland]] bishoprics and archbishoprics inspired a sermon from [[John Keble]] in the University Church in Oxford on the subject of "[[National Apostasy]]". This sermon marked the inception of what became known as the Oxford Movement.

The principal objective of the Oxford Movement was the defence of the Church of England as a divinely founded institution, of the doctrine of [[apostolic succession]], and of the ''[[Book of Common Prayer]]'' as a "rule of faith". The key idea was that Anglicanism was not a [[Protestant]] [[Christian denomination|denomination]] but a [[Branch theory|branch]] of the historical [[Christian Church]], along with the [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] and [[Eastern Orthodoxy|Eastern Orthodox]] churches.<ref name="Kinsman1924">{{cite book |last1=Kinsman |first1=Frederick Joseph |title=Americanism and Catholicism |url=https://archive.org/details/MN5170ucmf_4 |date=1924 |publisher=[[Longman]] |page=[https://archive.org/details/MN5170ucmf_4/page/n232 203] |language=en |quote=The one most talked about is the "Branch Theory", which assumes that the basis of unity is a valid [[Priest#Christianity|priesthood]]. Given the priesthood, it is held that valid [[Sacraments]] unite in spite of schisms. Those who hold it assume that the Church is composed of [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholics]], [[Eastern Orthodoxy|Eastern Orthodox]], eastern heretics possessing undisputed Orders, and [[Old Catholic Church|Old Catholics]], [[Church of England|Anglicans]], [[Church of Sweden|Swedish Lutherans]], [[Moravian Church|Moravians]], and any others who might be able to demonstrate that they had perpetuated a valid hierarchy. This is chiefly identified with [[High church|Highh Church Anglicans]] and represents the survival of a seventeenth-century contention against [[Puritans]], that Anglicans were not to be classed with Continental Protestants.}}</ref> It was argued that Anglicanism had preserved the historical [[apostolic succession]] of priests and bishops, and thus the [[Sacraments of the Catholic Church|Catholic sacraments]]. These ideas were promoted in a series of ninety "[[Tracts for the Times]]", but were rejected both by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.

The principal leaders of the Oxford Movement were [[John Keble]], [[John Henry Newman]], and [[Edward Bouverie Pusey]]. The movement gained influential support, but it was also attacked by some bishops of the church and by the [[latitudinarian]]s within the [[University of Oxford]], who believed in conforming to official Church of England practices but who felt that matters of doctrine, liturgical practice, and ecclesiastical organisation were of relatively little importance. Within the Oxford Movement, there gradually arose a much smaller group which tended towards submission to the supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1845, the university censured a tract entitled ''Ideal of a Christian Church'' and its author, the pro-Roman Catholic theologian W. G. Ward, on which basis was imputed the moniker "[[W. G. Ward|Ideal Ward]]". The year 1850 saw the victory of the Evangelical cleric [[George Cornelius Gorham]] in a celebrated legal action against church authorities. Consequently, some Anglicans of Anglo-Catholic churchmanship were received into the Roman Catholic Church, while others, such as [[Mark Pattison (academic)|Mark Pattison]], embraced [[Latitudinarian]] Anglicanism, and yet others, such as [[James Anthony Froude]], became [[Religious skepticism|skeptics]].<ref name="WHS1932">{{cite web|url=http://anglicanhistory.org/usa/whstowe/what1932.html|title=Anglo-Catholicism: What It Is Not and What It Is|last=Stowe|first=Walter Herbert|year=1932|publisher=Church Literature Association|access-date=12 June 2015|location=London|quote=Newman and several of his inner circle went to Rome, but the vast majority of the Tractarians, including Keble and Pusey, never did. Another group of Tractarians, such as Mark Pattison and James Anthony Froude, lapsed into latitudinarianism or scepticism.}}</ref> The majority of adherents of the movement, however, remained in the Church of England and, despite hostility in the press and in government, the movement spread. Its liturgical practices were influential, as were its social achievements (including its slum settlements) and its revival of male and female monasticism within Anglicanism.