Henry Edward Manning

English Protestant cleric

• Born: July 15, 1808
• Birthplace: Copped Hall, Totteridge, Hertfordshire, England
• Died: January 14, 1892
• Place of death: London, England

Manning combined a deep Christian faith with an active Christian conscience. As an Anglican cleric he was an avid reformer and the leader of the Oxford Movement. After he converted to the Roman Catholic faith, he continued his careers as theologian, reformer, and philanthropist and contributed greatly to the rebirth of Catholicism in England.

Early Life

Henry Edward Manning was the third and youngest son of William Manning, a West Indian merchant and parliamentarian, and his second wife, Mary, the daughter of Henry Leroy Hunter. The Hunter family claimed Italian extraction, “Hunter” being the English equivalent of the Italian name “Venature.” As a youngster, Manning was educated at Harrow, and on April 2, 1827, he matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford.

While Manning was at Balliol, his father suffered severe financial problems that eliminated any possibility of his son’s pursuing a career in Parliament. Instead, the younger Manning applied himself to his studies and received a first-class degree in 1830. He then obtained a post in the colonial office. At the suggestion of Favell Lee Bevar, an evangelical Anglican, he considered a career in the Church and then returned to Oxford at Merton College to study for the priesthood in the Church of England. On December 23, 1832, he was ordained and at once took a curateship at Wollavington-cum-Graffham, Sussex. In 1833, he received his master’s degree and was installed as rector, and in the same year he married Caroline Sargeant, the late Rector John Sargeant’s third daughter.

As a parish priest, Manning was deeply loved by his parishioners and devoted to their care. He successfully rebuilt the churches in his parish. Manning participated in the Ecclesiastical Commission of 1835 and was active on the diocesan boards of the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor.

In 1837, Manning was appointed to the rural deanery of Midhurst. It was there that Mrs. Manning died of tuberculosis on July 24, 1837. Manning was deeply sorrowed by his wife’s death. His marriage, although childless, had been extremely happy. Manning’s affection for his wife can be seen in the fact that he observed the anniversary of her death until he died.

In 1840, Manning was advanced to the Archdeaconry of Chichester. Manning’s appointment was hailed as a “blessing for the church” by The Christian Remembrance. Advancement to a bishopric or an even higher post seemed assured. At this point, as an important figure in the Church of England, Manning showed no sympathy toward the Church of Rome. Indeed, he preached against papal power. However, Manning not only believed in one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church but also espoused baptismal regeneration, apostolic succession, and Richard Hooker’s theory of the Eucharist. He also hated the idea of the Erastian state and deplored the decline of the church parliament of convocation. Nevertheless, Manning was not active in the Tractarian, or Oxford, Movement until the secession to Rome of Newman and W. G. Ward. At that point, Manning became one of the leaders of the movement. He was liked and trusted by most of his colleagues in the Church.

Life’s Work

The year 1847 was a momentous one for Manning, marking a decisive turning point in his life. A tour of the Continent impressed him with the vitality of the Roman Catholic Church and the difficulty of explaining the Anglican position to foreigners. Upon his return to England, Manning resumed his activities. The year 1850, however, brought Manning to a decision. In that year, George Gorham, a Calvinist theologian, was refused appointment to a living because of his holding that divine grace was not imparted at baptism. The bishop’s refusal was reversed on an appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, an action that invited controversy.

A protest was circulated that stated that to regard an article of faith as a debatable question meant that the Anglican Church could not assure its members the grace of the sacraments and the remission of sins. Manning signed the protest but, significantly, his good friend William Ewart Gladstone did not. At this point, Manning was asked to consider the founding of an Anglo-Catholic “free church” but declined on the grounds that “three hundred years ago we [England] had left a good ship for a boat. I am not going to leave a boat for a tub.”

