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Archbishop Manning and the Kulturkampf1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Jeffrey P. von Arx S.J.
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Extract

It is not surprising that Henry Edward Manning had strong opinions about the Kulturkampf, Otto von Bismarcks effort in the early 1870’s to bring the Roman Catholic Church in Germany under the control of the State. As head of the Catholic Church in England, it appropriately fell to Manning to condemn what most British Catholics would have seen as the persecution of their Church in the new German Empire. Moreover, Manning knew personally the bishops involved in the conflict with Bismarck from their time together at the Vatican Council. Indeed, he was well acquainted with some of them who had played important rôles, either for or against, in the great controversies of the Council that led to the definition of Papal Infallibility. MiecisIaus Ledochowski, Archbishop of Gnesen and Posen, imprisoned and expelled from his see by the German government in 1874, had, together with Manning, been a prominent infallibilist. Paulus Melchers, Archbishop of Cologne, and leader of the German inopportunists, suffered the same penalty. The bishops of Breslau, Trier and Paderborn, all of whom had played significant rôles at the Council, the first two against, the latter for the definition, were either imprisoned, expelled, or both. Manning considered these men to have suffered for the cause of religious liberty, and could not understand the indifference of British politicians, especially of liberals like Gladstone, to their fate.

Type
Articles
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , October 1992 , pp. 254 - 266
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1973

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Footnotes

1

The opportunity to write this article was provided to me while I was Visiting Fellow at the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. I would like to take this occasion to express my gratitude for the support and hospitality I received there.

References

Notes

2 Hubert, Jedin (ed.): History of the Church (London, 1981), Vol. IX, p. 40.Google Scholar

3 See Manning’s strictures on Gladstone’s unwillingness to condemn the Kulturkampf in Manning, H. E.: The VaticanDecreesin their Bearing on Civil Allegiance (London, 1975), pp. 125–126.Google Scholar

4 Hubert Jedin, op. cit. pp. 33–37.

5 Ibidem, vol. IX, pp. 37–38.

6 The Academia of the Catholic Religion was a learned society established in 1861 by Cardinal Wiseman on the model of the Roman Academy of Letters. Manning was involved in the Academia from its very inception, and when he became archbishop, made efforts to expand it beyond London by establishing branches in the provinces. Originally intented by Wiseman as a place for Catholic men of letters to meet monthly to read and discuss papers on theology, philosophy and history, the Academia became under Manning something more like Mechanics’ Institutes for Catholics. As president of the Academia, Manning regularly gave the Inaugural Address at its sessions and used the occasion for some of his more significant public pronouncements. See Purcell, E. S.: Life of Cardinal Manning (London, 1896), vol. II, pp., 384–385 Google Scholar; McClelland, V. A.: Cardinal Manning: His Public Life and Influence (London, 1962), pp. 126–127 Google Scholar; Robert, Gray: Cardinal Manning (London, 1985), p. 183.Google Scholar

7 In Manning: Miscellanies (London, 1909) Second Series, pp. 51–98.

8 When Manning published the address,he did so with a preface, dated January 1, 1874, that sought to reply to ‘a great many answers and objections [that] have been made to it from various quarters’ (Manning, ‘Caesarism and Ultramontanism,’ in Miscellanies, Second Series, p. 53). See also press reaction from the Pall Mall Gazette and The Times, reported in Arnstein, W. L.: Protestant versus Catholic in Mid-Victorian Britain (Columbia, MO, 1982), p. 188.Google Scholar

9 And earned Russell the thanks of Bismarck. See Arnstein, op. cit., p. 188.

10 Gladstone, ‘Essay on Ritualism’, in the Contemporary Review, 24 (October, 1874), p. 674, quoted in Arnstein, p. 190: ‘… no one can become her convert without renouncing his moral and mental freedom, and placing his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another… ‘.Manning had sent Gladstone a copy of ‘Caesarism and Ultramontanism’ in January, 1874. See Gladstone’s response: ‘If Caesarism be the same thing as Erastianism, I can look on with comfort or equanimity while you pummel it… but when you get on your heights [i.e., on Ultramontanism] I am lame, deaf, and blind’ Gladstone to Manning, January 22, 1874, quoted in Shane Leslie: Henry Edward Manning (London, 1921) p. 246. See also Robert, Gray: Cardinal Manning (London, 1985) pp. 246–247.Google Scholar

11 James, Fitzjames Stephen: ‘Caesarism and Ultramontanism,’ in Contemporary Review, vol. 23 (March, 1874), pp. 497–527 Google Scholar; Manning: ‘Ultramontanism and Christianity,’ CR, vol. 23 (April, 1874), pp. 683–702; Stephen: ‘Caesarism and Ultramontanism,’ CR, vol. 23 (May, 1874), pp. 989–1017; Manning: ‘Christianity and Antichristianism,’ CR, vol. 24 (June, 1874), pp. 149–174.

