The Flaminian Gate Revisited

INTRODUCTION

With these and similar sentiments, did Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman seek to shame those who opposed it and repudiate the calumny that his new title of Archbishop of Westminster, in some way implied a covert design on the dignities of the abbey of that name. The year is 1850, and the Catholic Church in England is once again possessed of a fully constituted episcopal hierarchy. This was a significant advance in the status and position of the Church in the nineteenth century, as it struggled to find equality before the law, after centuries of discrimination. Throughout the 18th century Catholics were a tiny and almost invisible minority of the population of England. In Ireland, where the majority of the king's subjects remained Catholic, they had effectively very little say or influence in the government of their own country. In England, a small proportion of Catholic peers and gentry were able to retain local influence but were excluded from public office by Acts of Parliament which required them to deny specifically Transubstantiation, and to affirm the spiritual supremacy of the monarch. Whereas in Ireland, the struggle for Emancipation of Catholics was seen mainly in terms of political advantage of the majority, in England, it was largely seen as a question of discreet access to public office and patronage for a minority. This was a major difference between the Catholic leaders of the two countries, when, after 1801, Ireland was integrated into the United Kingdom, together with England and Scotland.

From the early 1800's the Catholic minority in England began to increase and become socially more diverse. Swelled eventually by immigration from Ireland and some from the continent, it was more easily perceived as a foreign enclave in the midst of a solidly English Protestant population. That is one reason why those who converted to it during those years risked rejection and alienation from their friends and kinsfolk. Another was the imagined disloyalty of Catholics because they looked beyond England for the spiritual leadership of their Church. But from this time there was a steady trickle of converts - some from among the aristocracy. Their entry into the fold of Catholicism was an enrichment and a valuable indication of the intellectual attraction of the faith. In England as elsewhere, the pernicious weeds of private judgement, sown by the Protestant Reformation divines, were beginning to come to full growth in the wheat-field of the Christian world. Paradoxically as the great movements of Protestantism began to experience religious fragmentation, the Catholic Church was on course for a great period of expansion and revival.

Emerging from the shadows during the 1790's the Church in England and Wales had, by the middle of the next century succeeded in gaining a measure of prominence and acceptance far beyond the expectation and hope of what many had thought possible or desirable. The credit for this achievement must go in a large measure to the spiritual leaders of the Catholics. A few gifted and visionary individuals whose tenacity and courage were the driving forces behind it. High in the order of merit must rank John Milner, for many years Vicar Apostolic of the Midland District, and later, the first Archbishop of Westminster, Nicholas (later Cardinal) Wiseman. They were bishops who eschewed compromise and ambiguity. In the face of those of their co-religionists of exalted rank who were hostile to or fearful of publicity, they pursued it with purpose and vigour. It has been said of Wiseman that he found English Catholics a persecuted sect, and left them a Church. His faults were of a fairly obvious kind He also has critics and detractors eager to emphasise them, notably among the liberal school of religion and Church history. Others, notably and quite recently, Dr Edward Norman, an Anglican historian, have been more generous in their judgement. "For a man only too often remembered by posterity for his grand manner and his capacity to inspire distrust in others, his was a life of quite remarkable service to the cause of his Church and to the ordinary Catholic people whose lives he sought to touch with some intimation of spiritual dignity".ⁱⁱ

This rapport with the ordinary people and his consciousness of the complexity of his pastoral responsibilities was a consistent feature of his administration. Distrust of him and lack of sympathy of some his contemporaries, was often occasioned precisely because of his unambiguous loyalty to the Holy See. His ecclesiastical background had been entirely Roman and he was among those who perceived most clearly the need to bind the Catholic Church in England more closely to Rome. There were not a few among the great and the good of the Old Catholic community who opposed both him and his aims. Their arguments of the need to gain concession by compromise, accommodation and repudiation of papal claims resonate even in our own time. It is not difficult to find echoes of the same anti- Roman rhetoric in liberal use in certain contemporary writings and also traces of the same elitist disdain for popular Catholicism. Their coin is still very much current. Indeed, a thesis was written by Fr Antony Archer OP, in 1986, on precisely how the strategy rejected by the bishops in the 1800's has now come to dominate the Church in this country.ⁱⁱⁱ That is a problem that will be referred to later in this address.