On top of this decision, the bull reestablishing a Roman Catholic hierarchy in England caused 1850 to be dubbed the year of papal aggression. Thousands of meetings were held protesting papal authority, including one in Chichester Cathedral on November 22, 1850. This was Manning’s last official act in the Anglican Church. He renounced his archdeaconry and withdrew to London, where he was a communicant at St. Paul’s, Knightsbridge.

On April 6, 1851, Passion Sunday, Manning was received into the Church of Rome at the Jesuits Church, Mayfair, London. He was confirmed by Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman on April 11, tonsured on April 29, admitted to four minor orders on April 30, admitted to the subdiaconate on May 25 and to the diaconate on June 8, and ordained to the priesthood on June 15.

The fall of 1851 saw Manning at the Academie di Nobili Ecclesiastici in Rome. He spent the next three years studying at the college and summering in England and Ireland. Pope Pius IX took great interest in Manning and from the beginning saw him frequently on a private basis. On January 24, 1854, he was given the degree of doctor of divinity by the pope and made provost of the chapter at Westminster. On May 31, 1857, he was installed as superior of the Congregation of the Oblates of St. Charles at St. Mary’s Church, Bays Water, which he had founded.

For the next eight years, Manning devoted his time to preaching, to teaching in the slums of Westminster, and to the defense of the temporal power of the pope. In 1860, he received the title of monsignor.

Upon the death of Cardinal Wiseman on February 23, 1865, Manning preached the funeral sermon. On April 30, 1865, the pope appointed Manning to the vacant see of Wiseman over three other candidates. He was consecrated archbishop on June 8, 1865, in the largest Catholic assembly seen since the Reformation. On September 29, 1865, Pius IX conferred the pallium on Manning.

As archbishop, Manning made full use of his powers, and he continued to do so after he became a cardinal ten years later. For the rest of his life, he devoted his time not only to theological writings but also to humanitarian causes. He was not interested in building a Catholic cathedral in London, although in 1903 the Catholic Westminster Cathedral was opened on ground Manning had acquired.

Manning was active in improving and expanding the Catholic school system. He established a diocesan seminary of St. Thomas at Hammersmith. From 1880 to 1887, he served on the Royal Commission of Education and was responsible for much of the work in the Education Act of 1891 that dealt with voluntary schools. He also advocated temperance and abstained from alcohol for the last twenty years of his life. He campaigned for restrictive legislation on the alcohol traffic and founded the temperance society known as the League of the Cross.

Manning was active also in the Irish nationalist movement, favoring home rule, reform of the land laws, and disestablishment of the Irish church. On the labor front, Manning sat on the royal commission of 1884-1885 for improving working-class housing. He was interested in workers’ rights, child-labor laws, better housing, better education, and relief for the starving poor. In the famous London Dockers’ Strike of August, 1889, it was Manning’s exceptional powers as a diplomat and advocate of labor rights that ended the strike peacefully on September 16—hence the name for the strike’s resolution, “the Cardinal’s peace.”

In his theological writing, Manning was an Ultramontane for his support of the supremacy of papal power and the doctrine of infallibility. He wrote in defense of communion in one kind, the doctrine of the Sacred Heart, and on the Holy Spirit. Despite his deep devotion to papal power, Manning remained devoted to England and the growth of ecumenism. He worked with the Nonconformists on education bills. Again and again, Manning held the position that England had never deliberately rejected the Roman Catholic faith but rather had been robbed of it by its rulers. He believed that Protestanism would eventually become extinct because of its accommodations to modern rationalism, and he hoped for England’s return to the Roman fold. He did not live to see it, for he died on January 14, 1892, from bronchitis. Manning was buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery, Kensal Green. His net worth was less than three thousand pounds because of his devotion to charity.

Significance

Henry Edward Manning’s early career reflected the spiritual complexities of the Oxford Movement. His search for spiritual peace and his growing disillusionment with the true significance of state control were feelings with which many Anglicans could identify. Moreover, although Manning had regarded his submission to Rome as the end of his career as a cleric, this did not prove so. Manning, unlike Newman, retained the affection of most Anglicans while being deeply appreciated by members of the Roman Catholic Church. Under Manning’s leadership, the Roman Catholic Church in England grew in numbers and influence. At the same time, Manning continued his devotion to all the humanitarian causes for which he had worked throughout his clerical career. He was a hero to the poor and the working class regardless of their religious affiliation.

