WISEMAN, NICHOLAS PATRICK. - Cardinal and apologist, b. 2 Aug. 1802 at Seville, d. 15 Feb. 1865 at Westminster.
Born of an English and Irish family long since emigrated to Spain, orphaned of his father at the age of four, he was taken by his mother to Waterford (in the south of Ireland), entered (1810) the Catholic College of Ushaw (near Durham), where he was the favourite disciple of the distinguished historian J. Lingard (v.). A pupil of the English College in Rome from its reopening (1818), he obtained there, with brilliant success, his degree in theology (1824) and, three years after his ordination (received on 10 March 1825), was appointed its rector by Leo XII. In 1828 he received the chair of Oriental languages at the Sapienza, which he made famous with the Horae syriacae seu commentationes et anecdotes ad res vel litteras syriacae spectantia (2 vols., Rome 1848).
An open mind, sensitive to all the problems of religious culture, he carried on an intense apologetic activity that was greatly appreciated. During Lent of 1835, in Cardinal Weld's salon, he delivered the important Lectures on the connection between Science and Revealed Religion (London 1836, also in Migne, Démonstrations évangéliques, XVI, coll. 1843-53). Particularly noteworthy for their philological and theological erudition were the Lectures on the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Eucharist (London 1836); he also treated various subjects (the coming of St. Peter to Rome, the Johannine comma, the parables and miracles of Jesus, the Anglican Church, Boniface VIII, etc.), which later collected in 3 vols. (ibid. 1854). In Advent 1835 and Lent 1836, while staying in London, he gave two courses of apologetic lectures, which attracted the attention also of Gladstone (v.), later published under the title Lectures on the principal doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church (ibid. 1844). In the years 1838-39 he published in the Dublin Review and in the Catholic Magazine an important series of Lectures on the High Church Movement in Oxford, which roused Newman (v.) from the theological slumber of the via media. Valuable for their intimate penetration of the liturgical spirit are the Four lectures on the Offices and Ceremonies of Holy Week (London 1839). His Sermons on moral subjects and Sermons on Our Lord and the B. V. Mary, delivered at S. Carlo al Corso, at the wish of Leo XII, were published in Dublin only in 1864: rich in ideas, they are not polished in form.
As rector of the English College he hosted in 1830 the last son of Lord Spencer who had converted: from this noble spirit came the first invitation to devote himself exclusively to the conversion of England, which decided his future. In 1833 he received Newman and Froude (v.), who were on the eve of the Oxford Movement (v.). A friend of Lacordaire (v.), of Montalembert (v.), of Rosmini (v.) and of Döllinger (v.), he harmonized the most varied tendencies of culture, which he knew how to sift and bend to the needs of his apologetics. He was by then ready for the work that Providence reserved for him: on 8 June 1840 Cardinal Fransoni, prefect of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, consecrated him titular bishop of Melipotamus, as coadjutor of Msgr. Walsh, apostolic vicar of the Midland district, whom, having become apostolic vicar of the London district, he succeeded in 1849. In the decade 1840-50, hard but decisive for Catholicism in England, W., guided by the ideal of raising the Church from the state of minority into which centuries of persecution had cast it, withstood clashes and overcame difficulties coming from timid Catholics and from Anglicans suspicious of "Roman" advances, opened new churches, called in religious Congregations, organized public demonstrations of Catholic worship, looked with sympathy on the Oxford Movement and welcomed its first converts with joy and patriarchal simplicity, sent Newman to Rome, whom he greatly favored in the founding of the Oratorian house at Birmingham.
Following his exact information (1857), Pius IX on 29 Sept. 1850 re-established the Catholic hierarchy in England with W. as archbishop of Westminster and cardinal
(30 Sept. 1850), who found himself facing Anglican fury against the "papal aggression." The English world, from the Crown to Parliament, from the episcopate to the people, showed its irreconcilable aversion to Catholicism. Returning from Rome, W., informed of the English agitation, disdaining human prudence, re-entered London on 11 Nov. 1850 and three days later published the pamphlet Appeal to the reason and good feeling of the English People, in which he appealed to the traditional good sense and fairness of the English, demonstrating that the Pope's act remained perfectly within the bounds of legality. The pamphlet, reproduced in the leading newspapers, had a very wide circulation and contributed effectively to restoring calm.
The fifteen years of his archiepiscopal government were not easy: the sullen opposition of old-style Catholics never slackened, down to the unpleasant episode of 1862, which led to the replacement of Msgr. Errington, coadjutor cum iure successionis, with Manning (v.). If W.'s activity unfolded, for the internal life of the Church, especially in the provincial Councils of Oscott, it nonetheless had vast resonance throughout the country with his religious-apologetic lectures, his numerous and timely articles, and also through the novel, of worldwide fame, Fabiola (1854).
W. remains always in history as the bishop who began the "second spring" of the Church in England.