The return of the Church to the full jurisdiction of its native Catholic bishops in 1850, produced a climate of confidence and a modus operandi, which was to survive for more than a hundred years. Just as the earlier system of Apostolic Administrators appointed by the Holy See, kept the church in England from becoming sectarian, so the restoration of the hierarchy gave it that greater definition and clearer identity which lasted to modern times. Only with the advent of the increasingly turbulent times of the 1960's was that system seen to begin to break down. That too is a part of the legacy from the past and of the continuing story of the Church in this country. It is part of our own individual stories too. We are not dealing with just the dry details of past disputes and abstract controversies, but with the events that have shaped and changed a Catholicism first brought to England sometime in the second century AD. We who profess it, though from many different strands of national identity, are proud of the unity which finds its outward strength not in a myth of nationality but in fidelity to the truth and in loyalty and deference to the Holy See. Ultimately, it is the love for the Church and the pride we take in seeing her triumph over adversity that motivates our desire to defend and witness to the truth that She proclaims. Caritas Christi urget nos, says St Paul. Perhaps, in looking again at the struggles and achievements of the past we may find a cautionary tale for the future. From the perspective of the year 2000, it is a good time to reflect on the restoration of 1850 and to consider whether in the climate of the Church today, we are still able to continue building on the foundations put in place by those who have gone before us.

2. SETTING THE SCENE

The growth in Catholic population from the end of the 18th century to the middle of the 19th was extraordinary. From 1767 to 1851, the Catholic population had grown in number from around 80,000 to nearly 800,000. These statistics are based on government figures of the time.^iv Thus the old recusant, mostly rural Catholic Church of the days of Challoner (who died in 1781) was being replaced by one that was populous, urban, immigrant and often poor. But, there was also a growing and significant middle-class. In England, as in Ireland this was an important factor in aiding Catholics to organize and recruit spokesmen. At the same time, the need to administer and evangelise the masses was a task that occupied the minds of the Catholic bishops in the mid-nineteenth century. Less than half a dozen in number and with huge territories to cover, they were hindered from carrying out their responsibilities and constantly aware that their authority was not always either respected or regarded at times by clergy or by a significant section of the Catholic nobility. The struggle for Emancipation was long and difficult, and it reflected an increasing desire of the religious leaders of the Church to free themselves from the narrow-minded and insular domination of a section of the Catholic laity. Following Catholic Emancipation in 1829 it became increasingly necessary for proper structures of administration and manageable diocesan territories to be set up. Nicholas Wiseman, who, from 1827 on his appointment as Rector of the Venerable English College - at only 25 years of age - to 1849 when he was appointed Vicar of the London District, devoted himself to consolidating the Catholic community and to preparing the ground for the official return of the ancient hierarchy. But the way forward, though clear in its objective was never without its obstacles.

