WI: Church of England remained "Catholicism without the Pope"?

The Church of England in Henry VIII's reign mostly kept Catholic doctrine except for Papal supremacy, and it wasn't until Edward's reign that it became a truly Protestant body. What if this didn't happen, and the CofE remained "Catholicism without the Pope"? What effects, if any, would this have on the course of later British history? Would we expect to see the CofE reuniting with Rome sometime over the next five hundred years?
 
To be fair, it kind of has. A lot of the traditions and rituals are very Catholic and in the High Church transubstantiation is the doctrine.
 
To be fair, it kind of has. A lot of the traditions and rituals are very Catholic and in the High Church transubstantiation is the doctrine.

Well, they've kept a lot of the outward forms of Catholicism, but the Thirty-Nine Articles are pretty Protestant all told (including an explicit rejection of transubstantiation). Also, the High Church movement didn't really get going till the nineteenth century, and even then High Churchmen have always been outnumbered by the other types of Anglicans.
 
I'm an Anglican in the US, and many Episcipalians see Anglicanism as neither Catholic nor Protestant. Despite my support for liberal stances in the Episcopal church that counter traditional Roman Catholic teachings, I am much more comfortable and "at home" attending a Roman Catholic service in the US than a Methodist or Baptist one.

We often see our church as a "bridge" between Roman Catholicism and mainstream US Protestantism...yes, often basically Catholicism without the Pope and papal infallibility. I would also say American Episcopalians' belief on what the host and wine become at the Institution varies between something very close to the traditional Catholic view and protestant symbolism. We welcome all to have communion with us, regardless of what it means to them, personally.
 
I was raised Episcopalian as well and I agree that I felt more comfortable with Catholic services and practices than other Protestant churches, especially since I was born after Latin masses ended. My family's church has a confessional, for example.

Save for the more liberal political bent, and they're plenty of liberal Catholics, it really is "Catholic Lite" as Robin Williams said.
 
The Church of England in Henry VIII's reign mostly kept Catholic doctrine except for Papal supremacy, and it wasn't until Edward's reign that it became a truly Protestant body. What if this didn't happen, and the CofE remained "Catholicism without the Pope"? What effects, if any, would this have on the course of later British history? Would we expect to see the CofE reuniting with Rome sometime over the next five hundred years?

while under Edward there was a shift to a more, purely Protestant faith, Henry VIII did shift the CofE away from the Catholic church in a number of ways, getting rid of monastic life comes to mind, likewise the Bible being translated into English and read by lay people (though Henry VIII wanted to restrict it to Men and noble women)

however interesting sidebar, in 1539 when the Six Articles were debated there was a civil war between Bishops, Cranmer lead the Protestants hoping to unite the CofE with German Lutherans, while Bishops Tunstall (Prince-Bishop of Durham) and Stokesley (Bishop of London) where willing to go along with leaving Rome but wanted to unite the CofE with the Greek Church and make England orthodox, Henry VIII didn't like ether idea, since he was conservative at heart and disliked the Protestants, and replacing the Pope with the Ecumenical Patriarch didn't really suit him.
 
I thought that a major goal of disbanding the monasteries was to at least gain some of those lands and incomes for the crown.
 
Moderates don't ever tend to do too well (see French and Russian Revolutions) so I think it was fairly inevitable that it would either fall into a more Protestant stance (as it did OTL) or lapse back into Catholicism eventually.

That said, if it had remained "Catholic without the Pope", I think there are a few major changes which could occur. First of all is in Ireland, where ITTL Anglicanism will do a lot better at replacing Catholicism and perhaps even replace it altogether as this will be a pill much easier for the Irish to swallow than was historically the case. After all, the Irish Church will only be replacing one foreign leader with another, with most of the doctrine and traditions staying the same. This won't stop the Irish hating their conquerors, but may allow the English to better colonise Ireland (as the religious aspect will be removed/reduced) so we may see a more English-settled Ulster and perhaps even a resurgence of the Pale. If Ireland becomes independent ITTL, the Church will not be so important to them (as it will not have become intertwined as an integral part of their national identity) and will therefore play a smaller role in shaping the politics of an independent Irish state.

