Welsh Journals

A WELSH BISHOP AND A MONASTIC BROTHERHOOD: THE CASE OF BISHOP JOHN OWEN, THE ANGLICAN BENEDICTINE MONKS, AND THE ROLE OF EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY RENE KOLLAR Throughout Great Britain's history, the rapport between its religious orders and bishops has been stormy and contentious. Citing constitutions, by-laws, or ancient privileges, members of religious brotherhoods loudly proclaimed their independence from episcopal oversight and jealously guarded their autonomy. Equally keen to exercise their authority and prerogatives, pre- Reformation bishops also sought to demonstrate their power, and often used their right of visitation or appeals to Rome to flex their episcopal muscle. The Henrician Reformation ended this standoff by the dissolution or dismantlement of the conventual way of life, and for the time being the new state church did not have to play the part of a referee in this struggle. This ecclesiastical brinkmanship, however, still plagued the Roman Catholic Church, and the suspicions between the religious orders and the bishops in Britain became more intense during the nineteenth century. The arrival of numerous monks and nuns fleeing the discriminatory and destructive policies of revolutionary France and the gradual easing of the political and social restrictions on Roman Catholicism contributed to the re-birth of conventual life on British soil. Moreover, suspicion between the orders and the bishops also grew. As the numbers and influence of the religious orders increased, their superiors "encouraged that they should be entrusted with a greater share of the English mission and it was even suggested that future bishops should always be chosen from the ranks of religion nl On the other hand, the Vicars Apostolic, that is, priests in episcopal orders who governed the Catholic Church until the restoration of a proper hierarchy in 1850, mistrusted the