The growth in numbers and the increasing influence of converts and missionaries from the continent profoundly changed the character of Catholicism in England. Throughout much of the 18th century our religion was still an obscure minority with limited access to public life and position. This affected its worship as well as its public image. Challoner's Garden of the Soul remained the most popular manual of prayers at this time. The Mass was celebrated with the minimum of ceremony and rituals such as High Mass with music of any kind, were virtually confined to a handful of embassy chapels in London. On the whole, the Catholic nobility and gentry preferred it that way. They sought to keep a low profile and quietly went about their business with as little allusion to their faith as possible. They were uneasy - to say the least - about continental influences or Roman claims to jurisdiction. They were keen to emphasise their loyalty to the King and the constitution in the face of suspicion that their religion made them suspect of divided loyalties. By and large, they were conservative, in the sense of wanting things to remain as they were and desirous not to parade their religious beliefs publicly. The negative side of this was that at times it bordered on sectarianism. They also wished to have a major say in running the Church and sought to gain control of the appointment of bishops and to influence unduly the process of decision-making. For their part, the Vicars Apostolic viewed unwarranted lay-influence in the Church as a piece of baggage from the past that they wished now to discard. According to Newman, his own Bishop, Ullathorne, had a "terror of laymen".^v Perhaps he had good reason. A historian of the period has commented, "As a caste, the Catholic gentry were too accustomed to treating the clergy as some species of superior servant to be much impressed even by bishops."^vi The Vicars Apostolic shared the concerns of the gentry and often came from similar backgrounds but they did not want acceptance and recognition at the price of betrayal of their Catholic principles. They also wished to be loyal to the King but could not concede that in spiritual matters their loyalties lay with the Holy See. They perceived the danger inherent in the blurring of these distinctions.

From before the time of Emancipation, in 1829, lay Catholic leaders saw accommodation and concession to the national mood of suspicion of Catholicism as the way forward to gain acceptance. They wished to be and to remain hidden. Newman was later to describe this attitude in the following terms: "An old fashioned house of gloomy appearance, closed in with high walls, and with an iron gate, and yews, and the report attaching to it that 'Roman Catholics' lived there; but who they were, or what they did or what was meant by calling them Roman Catholics, no one could tell -though it had an unpleasant sound, and told of form and superstition."^vii In short, they did not desire a missionary Church, in the sense of being actively engaged in conversion and evangelisation. Its leading laymen could be just as sceptical of Papal claims of jurisdiction in England as were their Anglican counterparts. Their view was that concession to the national ethos, of religion without excess and piety without affectation was preferable to the alternatives now being offered in the wake of the new Catholic revival in Europe and in England. But change was coming. The Church in England was now vastly different than what it had been in the 1700's. From the early 19th century, new voices began to be heard. These were the new converts from Anglicanism. They were of an entirely different stamp from the old recusant Catholics. They gloried in their new-found faith and wished to see every manifestation of its pomp and ritual and devotional prayer-life re-introduced into England. They eagerly promoted Marian devotion, particularly to the Immaculate Conception, the veneration of statues and the wearing of medals and scapulars. Likewise, processions and the full magnificence of the Roman Rite received their fullest support.

The new religious orders - who were largely responsible for all these new conversions - were among the first to give public expression to these long-abandoned aspects of Catholicism. Names such as Luigi Gentili, Dominic Barberi, and Frederick Faber, stand out as the most illustrious of the priests who brought back the full spirit of Catholic faith and devotion to this country. They also re-introduced the wearing of religious habits in the street. Clearly all these moves were leading to a greater normalisation of Catholic life in the country and this fostered the legitimate appeal to a full restoration of episcopal jurisdiction in canonical terms.

Like the old Catholics, the older religious orders remained sceptical. The English Benedictines for example, who ran many missions from Downside and Ampleforth were jealous of their rights and privileges and - according to Luigi Gentili - harboured an anti-episcopal spirit."^viii They even petitioned Pope Gregory XVI against the restoration of the hierarchy claiming that the jurisdiction they had enjoyed in the pre-Reformation times should be restored. The Apostolic Administrators were not exactly keen to bring this about. As Dr Norman says "Almost nothing could have induced greater chill in the hearts of the Apostolic vicars than claims like these."^ix The Jesuits too were anxious not to be overlooked and had dislikes of their own. The Superior at Farm Street wrote letters to Msgr George Talbot, the Papal Secretary, complaining about the content of Fr Faber's book All for Jesus, that it contained heresies. When asked by Wiseman to clarify his criticism he replied that "... in the confessional they had caused me much pain, much trouble, much anxiety...".^x It would appear that the baroque spirituality of Faber's work was a little too much for the superior of the Jesuits. Perhaps the judgement of Mgr Talbot is the most charitable one that may be given on these rivalries "prejudice and jealousy are the failings of good men, and religious orders have them, in high degree."^xi

