Manning, Henry Edward

MANNING, HENRY EDWARD. - Cardinal and Archbishop of Westminster, b. 15 July 1808 at Totteridge, d. at Westminster on 14 Jan. 1892. Of a distinguished family particularly attached to the High Church, he grew up in a wholly anti-Catholic environment. Although at Garrow School (of latitudinarian tendencies) he had shown greater passion for horses than for books, at the age of 19, with the help of John Anderson, he moved to Balliol College, Oxford, where he revealed the first signs of that strength of will that distinguished him in life. The motto he then made his own, aut Caesar aut nihil, manifested the high aspirations of the young man of twenty, who saw his political career cut short by a financial collapse of his father (1831). Having entered the ecclesiastical life, he immediately obtained successes there: ordained on 23 Dec. 1832, shortly afterwards he became parish priest of Lavington, where he married the daughter of his predecessor, Carolina Sergent. Left a widower early and without children, he was brought to the attention of the new bishop of Chichester, who appointed him his archdeacon (1841). In these offices he distinguished himself by his zeal on behalf of the Anglican missions and above all by his oratorical gifts, which he revealed in the speeches of the decade 1840-50.

The High Church, threatened by the "Oxford movement" (v.), believed it had in M. a support and a defender; in reality, in the soul of the brilliant archdeacon a profound upheaval was maturing: although averse to the "Romanizing" tendency of Newman and Pusey, he accepted from the two thinkers certain principles (above all on the authority and the magisterium of the Church), which were necessarily to lead him to Rome. At the time of Newman's conversion (1845), M. was one of the most heated in condemning it; indeed he was entrusted with the task of refuting his An essay on the Development of christian doctrine (Oxford 1845). It was precisely in this work that M. experienced in himself that psychological change against which he was determined to fight. The idea that Anglicanism was a return to the pure Gospel no longer found support in the reality of the facts, which Newman reviewed in his celebrated essay. M., then settled in London, refused the much-coveted appointment as chaplain to the queen; an illness, which immobilized him for several months, accelerated his interior process (1847); a journey to Rome (1848), and contact with distinguished Catholic personalities, the Anglican scandal of Hampden and Gorham, brought him to the threshold of the Church. The decisive event occurred when Pius IX on 29 Sept. 1850 re-established the Catholic hierarchy in England (12 bishops headed by the Archbishop of Westminster, Card. Wiseman). The cry No popery again rang out in meetings and in the streets; M., as archdeacon of Chichester, had, by order of his bishop, to convene an assembly of the clergy to protest against the brief of Pius IX; he obeyed, but at the end, to everyone's astonishment, declared that he no longer belonged to the Anglican communion. On 6 Apr. 1851 he made his abjuration and placed himself at the disposal of Card. Wiseman, who ordained him priest (15 June 1851) and sent him to complete his studies in Rome, where he obtained his doctorate in theology on 25 Jan. 1854. Having returned to England, in 1856 he founded the Oblates of St. Charles, a congregation of priests destined for preaching in working-class neighborhoods; the following year he was appointed provost of the Chapter of Westminster. From that moment the disagreements were born with that part of the clergy headed by Msgr. Errington, coadjutor bishop with future succession, who ill tolerated the superiority of a convert and an "ultramontane." Incidents were not lacking, and Pius IX, called upon to judge, decided de iure in favor of Errington, de facto, on the death of Wiseman (1865), elected M. archbishop, who was consecrated on 5 June 1865.

The long episcopate (1865-92) of M. bears the imprint of his strong personality: a man of action, sustained by a will always ready and by extraordinary courage, he transformed his archdiocese, endowing it with docile and well-prepared priests, founding the Seminary of St. Thomas at Hammersmith, multiplying churches, missions, schools, caring for the Irish immigrants, obtaining favors from the government for Ireland.

Destined in his youth for a political career, as bishop he knew how to deal with skill and success with the great affairs of the Church: in the question of the Papal State, so alive when he was working alongside Card. Wiseman, he showed himself a rigid temporalist in the work The temporal power of Vicar of Jesus-Christ (London 1861). On this point his ideas were much softened by contact with reality, as appears from his intimate notes. M. fought his greatest battle at the Vatican Council, where he showed himself a fervent asserter of the papal prerogatives, above all of infallibility; his public interventions in the Assembly were rare, but in the corridors of the Council he carried out a great work of clarification and persuasion. For this work he had prepared himself with his learned pastoral letters on the subject, which, collected, formed the volume Petri privilegium (London 1871). After the Council he dispelled Gladstone's insinuations in the work The Vatican decrees in their bearing on civil allegiance. A political exposition (ibid. 1875) and outlined the events of the great assembly in The true story of the Vatican Council (2nd ed., ibid. 1878). Unfortunately the enthusiasm for Rome, shown in 1870, which caused him to be defined as the prototype of English ultramontanism, was somewhat attenuated under the pontificate of Leo XIII, without however this cooling affecting his faith as a Catholic and his loyalty as a bishop. After 1870 he had to face the question of elementary education. The State subsidized the secular school in favor of a minority, leaving the free school of the majority (Anglicans, Methodists, Catholics) in a condition of inferiority. M. strongly opposed this injustice and, although he did not obtain legislative changes, he prepared with his timely interventions that moral détente which has led the English government to a better evaluation of Catholic claims. As for university education, M., contrary to Newman's opinion, never permitted Catholics to attend Oxford or Cambridge, holding the foundation of a Catholic university to be necessary; the undertaking did not succeed, also because, excluding Newman, he made use of a man who had neither the genius nor the prestige of the excluded one. His most glorious battle he fought on the social terrain. Someone even called him a socialist, but his campaign was inspired by the Gospel; the culminating moment of this activity was the one that has remained in history under the name of the "cardinal's peace": the strike of a hundred thousand dockers (disorganized and poorly paid workers) threatened civil war: all the negotiations of the authorities had proved vain, when M. went to the management of the employers and composed, amid universal rejoicing, the difficult dispute (1889).

M. was a man of action, and to this he subordinated his facile pen: his numerous works prepare for or follow the most important acts of his pastoral activity and, if they reveal neither deep thought nor new formulations, they nonetheless have a particular unction and unmistakable turns of phrase that make them acceptable to every kind of reader. Their wide circulation and the many translations into French and Italian are therefore explained. Besides those already mentioned, the following are to be noted: The grounds of faith (London 1852); The love of Jesus to penitents (ibid. 1863); The internal mission of the Holy Ghost (5th ed., ibid. 1875); The glories of the Sacred Heart (ibid. 1876); The eternal priesthood (ibid. 1883), his most popular work. M.'s life closed with an apotheosis: already in 1875, at the moment of his elevation to the cardinalate, all England bore witness to its sincere admiration for him; the English government too, on various occasions, acknowledged the moral superiority of the eminent archbishop. He made the Roman purple popular in the land of Elizabeth: in 1850 Cardinal Wiseman was received with the cry of No popery, in 1875 Cardinal M. was hailed with cheers from all, and in 1892 his bier, adorned with the symbols of his dignity, was greeted with reverence by the great and followed by the people with affection and regret.

Antonio Piolanti