“An Authoritarian Radical”

Today marks the death of Cardinal Henry Edward Manning (1808-1892), one of the leading figures in nineteenth century English Catholicism. After Oxford, he seemed destined for a shining public career, but he opted for the church. In 1833 he was ordained an Anglican priest and married, but his wife died four years later. This was the time of the Oxford Movement, an attempt to reassert the Church’s prophetic role in the face of government encroachment. For Archdeacon Manning, the final straw was the Gorham case (1850), which saw the Church forced to install a clergyman holding heretical views on baptism. He became a Catholic in 1851 and was soon ordained. The Roman hierarchy had just been reinstituted under Archbishop Nicholas Wiseman. Manning succeeded him as Archbishop of Westminster in 1865, and was named a Cardinal in 1875. A theological conservative, he supported the declaration of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council (1869-1870). At the same time, he was a social progressive who championed the rights of the worker. He was appointed to several government commissions and advocated for improved housing. In 1889 he played a key role in settling the London Dock Strike (in favor of the dock workers). Thanks in large part to his efforts, the Church came to be seen as a friend of the workingman. When he died, thousands turned out to pay tribute to the man that one historian describes as an “authoritarian radical.”