The views of the various Apostolic Administrators - as the bishops were then called - who administered the Church were often far from unanimous. This was an age long before collegiality had robbed bishops of their legitimate independence. In the 19th century, they were still free to express a view decidedly at odds with those of their colleagues. Thus Bishop Baines of the Western District issued a pastoral opposing a crusade of prayer for the conversion of England in 1838. Not that he was against it, but that he thought that it was unrealistic, wishful thinking on Wiseman's part.^xii Bishop Griffiths of the London District and Bishop Briggs of the Northern District were similarly sceptical.^xiii Among the reservations expressed by them were objections to the "new devotional practices and prayers". The lesser clergy too at times displayed an independence of spirit. Some of the Gallican, that is, anti-Roman and insular attitudes to Church government were evident in their discussions and proposals. Some of this came from being themselves scions of old Catholic families. But it could also be the result of French émigré influence. From the 1790's many places in England had a French priest in residence. Not all of them were of a high standard of theological formation. Occasional examples of the kind of thing that ordinary Catholics experienced in their chapels can illustrate this. Archbishop Ullathorne famously recalled in his autobiography^xiv the memory of an émigré priest from France at his home chapel in York, when he was a boy. He had only four sermons, and when he read the first line of his discourse, the little flock knew all the rest by heart. Another example given by W. G. Ward was of a French priest who habitually read translations from old court sermons by Bordaloue, without regard for the fact that his congregation were among the poorest of the poor. Consequently blacksmiths and carpenters were regularly warned against the subtle temptations of wealth and titles, and the delicacies of sumptuous living!"^xv Hear this, you butterflies of fashion, he would address the astonished rustics in his congregation, "hear this, you that love to haunt the antechambers of the great."

But whatever the shortcomings or inadequacies of the priests, of their pastoral zeal there can be no doubt. "Behind the impressive statistics of Catholic expansion was the mission priest, gently advancing his beliefs against the strong currents of public and sometimes official opposition and disapproval."^xvi

The clergy sought, in the midst of squalor and disease all around them, to build up the faith of the ordinary Catholics, most of them among the poorest of the poor. The response of the faithful was often remarkable. There are some wonderful accounts of the effect on the people produced by the missionary endeavours of the time. On occasions the presence of Nicholas Wiseman himself produced memorable scenes of popular piety. A correspondent, writing in the TABLET, of the 19th of May, 1849 gives us a vivid and touching glimpse of the faith of our forefathers:

MISSION IN LAMBS BUILDINGS, BUNHILL ROW

"Father Hodgson has for several weeks been giving a mission in the immense schoolroom attached to these buildings, and has been instrumental in reconciling hundreds to the Church, who had not been in the habit of complying with their religious obligations for many years. But last Sunday, there was a scene worthy of the most Catholic countries, and which even reminded us of Apostolic times, when the devout Christians followed St Peter and St Paul, and pressed them on every side in order to touch the hem of their garments or merely apply their handkerchiefs to their bodies, believing that virtue emanated from the very touch of the Church in her rulers and holy members.

It had been announced to the people that the Bishop (sic Wiseman) would preach to them on that evening; therefore for some time before his arrival the streets for a considerable distance were lined by the poor Catholics anxious to receive him with due honour. When at last his carriage made its appearance they all advanced to meet him with lighted torches, and scattering laurels before him. With the greatest difficulty the Bishop made his way to the altar, owing to the crowd in the classroom, which holds at least I,200 persons. At last he mounted the platform and addressed the people for about half an hour, with an exhortation urging them to persevere. The people responded to him as they do in Naples. Whenever he urged them on any particular point they gave their assent by making their promises aloud.

The crowd however was so great outside as well as within that the Bishop was not satisfied with merely addressing them from the platform in the schoolroom, but with great difficulty he got out into the court, and then ascended a table and spoke to them again in the open air in about the same terms, receiving the same answers from the people.

