Cardinal Point

The origin of the adoption by the incumbent of the Anglican church of St Magnus the Martyr, London Bridge, of the title Cardinal Rector is a matter I have still not been able to clear up, some time after I and S.D. discussed it. Perhaps I can get myself referred to as Cardinal Rector of Swanvale Halt. But in the course of trying to chase down the truth I discovered the mortifying fact that the Church of England's other two Cardinals are no more. 

These were two of the Minor Canons of St Paul's Cathedral in London, long referred to as Senior Cardinal and Junior Cardinal, and whose privilege of being so designated was confirmed by Pope Urban VI in 1378: the titles were described as ab antiquo then, so how they originally arose is anyone's guess. The Cardinals were the most important members of the College of Minor Canons at St Paul's, which originally numbered twelve but by the early 2010s had shrunk to just three. They had various liturgical and pastoral responsibilities but on their own these weren't too onerous: one 19th-century Cardinal, Richard Barham, found the time to write that wonderful collection of alternately humorous and creepy ghost stories, The Ingoldsby Legends. But in 2016 St Paul's streamlined its management and did away with the College of Minor Canons (Hereford is the only other English cathedral with one of these), and the ancient titles of the Cardinals with them. 

I am most opposed to this. Not only was it fun to reflect that the Church of England had Cardinals of its own whose antecedents were impeccable (confirmed by a Pope, you can't argue with that) and fantasise about what might happen were they to turn up at the Sistine Chapel to vote in Conclave along with all the others; not only was it instructive to remember that the Anglican Church contains all sorts of reminders of its Catholic past; but such picturesque anachronisms, provided they offer no impediment to the running of an organisation, are part of the rooting and continuity we all need, the things that place us and the institutions that we inhabit into a wider, longer-lasting context. Even when they mean next to nothing in any practical terms, perhaps particularly because they don't, they retain a psychic importance. Shame the St Paul's Cardinals are no more; but the Church being what it is, that may not be forever!