Wilberforce, Henry William

WILBERFORCE, HENRY WILLIAM. - Writer, b. at Clapham (England) on 22 Sept. 1807, d. at Stroud on 23 Apr. 1873.

Third son of William W., the noted British statesman who devoted his entire political activity to the abolition of slavery, he completed his studies at Oriel College, Oxford, with the intention of practising law. But the future Cardinal Newman, who was his tutor, having admired his deep piety, induced him instead to embrace the ecclesiastical state, and W. was ordained an Anglican priest in 1834, as were his two brothers, Samuel, who was to become a bishop of the High

Church, and Robert, who was instead destined to convert - like Henry - to Catholicism. After a rapid and brilliant career, thanks to the personal support of the prince consort of Queen Victoria, W. in fact abjured the schism in 1850 and embraced the Catholic faith. His desire would have been to become a priest, but since he was married with nine children he had to remain in the lay state: which did not, however, prevent him from carrying out a remarkable activity in the field of the apostolate, above all through the press. Not only did he found and direct for a decade the Catholic Standard, later entitled Weekly Register; not only did he collaborate intensively with numerous other periodicals and long carry out the duties of secretary of the Catholic Defence Association, but he also published polemical books that aroused memorable controversies and helped spread knowledge of the Catholic truth. He who, while still an Anglican pastor, had addressed a warm appeal to English churchmen to intensify their efforts to bring the Christian spirit back to the country (The parochial system: an appeal to English Churchmen, London 1838), explained the reasons for his conversion in the famous work Reasons for submitting to the catholic Church (ibid. 1851), which went through no fewer than six editions in only five years. In 1852 he wrote a moving apology for the persecuted Catholicism of Ireland, Proselytism in Ireland; for Manning's Essays on Religion and Literature he dictated the fundamental historical essay Some events preparatory to the English Reformation (1867) and finally composed that splendid volume The Church and the Emphres, sent to press in 1874, shortly after his death.

Renzo U. Montini

ROBERT ISAAC, theologian, his brother, b. on 19 Dec. 1802 at Clapham, d. on 3 Feb. 1857 at Albano.

He studied at Oriel College, Oxford. A subdeacon, he was one of the three tutors of the College (the other two being Newman and Froude), but he found himself in conflict with the new provost E. Hawkins, who did not tolerate the excessive freedom he displayed in drawing up the curriculum. He therefore exercised the priestly ministry in Kent and in Yorkshire and in 1849 became archdeacon of East Riding. His friendship with Manning and his close exchange of correspondence with him distanced him ever more from the Anglican Church; he converted to Catholicism in 1854. The following year in Rome he entered the Accademia Ecclesiastica. Among his writings are remembered The doctrine of Holy Baptism (1849), on the Tractarian doctrine of Baptism; A sketch of the history of Erastianism (1851), against the theory of the king's supremacy in the Anglican Church; An inquiry into the principles of Church Authority (1854), on the primacy of the Supreme Pontiff.

Silvio Furlani