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Manning's Ultramontanism and the Catholic Church in British Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Jeffrey P. von Arx S.J.
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Extract

After his conversion to Roman Catholicism, the first major controversy in which Henry Edward Manning found himself involved as a member of his new church concerned the Roman Question, or the Temporal Power; that is, the political status and future of the Papal States. Now the question of the temporal power of the pope, and the amount of controversy it engendered, is one of those issues in nineteenth century church history whose significance it is difficult for us to understand. By the mid-nineteenth century, especially in relation to the movement for Italian unification, the temporal power of the popes looks to us like an historical anachronism. To Roman Catholics today, it is obvious that the ability of the church to preach the gospel has been enhanced and its mission in the world correspondingly facilitated by being disembarrassed of the burden of political control in central Italy. How to explain, then, the tremendous controversy the Roman Question aroused over so long a period in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the conviction, especially of the papacy's defenders, that the preservation of the Papal States was critical for the survival, not only of religion, but, as we shall see, of civilization in the West?

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , May 1989 , pp. 332 - 347
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1988

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References

Notes

1 Manning, The Temporal Power of the Vicar of Jesus Christ (London: Burns and Lambert, 1862), p. 26.Google Scholar A collection of sermons and lectures delivered in 1860-1861.

2 Manning, The Temporal Power of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, pp. 26-27.

3 Manning, Temporal Power, 36, 45.

4 Manning, ‘Inaugural Address to the Academia of the Catholic Religion,’ Session 1868-9, in Manning, Miscellanies, (London: Burns and Oates, 1877), vol. I, p. 276.Google Scholar

5 Manning, The Temporal Power of the Vicar of Jesus Christ (London: Burns and Lambert, 1862), p. xxix.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., p. xliii.

7 Ibid., p. 72.

8 Ibid., p. 72.

9 Ibid., p. 130.

10 Ibid., p. 73.

11 Ibid., p. 74. What did Manning mean by this prediction? His explication, while not terribly illuminating, at least provides some indication of the order of reality which he had in mind: ‘How shall we interpret this strong prophecy? The facts of the modern world give us the interpretation. Natural society, which when once subjugated by the providence of God became Christian Europe, will again break forth. It will resume its powers of unregenerate and unchastened will and passion, and men will constitute society, not God. Christian Europe is God's society, but society without faith is the society of man, the antagonist of God. ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit’ [Jn 3:6]. There is an irreconcilable conflict between the two principles. Do not you think that I am extravagant and going out of all bounds and measure in what I say. What, I ask you was the first French Revolution but pagan revival? What was the Revolution of 1848 but the old heathenism, which had been subdued in Italy and Rome, and held under by the Christian order of Europe, striving once more for the ascendancy, with its impiety, its infidelity, its blasphemy against God?

This is the end to which the fair structure of Christian Europe seems tending. I do not say it will ever arrive at this end, for the providence of God may indeed change its course. Of this I know nothing…. If I see certain great anti-Christian principles in motion throughout Europe, I need no inspiration, no gifts of prophecy, to say that, give those principles and movements time to work out their result, that result must be the destruction of the Christian society of Europe, and the restoration of the natural society of man without God in the world.” pp. 75-76.

12 Norman, E. R.: The English Catholic Church in the Nineteenth Century (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1984), pp. 264 seq.Google Scholar

13 Manning, ‘On the Subjects Proper to the Academia,’ in Miscellanies, vol. I, pp. 88-89.

14 Manning in Miscellanies, vol. I, pp. 182-183.

15 Ibid., p. 81.

16 Ibid., p. 83.

17 Manning, ‘Inaugural Address,’ in Miscellanies, vol. I, p. 183.

18 Ibid., p. 185-187.

19 Manning, England and Christendom (London: Longmans, Green and Co.: 1867), pp. xxxix, xliii.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., pp. xcvi-ii.

21 Ibid., p. xcviii.

22 Ibid., p. xcviii.

23 Ibid., pp. xcix-c.

24 Manning, ‘Inaugural Address to the Academia of the Catholic Religion, Session 1868-9,’ in Miscellanies, vol. I, p. 265.

25 Ibid., pp. 261.

26 Ibid., p. 291.

28 Ibid., p. 291.

29 Manning, The Centenary of Saint Peter and the General Council: A Pastoral Letter to the Clergy (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1867), pp. 98–99.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., p. 101.

31 Ibid., p. 90.

32 Manning, The Oecumenical Council and the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff: A Pastoral Letterto the Clergy (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1869), pp. 17–18.Google Scholar

33 Albert de Broglie, ‘Le Christianisme et la Societe,’ in Revue des Deus Mondes, Feb., 1869.

34 Manning in The Oecumenical Council …, p. 22.

35 Ibid., pp. 23-4.

36 Ibid., p. 24.

37 Manning, Centenary of Saint Peter, p. 96. N.B.: ‘Christians’ without differentiation. When Manningmeant Catholics only, he said so.

38 Ibid., p. 96.

39 Cuthbert, Butler, The Vatican Council (Longmans, Green and Co.: London, 1930), vol. II, p. 50 (my emphasis).Google Scholar