12 The Times 24 December 1873, quoted in Arnstein, p. 188.

13 Gladstone, , ‘Ritualism and Ritual’, in Contemporary Review, vol. 24 (October, 1874), p. 674 Google Scholar, quoted in Arnstein, p. 190. See Manning, , ‘Caesarism and Ultramontanism,’ p. 80.Google Scholar

14 See Arnstein, pp. 187–188: ‘Since the church was infallible, there was no cause for any jurisdictional dispute between the state and the church. Because the church is “certain with a Divine certainty as to the limits of its jurisdiction, its voice in such matters is final.” The notion of a “free Church in a free State” was therefore an “impossible theory”.’

15 See Manning: ‘On the Subjects Proper to the Academia,’ (session 1863–4), pp. 73–110; ‘Inaugural Address,’ (session 1866–7), pp. 171–192; ‘Inaugural Address,’ (session 1868–9), pp. 257–292, all in Miscellanies, First Series (London, 1909).

16 See my ‘Manning’s Ultramontanism and the Catholic Church in British Politics,’ in Recusant History, Vol. 19, No. 3 (May, 1989), pp. 332–347.

17 See Manning, : England and Christendom (London, 1897), p. xxxxix.Google Scholar

18 Manning, ‘Caesarism and Ultramontanism,’ in Miscellanies, Second Series, pp. 54–56.Google Scholar

19 Ibidem, p. 56.

20 Ibidem, p. 70.

21 Ibidem, p. 71.

22 Ibidem, p. 76.

23 Ibidem, p. 77.

24 Ibidem, p. 83.

25 Ibidem, p. 80.

26 Ibidem, p. 82.

27 Ibidem, p. 83.

28 Ibidem, p. 84.

29 Ibidem, p. 86.

30 Ibidem, p. 86.

31 See my ‘Manning’s Ultramontanism and the Catholic Church in British Politics,’ in Recusant History, p. 334.

32 See Robert, Gray: Cardinal Manning (London, 1985), p. 261 Google Scholar and Purcell, E. S.: Life of Cardinal Manning, vol. II, p. 610–615.Google Scholar

33 Caesarism and Ultramontanism,’ op. cit., pp. 86–87.

34 Ibidem, p. 87.

35 Ibidem, p. 87.

36 Ibidem, p. 89.

37 Ibidem, p. 97.

38 Ibidem, p. 88.

39 Stephen was writing extensively for the Pall Mall Gazette and the rhetoric and argument is similar to what one finds in his replies to Manning in the Contemporary Review (see especially, Stephen, J. F.: ‘Caesarism and Ultramontanism,’ Contemporary Review 23 [May 1874], p. 1015 Google Scholar, where Stephen states the passage quoted by Manning ‘entirely expresses my own views.’). See also Leslie, Stephen: The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen (London, 1985) pp. 213–214 Google Scholar; also p. 373.

40 James, Fitzjames Stephen: ‘Caesarism and Ultramontanism,’ in Contemporary Review, 23 (March, 1874) pp. 497–527.Google Scholar

41 Manning: ‘Ultramontanism and Christianity,’ in Miscellanies, Second Series, pp. 101–135; also in Contemporary Review, 23 (April, 1874) pp. 683–702.

42 See my ‘Manning’s Ultramontanism and the Catholic Church in British Politics,’ in Recusant History, p. 340.

43 ‘Caesarism and Christianity,’ in Miscellanies, Second Series, p. 112.

44 Ibidem, pp. 122–126.

45 Ibidem, p. 126.

46 Ibidem, p. 134.

47 Stephen, : ‘Caesarism and Ultramontanism,’ in Contemporary Review, 23 (May, 1874), p. 1002.Google Scholar

48 Manning: ‘Christianity and Antichristianism,’ in Miscellanies, Second Series, pp. 137–184, also in Contemporary Review 24 (June, 1874), pp. 149–174.

49 Christianity and Antichristianism,’ p. 144.

50 Ibidem, p. 177.

51 Ibidem, p. 176.

52 Ibidem, vol. II, p. 241–242.

53 Ibidem, p. 177–178.

54 Ibidem, vol. II, p. 155.