This week in Christian history: Anglican clergyman Frederick Faber converts to Catholicism; End Times theologian born
Frederick Faber becomes Catholic – Nov. 16, 1845
This week marks the anniversary of when Frederick Faber, an Anglican clergyman and author of the popular hymn “Faith of our Fathers,” announced that he was converting to Catholicism.
A native of England and graduate of Oxford who had been ordained an Anglican deacon in 1837, Faber made the announcement to his church in Elton, Huntingdonshire, on a Sunday evening.
“They cannot believe their ears. He tells them that all he has taught them is true, but that it is not the teaching of their Mother Church; that the Church has disavowed them, and that he must go where truth is to be found,” wrote Desmond Morse-Boycott in a 1932 account of the announcement.
“He ends abruptly, stumbles down the stairs, throws his surplice on the ground and leaves the church. No one moves for a while. Then a few go to the rectory, to tell him that he may preach whatever he chooses if only he will stay.”
Faber would be ordained a Catholic priest two years later.