The sermon, or rather the exhortation, was followed by the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament in the schoolroom and never was a more imposing or touching benediction given. A multitude of 1,500 people, many holding torches in their hands, many joining in the service with their voices, and all entering heart and soul into the solemnity of the great act, was a scene never to be forgotten. After Benediction, the Bishop made his way through the crowd; as best he could many laying hold of his hands, some seizing his feet to kiss them, others almost tearing the cassock off his back. This really consoling spectacle concluded by the people lighting him again to his carriage and singing a hymn in chorus as he left them."

With these images of the Catholic Church in a part of London, and the man who was shortly to become the first Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster the scene is well and truly set for the next chapter in our story.

3. RESTORATION ACHIEVED

The opposition of the high ranking Catholics is typified by two Catholic peers, the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Beaumont who both denounced in the House of Lords what they regarded as Wiseman's pretensions. The Duke, writing to Beaumont later, said: "I should think that many must feel as we do, that ultramontane opinions are totally incompatible with allegiance to our Sovereign and with our Constitution."^xx Both subsequently became Anglicans for a time, in protest.

In July 1847, Nicholas Wiseman and James Sharples were in Rome, to begin the negotiations. Pope Pius IX after celebrating three Masses to seek divine guidance, finally decided in favour. By November 1 the Apostolic Letter Universalis Ecclesiae was drawn up and briefs, nominating bishops to sees were dated November 24. But immediately there were problems over the titles of the new sees. While the bishops naturally wished to reclaim the old pre-Reformation sees the government in London would not agree to this. Complications brought delays. Rome now appointed seven Cardinals to look into the matter and Bishop Ullathorne arrived in Rome in May 1848, to represent the English Bishops. Summer came and went in Rome as a season when very little is done. By November there had still been no decision. Then everything came to a halt. Revolution broke out in Rome with the assassination of Count Rossi, the first minister of the Papal States. Pope Pius was forced to flee Rome and live temporarily in Gaeta. It was not until after his return to Rome in April 1850 that the issue of the hierarchy was re-activated. The brief re-establishing the hierarchy in England was dated 29 September and Nicholas Wiseman was named first metropolitan. In October he issued his now famous Pastoral Letter, From Out the Flaminian Gate. "Catholic England has been restored to its orbit in the ecclesiastical firmament, from which its light had long vanished... till such time as the Holy See shall think fit otherwise to provide, we govern and shall continue to govern the counties of Middlesex, Hertford and Essex, as Ordinary thereof, and those of Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Berkshire and Hampshire, with the islands annexed, as Administrator with Ordinary jurisdiction."^xxi

Meanwhile, back in England, the letter caused uproar. Queen Victoria on hearing of it was said to have asked: "Am I Queen of England or am I not?"^xxii The Bishop of Durham wrote to Lord John Russell, the Prime Minister describing the pastoral as: "insolent and insidious."^xxiii Lord John said he relied... "on the people of England a nation which looks with contempt on the mummeries of superstition."^xxiv The people of England responded by burning in effigy the Pope and Wiseman and by breaking the windows of Catholic churches.^xxv The Archbishop of York commented: "Rome's ever-wakeful ambition (is) plotting for our captivity and ruin." The Bishop of London called the priests: "emissaries of darkness." The Archbishop of Canterbury described the Catholic priesthood as: "subtle, skilful and insinuating."^xxvi The Times analysed each item of the papal Brief as if each new diocese was an added insult to the English people, utterly regardless of the fact that the Holy See had recently taken a similar step in the Colonies without any opposition from the Government.

