The Catholic University in Tokyo was the Result of an Anglican Leaflet

The Society of the Atonement (Graymoor) was an Anglican Order, Franciscan in spirit, founded by Father Paul Francis, S.A. and Mother Lurana Mary Francis, S.A., who believed in the Supremacy of the Pope, all the dogmas of the Church, devotion to Our Lady and the saints, etc. Their intent was to work for a complete reunion between Anglicans and Catholics, but by God’s grace they saw they couldn’t wait for everyone to convert before entering the True Church themselves.

Prior to their corporate reception to the Roman Catholic Church in 1909 under St. Pius X, the Society published Rose Leaves, a thoroughly Catholic periodical intended to convince Anglicans of the Primacy of Peter and the necessity of re-uniting with the Church of Rome.

A copy of Rose Leaves made its way to the desk of the Anglican minister who was the President of Saint Paul’s College (in Japan) and second only to the Anglican Bishop of Tokyo. As a result of what he read, and his subsequent correspondence with Graymoor, Reverend Arthur Lloyd became convinced of the necessity of the Rock of Peter as the center of Church Unity. To practice what he believed, he began paying Peter’s Pence, which, together with an article on the subject, lost him his presidency.

The reigning Emperor of Japan, holding Lloyd in high esteem, appointed him a professorship at the Imperial University. At the end of the Russo-Japanese War, Lloyd sent a letter (with his Peter’s Pence) to St. Pius X, suggesting that His Holiness write to Mikado and thank the Emperor for the considerate treatment the Catholic soldiers received during the war. His Holiness followed the suggestion and appointed Bishop (later Cardinal) O’Connell of Boston as his ambassador. The end result was the founding (with the consent of the Emperor) of the Catholic University in Tokyo under Jesuit administration. Small things can have large effects! Mrs. Lloyd wrote to Mother Lurana when her husband was ill from the persecution he was suffering ‘for conscience sake’: “Don’t send my husband any more of those little pink tracts!” Let us pray that both Rev. and Mrs. Lloyd saved their souls and that the Liberalism of the Catholic colleges and universities has not undone the good effected by Rose Leaves.