Thin end of the wedge

We couldn’t help noticing a mildly hysterical tone in some of the headlines in the Times these last couple of days when references were being made to the forthcoming Apostolic Constitution. From the military sounding Rome parks tanks on Rowan’s lawn (accompanied with a picture of the Church on a tank) to Vatican to poach traditional Anglicans and the slightly distasteful Converts may choke on the raw meat of Catholicism the headlines do not require psychic powers to sense a bit of hostility. Anyone?

It was reminiscent of another period in the history of the Catholic Church in this country — the re-establishment of the Catholic hierarchy — when the Times was not very happy with the state of things either (granted in those days, the old Papists were being pretty provocative). A bit of digging came up with a cartoon from an issue of Punch from the period.