Among those who protested at the new episcopal dignities, were the dean and chapter of the abbey at Westminster, which title Wiseman, now a Cardinal, had been given for his metropolitan see. In response to the furore, the new cardinal penned an Appeal to the good sense of the English people. In it, against the accusation that he coveted the treasures and temporal dignities of the abbey, he declared: "its treasures of art, and its fitting endowments, form not the part of Westminster which will concern me.. for there is another part which stands in frightful contrast, though in immediate contact, with this magnificence. In ancient times, the existence of an abbey on any spot, with a large staff of clergy, and ample revenues, would have sufficed to create around it a paradise of comfort, cheerfulness and ease. This, however, is not now the case. Close under the Abbey of Westminster there lie concealed labyrinths of lanes and courts, and alleys and slums, nests of ignorance, vice, depravity, and crime, as well as of squalor, wretchedness, and disease; whose atmosphere is typhus, whose ventilation is cholera; in which swarms a huge an almost countless population... This is the part of Westminster which alone I covet, and which I shall be glad to visit, as a blessed pasture in which sheep of Holy church are to be tended in which a Bishop's godly work has to be done, of consoling; converting and preserving."^xxvii

Thirty thousand copies of the Appeal were sold within a week and The Times and other newspapers carried the full text. The reaction of a more moderate approach to the controversy was not long in coming. John Henry Newman was among those whose aid Wiseman sought to bring his considerable influence to bear upon it. Despite his own reservations about the restoration he nevertheless delivered one of his most famous homilies "Christ upon the Waters" to mark the installation of Ullathorne as first Bishop of Birmingham. The sermon exhibited all the full vigour of intellect and the armoury of satire of which Newman was eminently capable. The much-vaunted "private judgement" of the Englishman, he said, is but the "passive impression... of his intellectual servants... the newspapers and periodicals... that are employed to tell him what to think and say." This "cheap knowledge... should be ready to hand, as he has his table cloth laid for breakfast". In matters of religion, "he is not to be teased or troubled about it"... it is an insult to be told that God has spoken and superseded investigation... he thinks the Englishman knows more about God's dealings with men, than anyone else."^xxviii Newman also delivered a lecture in the Corn Exchange in Birmingham, entitled Present Position of Catholics, that argued from reason and fairness.

As Fr Ian Ker says in his biography of Newman, though the latter is careful to praise the native qualities of the Englishman, his criticism is so effective precisely because it comes from within the family.^xxix Like many other outbursts of anti-Catholic hysteria in the past, this one soon likewise fizzled out and left Cardinal Wiseman and his fellow bishops to get on with the task to which they had committed themselves so clearly, evangelization and rescue of vast numbers of souls.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

This is not the time to recount what has happened since. That has been gone over many times before. But there are aspects of the changes that have come about in attitudes to the church and the Hierarchy that bear some relation to the difficulties of the early nineteenth century. Just as the Bishops gained greater control of Church affairs in 1850, it is arguable that they lost ground, in terms of clear strategy of restoration and consolidation, from the 1960's onwards. The published correspondence of the writer Evelyn Waugh with Cardinal Heenan, relating to the changes in the liturgy, furnish clear evidence that the latter perceived a movement of growing hostility to the Bishops on the part of certain Catholics.^xxx They were largely of a certain stamp. They were a new elite, who at that time, considered their episcopal pastors rather backward and contrasted them unfavourably with many of their more advanced continental counterparts. They later transferred this hostility exclusively to Rome. This type of Catholic has come largely to represent the public face of Catholicism to the media. They were and remain a minority, but they have a powerful voice. In the early days of this development, tacitly supporting some of the more radical aspects of the new liturgy gave bishops a chance to appear progressive and many of them grasped it with both hands. In private there was less enthusiasm for these novelties. Later, it was widely reported that members of the new elite were able to successfully lobby the Holy See for a new style of bishop, whenever a see became vacant. Their hope was that they would thus gradually replace the old hierarchy with one similar to them in outlook. True or false, such stories only help to foster a sense of disquiet about the process of choosing bishops and a "them and us" division. Many in the pews felt this had nothing to do with them. They did not mind the Pope appointing bishops, but they minded it being done at the behest of a select caucus of laymen. These and other areas of doctrine and morality have lost many Catholics along the way. But the new liturgy was the original catalyst that provoked the widespread rejection of Church teaching which followed. Many see the Humanae vitae encyclical as the source of the problem of credibility, but the wholesale abandonment of a liturgical culture of centuries gave the crisis momentum. People were commanded to be ultra-modern in their approach to the worship of God while at the same time being commanded to be faithful to an ancient tradition of morality. Questioning and cynicism soon gave way to absolute indifference. The result has been a weakening of that close bond of respect and deference that had existed between ordinary Catholics and their bishops for a very long time. Fr Antony Archer's study^xxxi already mentioned, was an attempt to analyse the extent of the alienation felt by many Catholics from the Church of their childhood. There was a strong feeling that it had been taken over by bureaucrats and paper pushers. As the Mass itself in the parish churches became a spectacle for middle-class trendies, many of those not so inclined just drifted away. Diminished in influence among their own people Church leaders now began to took for it elsewhere. The accommodation of the Church with the status quo, denied to the lay elite in the nineteenth century, was now increasingly presenting an attractive option in the twentieth. It was a marriage of convenience with all the trappings but none of the substance of unity. As Fr Archer so aptly puts it: "This is the road to becoming just another Christian denomination, without any very outstanding characteristic of its own... giving its support to the prevailing ethos in which the fundamental rightness of the present arrangements of society is affirmed and through which the interests of the powerful are sustained."^xxxii Effectively we are becoming less and less a Church with a mission to convert and lead others to the truth.