Secondly, such a situation in England may well lead to similar situations in other European countries as other rulers follow Henry's example. Perhaps they play a significant part in the Reformation by providing a "third way" between Catholicism and Protestantism, or maybe TTL's Counter-Reformation isn't led by Rome but rather by local Catholic rulers who take matters into their own hands to reform the Church. We could easily end up with a Catholic Church who's rituals and doctrines are familiar but the organisation of which is almost completely different from OTL, with different local Churches and far less of a central authority. This alternate Gallicanism (probably called Albionism or something instead) would become the most common practice in the Church, with Ultramontanism being viewed as archaic and only being found in a few small and deeply traditional countries by the Late Modern Period.
 
I thought that a major goal of disbanding the monasteries was to at least gain some of those lands and incomes for the crown.

it was, but it still changed the nature of faith in England

that greed also lead to a ripping apart of most (all?) saint shrines, most famously was St. Thomas à Becket, Becket at Canterbury had the most massive shrine in all England just covered in gold and jewels, but of course he was a saint for sticking to his guns against royal authority and Henry VIII wasn't having that so he summed the (very dead) saint to stand trial for his "treason" to "his prince" (wording it so it sounded like Henry VIII but really they meant Henry II) when the late Archbishop failed to show up, Henry VIII had him dug up, his bones burned and then scattered, the gold and jewels stripped from his tomb, Henry used to ware one of the biggest jewels from Becket's shrine as a ring

any ways, this basically destroyed the saint cults of the Middle Ages and while the CofE kept saint the worship they received afterward wasn't to compare to veneration they got in Catholic countries or the importance they still hold in the Catholic Church today
 
It should be noted that even some OTL Catholic countries confiscated monastic and church lands around this time period, patching things up with the Church afterwards.
 
while under Edward there was a shift to a more, purely Protestant faith, Henry VIII did shift the CofE away from the Catholic church in a number of ways, getting rid of monastic life comes to mind, likewise the Bible being translated into English and read by lay people (though Henry VIII wanted to restrict it to Men and noble women)

however interesting sidebar, in 1539 when the Six Articles were debated there was a civil war between Bishops, Cranmer lead the Protestants hoping to unite the CofE with German Lutherans, while Bishops Tunstall (Prince-Bishop of Durham) and Stokesley (Bishop of London) where willing to go along with leaving Rome but wanted to unite the CofE with the Greek Church and make England orthodox, Henry VIII didn't like ether idea, since he was conservative at heart and disliked the Protestants, and replacing the Pope with the Ecumenical Patriarch didn't really suit him.

As mrmandias noted, other European countries had their own Dissolutions of the Monasteries (though I can't remember if any had done so before Henry VIII). And there were plenty of Catholics in favour of translating the Bible into the vernacular, at least in the early part of the century before such notions had come to be associated with Protestant heresy.

I hadn't known about that 1536 debate. An Orthodox England does sound pretty cool...
 
It should be noted that even some OTL Catholic countries confiscated monastic and church lands around this time period, patching things up with the Church afterwards.

not untrue, but there's a difference between ad hoc case by case raiding of monasteries and churches and the systematic stripping of goods and lands that Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell undertook, and they weren't an attack on the very idea of them, sainthood and monastic life bounced back in those other cases.
 
also worth noting that Mary I repealed all the religious laws of Edward VI's reign, and Elizabeth I restored the faith as it was in Edward VI's 2nd year, largely a "Reformed Catholic" church more than any of the reforms of Edward's later reign, any ways, I think that the union of crowns after Elizabeth's death had more to do with the more Protestant Church than anything Edward did
 
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