Nicholas Wiseman - Cardinal

Cardinal

The progress of Roman Catholicism was undeniable, but Wiseman found himself steadily opposed by a minority among his own clergy, who disliked his ultramontane ideas of his "Romanizing and innovating zeal," especially in regard to the introduction of sacred images into the churches and the use of devotions to the Blessed Virgin and the Blessed Sacrament, hitherto unknown among English Roman Catholics. In July 1850, Wiseman heard of the pope's intention to create him a cardinal, and took this to mean that he was to be permanently recalled to Rome. But on his arrival, he ascertained that a part of the pope's plan for restoring a diocesan hierarchy in England was that he himself should return to England as cardinal and archbishop of Westminster. The papal brief establishing the hierarchy was dated 19(?) September 1850, and on 7 October. Wiseman wrote a pastoral, dated "from out of the Flaminian Gate", a form diplomatically correct, but of bombastic tone for Protestant ears, in which he spoke enthusiastically, if also a little pompously, of the "restoration of Catholic England to its orbit in the ecclesiastical firmament".

Wiseman travelled slowly to England, via Vienna. When he reached London on 11 November, the whole country was ablaze with indignation at the "papal aggression," which was interpreted to imply a new and unjustifiable claim to territorial rule. Some indeed feared that his life was endangered by the violence of popular feeling. Wiseman displayed calmness and courage, and immediately penned a pamphlet of over 30 pages titled Appeal to the English People, in which he explained the nature of the pope's action. He argued that the admitted principle of toleration included leave to establish a diocesan hierarchy. In his concluding paragraphs, he effectively contrasted that dominion over Westminster, which he was taunted with claiming, with his duties towards the poor Roman Catholics resident there, with which alone he was really concerned. A course of lectures at St George's, Southwark, further moderated the storm. In July 1852, he presided at Oscott over the first provincial synod of Westminster, at which Newman preached his sermon on the "Second Spring"; and at this date, Wiseman's dream of the rapid conversion of England to the ancient faith seemed capable of realization. But many difficulties with his own people shortly beset his path, due largely to the suspicions aroused by his evident preference for the ardent Roman zeal of the converts, and especially of Manning, to the dull and cautious formalism of the old Roman Catholics.

In the autumn of 1853, Wiseman went to Rome, where Pius IX gave full approval to his ecclesiastical policy. It was during this visit to Rome that Wiseman projected, and began to write, by far the most popular book that came from his versatile pen, the historical romance, Fabiola, a tale of the Church of the Catacombs. The book appeared at the end of 1854, and its success was immediate and phenomenal. Translations of it were published in almost every European language. Wiseman wrote Fabiola in part as an answer to the vigorously anti-Catholic book Hypatia (1853) by Charles Kingsley. The novel was mainly aimed at the embattled Catholic minority in England.

The year 1854 was also marked by Wiseman's presence in Rome at the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin on 8 December.

In 1855, Wiseman applied for a coadjutor bishop. George Errington, who was then Bishop of Plymouth, and his friend since boyhood, was appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of Westminster and Titular Archbishop of Trapezus. Two years later, Manning was appointed Provost of Westminster. Wiseman's later years were darkened by Errington's hostility to Manning, and to himself insofar as he was supposed to be acting under Manning's influence. The story of the estrangement, which was largely a matter of temperament, is fully told in Ward's biography. In July 1860 Errington was deprived by the Pope of his coadjutorship with right of succession. He retired to Prior Park, near Bath, where he died in 1886.

His speeches, sermons and lectures, delivered during his tour, were printed in a volume of 400 pages, showing an extraordinary power of rising to the occasion and of speaking with sympathy and tact. Wiseman was able to use considerable influence with English politicians, partly because in his day, English Roman Catholics were wavering in their historical allegiance to the Liberal party. As the director of votes thus doubtful, he was in a position to secure concessions that bettered the position of Roman Catholics in regard to poor schools, reformatories and workhouses, and in the status of their army chaplains. In 1863, addressing the Roman Catholic Congress at Mechelen, he stated that since 1830, the number of priests in England had increased from 434 to 1242, and of convents of women from 16 to 162, while there were 55 religious houses of men in 1863 and none in 1830. The last two years of his life were troubled by illness and by controversies in which he found himself, under Manning's influence, compelled to adopt a policy less liberal than that which had been his in earlier years.

Wiseman had to condemn the Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom, with which he had shown some sympathy in its inception in 1857, and to forbid Roman Catholic parents to send their sons to Oxford or Cambridge, though at an earlier date he had hoped (with Newman) that at Oxford at least a college or hall might be assigned to them. In other respects, however, his last years were cheered by marks of general regard and admiration, in which non-Roman Catholics joined. After his death on 16 February 1865, there was an extraordinary demonstration of popular respect as his body was taken from St Mary's, Moorfields, to St Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Kensal Green, where it was intended that it should rest only until a more fitting place could be found in a Roman Catholic cathedral church of Westminster. On 30 January 1907, the body was removed with great ceremony from Kensal Green and was reburied in the crypt of the new cathedral, where it lies beneath a Gothic altar tomb, with a recumbent effigy of the archbishop in full pontificals.

Wiseman's birthplace on Calle Fabiola in Barrio Santa Cruz, the old Jewish quarter of Seville, carries a commemorative plaque; as does Etloe House in Leyton, London E10 where he lived from 1858 to 1864.