Among some of those who write and report on Catholic matters there appears to be a perception that the Catholic Church in this land is largely composed of Anglo-Saxon prosperous professionals like themselves. They regard the Church as English first and then Catholic. No such definition is possible. There is the Catholic Church in England and it is now largely cosmopolitan. It continues to owe a great deal to immigration. People from Ireland, Poland, Italy in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and more recently, people from Portugal, the Philippines and Africa – to name but a few - help to keep its churches open and its schools filled. Without them figures for Mass-attendance would show an even more catastrophic decline. We should beware of an insular and narrow interpretation of what it means to be a Catholic in England at the beginning of new millennium.

Popular Catholicism has taken a severe blow in recent decades. There was a time, not too long ago, when major events were open to Catholics from every walk of life. As a server at Westminster Cathedral in the sixties I can remember that great monument to Catholic revival being spontaneously filled to overflowing on many occasions. It is regrettable that for the funeral of the late Cardinal Archbishop and the installation of his successor, only a small representative number from the parishes was allowed to be present. Some saw the numbers present as a hopeful sign, but the fact is that the majority of them were either guests or dignitaries. Similarly, the celebration to mark the 150th anniversary of the Restoration of the Hierarchy involved only a small elite. Neither the people of the parishes, nor the priests were invited. It was not even mentioned in the Ad clerum or Westminster Information, as it is now called. This kind of thing encourages the view that there is a separate dispensation for those who are within the charmed circle and another for those who are outside. It may not be so, but it looks suspiciously like it.

Catholic spokesmen and others complain too often that the long arm of the Holy See reaches far into Church affairs in this country. The same people are likely to be among those most in favour of liturgical innovation and exclusive use of vernacular. The irony is that the Papacy has had to become even more a focus of unity than previously precisely because the liturgy no longer has the unifying aspect of language and rite that it once had. At the same time the translation of the new missal – which was entrusted by the Holy See to the national hierarchies - is so inadequate that it requires even more oversight from Rome to correct it. These and similar concerns make one cautious about supporting increased devolution of powers from the Holy See to national hierarchies.

Among several articles in recent weeks regarding this anniversary, I noted one, by Fr Bruce Harbert, in the Catholic Herald of May 12. The gist of his comment was that there had not been a true restoration of the Hierarchy because only bishops had participated in the full restoration of their rights and status. 'The rights and privileges of priests vis-a-vis the Bishops that had existed before the time of Elizabeth I had not been restored in 1850. The old system had given the clergy some security and protected us "from the whims of prelates... now only the bishops have the security that once belonged to all the clergy". I see his point and would endorse one hundred per cent his sentiments in that regard. I would not go so far as to suggest that the non- revival of the medieval system of appointments discredits the notion of restoration.