Manning was not, however, simply an ecclesiastical statesman. He was a prolific theological writer, although much of his work was polemical in regard to papal power. He believed that Roman Catholicism was most concerned with the predicament of the worker in the modern state. In this, he presaged modern Catholic views of the world and the Church as being one sphere.

Manning’s influence lies in his deep contribution to the revival of Roman Catholicism within England during the nineteenth century. Less obvious is the impact of his commitment to the welfare of the common man. In his humanitarian efforts, Manning served England well as both an Anglican and a Catholic.

Bibliography

Fitzsimons, John. Manning: Anglican and Catholic. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1951. An excellent account of Manning’s conversion to Roman Catholicism. Emphasizes Manning’s belief that the Church of England was the closest approximation to a perfect church but that only Rome could sustain his intellectual, sentimental, and emotional nature.

Gray, Robert. Cardinal Manning: A Biography. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985. Gives a detailed description of Manning’s High Church background and belief in good works. Shows that the estrangement between Gladstone and Manning after his conversion was a result of Gladstone’s fear of papal political power. A valuable study of Manning’s dedication to humanitarian causes, which stemmed from his belief that the Church must stand in contrast with the uncaring modern state system.

Leslie, Sir Shane. Cardinal Manning: His Life and Labours. London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, 1921. Reprint. New York: P. J. Kenedy, 1954. The thesis of this biography is that Manning was a theologian who, although born into Anglicanism, was by nature destined for Rome. An interesting undercurrent of this book is its examination of how prominent Victorians were disillusioned by the Church of England’s apathy toward the social problems of the day. Valuable for its insights into Manning’s contemporaries as well as its account of his life and thought.

McClelland, Vincent Alan. Cardinal Manning: His Public Life and Influence, 1865-1892. London: Oxford University Press, 1961. A detailed study of Manning’s career as the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England. Stresses Manning’s contributions to the lives of workers in England. Provides a clear picture of Manning’s working habits, his differences with Newman, and his contributions to the social history of nineteenth century England.

Newsome, David. The Convert Cardinals: John Henry Newman and Henry Edward Manning. London: John Murray, 1993. Examines the lives of both men, describing how they gave up secure careers in the Anglican Church for more dubious futures as converted Catholics. Newsome devotes a chapter to Manning’s literary and philosophical genius, restoring Manning’s reputation against criticism by Strachey and others.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Wilberforces and Henry Manning: The Parting of Friends. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966. A detailed, scholarly examination of Manning’s relationship with his cousin William Wilberforce and the other Wilberforces. Stresses that the estrangement between them was a result of the Wilberforces’ unwillingness and/or inability to understand why he left the Church of England. Newsome contends that the basis of this difference concerned the role of the Church—Anglican or Roman Catholic—in modern society.

Pereiro, James. Cardinal Manning: An Intellectual Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Examines Manning’s life and thought during both his Anglican and Catholic periods, tracing his intellectual development and describing the personal crisis he experienced.

Reynolds, E. E. Three Cardinals: Newman, Manning, and Wiseman. London: Burns, Oates, 1958. This book, although only partly concerned with Manning, is important for the insight it gives on the development of his spiritual thought. Reynolds contends that Manning was most influenced by the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and Richard Hooker, and that Manning became a Roman Catholic not by conversion but because of what he believed as an Anglican.

Strachey, Lytton. Eminent Victorians. London: Chatto & Windus, 1918. Reprint. New York: Capricorn Books, 1963. A dated and acerbic minibiography of Manning and other prominent Victorians; exaggerates Manning’s egotism and minor weaknesses. Strachey’s biting if not vindictive style reveals, however, how deep a loss the Church of England believed Manning to be.