To conclude, in conformity with the very essence of Catholicism and for the greater freedom of the Church, a close bond of loyalty and fidelity to the See of Peter is an absolute necessity. That will inevitably involve us in a clear alternative from the synodal style of church government used by other denominations. The uniqueness of the universal authority of the Church and their participation in it was what motivated the Catholic bishops of the nineteenth century. They recognised that the Church in this country is not comparable with the Anglican communion; that is, perceived as another form of the national church but with the added dimension of a number of extra doctrines, some of which might be debatable. No, we are by our very nature supra-national and we cannot be confined to one race or one form of society. We look beyond ourselves and beyond this island for identity and authority. In that sense, we are all ultimately ultramontanes.

What was achieved in 1850 actually gave greater authority, not less to the Catholic bishops. Whereas previously they had been immediately subject to the Pope himself, they were now constituted as a legitimate hierarchy with episcopal jurisdiction as defined by the canon law of the time. They valued and respected the strong bond of unity with Rome because it was both historic and Catholic. It was that assurance of continuity with the past and a solid basis from which to advance which gave them the impetus to build so splendidly the edifice of Catholicism in England whose outlines are still with us today. It is the task of the future to rebuild and extend that edifice.

Notes.

i.  Appeal to the Good Reason and Good Feeling of the English People on the subject of the Catholic Hierarchy. FOTHERGILL, B., Nicholas Wiseman, London 1%3, p. 177

ii.  NORMAN, E. The English Catholic Church in the Nineteenth Century, Oxford, 1984, p. 157

iii.  ARCHER, A. The Two Catholic Churches, a Study in Oppression. London 1986.

iv.  BECK, G.A., (Ed.). The English Catholics 1850-1950. London 1950. Pp 42ff

v.  KER, I, John Henry Newman. a biography, Oxford, 1988, p.363

vi.  GRAY, R Cardinal Manning, A Biography, London. 1985, p.144

vii.  NEWMAN, J.H. Sermons Preached on Various Occasions, London 1857, p.200

viii.  Cfr. NORMAN, op,cit. p. 86

ix.  ibid.

x.  NORMAN, op. cit. p. 88

xi.  PURCELL, E. S., Henry Edward Manning, His Life and Labours. London 1895, II p. l01

xii.  HOLMES, D. More Roman than Rome. London, 1978, p162.

xiii.  NORMAN, op. cit. p. 2I2.

xiv.  ULLATHORNE, Archbishop, From Cabin-Boy to Archbishop. London 1941 edn., p. 4

xv.  WARD, W. William George Ward and the Catholic Revival. London 2nd ed. 1912, p. 75.

xvi.  NORMAN, op. cit. p. 1

xvii.  HOLMES, op. cit. p.59

xviii.  NORMAN op. cit. p. 99

xix.  The Wiseman Review, no. 498 (Winter 1963-4) p. 398 (LEETHAM, C. Gentili's Reports to Rome.)

xx.  WARD, W, The Life and Times of Cardinal Wiseman, London 1897, vol. 2, p.15

xxi.  The full text of the pastoral is given in WARD, B. Sequel, II, p.283

xxii.  NORMAN, op. cit. p. 103

xxiii.  GRAY, R, Cardinal Manning, a Biography. London 1985, p. 137

xxiv.  ibid.

xxv.  ibid.

xxvi.  NORMAN, op. cit. pp104-105.

xxvii.  Appeal, FOTHERGILL, B., op. cit

xxviii.  KER, I, John Henry Newman, a biography. Oxford, 1988, p.360

xxix.  ibidem

xxx.  A Bitter Trial; Evelyn Waugh & John Carmel Cardinal Heenan on the Liturgical Changes. Hampshire, 1996. (Letter of 20th August, 1964), p. 44.

xxxi.  See above, op, cit.

xxxii.  op. cit. p. 258

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