Tracking Down an English Pastoral Letter of 1875

In September I read and reviewed Owen F. Cumming's introductory study of Saint John Henry Newman, rather unfavorably, I think one could say. 

One comment he made in the chapter on the First Vatican Council (1869-1870) about the reception of the work of the Council, especially on Papal Infallibility, puzzled me:

The English bishops, for example, did not issue a joint pastoral letter on Vatican I until their Low Week meeting of 1875, five years later. What they came up with on that occasion was essentially an acknowledgement of the rights of local bishops. A bishop was not simply a papal vicar. (p. 130)

There's no footnote to the source of this information. So I tried to find information about this unnamed joint pastoral letter. Here's what I found:

At least two individual bishops issued pastoral letters: Manning and Ullathorne. I found this information in an article (located at Academia.edu) by Christian D. Washburn, "The First Vatican Council, Archbishop Henry Manning, and Papal Infallibility", published in The Catholic Historical Review, Volume 102 (4), pp. 712-745– Dec 9, 2016. Professor Washburn argues that Manning wasn't the "extreme ultramontanist" we think he was.

Manning published The Vatican Council and Its Definitions: A Pastoral Letter to the Clergy; Ullathorne (Newman's Bishop) The Council and Papal Infallibility: A Letter Addressed to the Clergy and the Laity of the Diocese of Birmingham. (It's interesting that Ullathorne included the laity. In the midst of The Rambler crisis, Bishop Ullathorne asked Newman "Who are the laity?" Newman recorded his response, cited in Coulson's book on the issue, "I answered (not in these words) that the Church would look foolish without them".)

There was a joint effort, beginning in 1875, of the bishops of England to deal with the establishment of schools by the Society of Jesus. According to this overview of the Historiography of the Jesuits in Britain in the Late Modern Period by Jeffrey P. von Arx, S.J.:

The issue between the Jesuits and the bishops came to a head in 1875 over the efforts of the Jesuits to establish a college in the city of Manchester over the objection of the ordinary, Herbert Vaughan (1832–1903; bishop of Salford 1872–92; archbishop of Westminster 1892–1903; created cardinal 1893).19 The Jesuits had had a church in the city since 1869 and the provincial, Peter Gallwey (1820–1906; in office 1873–76), maintained this fact gave them the right to establish a college, even without the bishop’s permission, according to privileges that had been granted them by the Holy See with the approval of their Constitutions in 1540, and renewed with their restoration in 1814, and this he proceeded to do. Vaughan took his case to Rome where the Jesuit general was prevailed upon to order the school closed, but without any judgment on the matter of Jesuit privileges vis à vis the bishops’ authority.20

That was not a satisfactory resolution for the bishops of the issue between them and the religious orders, especially the Jesuits, over the privileges of regulars versus the authority of bishops. A number of the bishops, especially Cardinal Manning (1808–92, archbishop of Westminster 1865–92, created cardinal 1875), wanted the issue of episcopal jurisdiction over religious resolved once and for all, and Manning pressed his fellow bishops to refer the matter to Rome for settlement. When the matter was finally resolved with the issuance of the apostolic constitution Romanos pontifices, it was a decisive victory for the bishops, and religious orders could not open new schools or colleges, residences or churches without the express permission of the ordinary.21 The Constitution would govern the relations between bishops and religious orders not only in Britain but worldwide until the revision of canon law in 1917.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia,this had been an issue for more than two decades:

The restoration by Pius IX, 29 Sept. 1850, by letters Apostolic "Universalis ecclesiæ" of the hierarchy in England, and the consequent transition to the new order of things, necessarily gave rise to misunderstandings and discussion in various matters of jurisdiction and discipline, particularly between the episcopate and religious orders. Bishops, as was incumbent upon them, strenuously maintained the rights of the hierarchy, while religious superiors were loath to surrender prerogatives previously exercised. The chief points of controversy related to the exemption of regulars from the jurisdiction of bishops; the right of bishops to divide parishes or missions conducted by regulars, and to place secular priests in charge of these newly-created missions; the obligation of regulars engaged in parish work to attend conferences of the clergy and diocesan synods; the force of their appeal from synodal statutes; their liberty to found new houses, colleges and schools, or to convert existing institutions to other purposes; the right of bishops to visit canonically institutions in charge of regulars; and certain financial matters. Individual bishops sought to cope with the situation until finally a proposition of Cardinal Manning, made in an annual meeting of the English hierarchy in 1877, to submit these difficulties to Rome for definite settlement, met with unanimous approval. In July, 1878, the bishops of Scotland formally associated themselves with their English brethren in the controversy. Negotiations were opened with Propaganda, but Cardinal Manning later suggested to Pope Leo XIII the appointment of a special commission to examine the claims of the contestants and to prepare a constitution. Repeated delays ensued, so that it was not until 20 Sept., 1880, that a special commission of nine cardinals chosen to consider the question had its first sitting. Four other sessions followed, and in Jan., 1881, a report was made to the pope. Finally the constitution "Romanos Pontifices", of Leo XIII was issued 8 May of the same year, defining the relations in England and Scotland between bishops and religious. This constitution has been extended to the United States (25 Sept., 1885), to Canada (14 March, 1911), to South America (1 Jan., 1900), to the Philippine Islands (1 Jan., 1910), and quite generally to missionary countries.

Please read the rest there.

So I still haven't found a joint pastoral letter by the English bishops issued in 1875--but maybe this is what Owen F. Cummings was referencing? If I could consult The English bishops and the first Vatican Council by Frederick J Cwiekowski, S.S., perhaps I'd be sure.

Image Source (Public Domain): Pope Leo XIII

July 1 and the Precious Blood: DOMINE JESU REX ET REDEMPTOR PER SANGUINEM TUUM SALVA NOS

Before the 1969 reforms of the Roman Calendar, today was the Feast of the Most Precious Blood. One of the hymns for the feast was:

Salvete Christi vulnera,
Immensi amoris pignora,
Quibus perennes rivuli
Manant rubentis Sanguinis.

Nitore stellas vincitis,
Rosas odore et balsama,
Pretio lapillos indicos,
Mellis favos dulcedine.

Per vos patet gratissimum
Nostris asylum mentibus,
Non huc furor minantium
Unquam penetrat hostium.

Quot Jesus in Pretorio
Flagella nudus excipit!
Quot scissa pellis undique
Stillat cruoris guttulas!

Frontem venustam, proh dolor!
Corona pungit spinea,
Clavi retusa cuspide
Pedes manusque perforant.

Postquam sed ille tradidit
Amans volensque spiritum,
Pectus feritur lancea,
Geminusque liquor exilit.

Ut plena sit redemptio
Sub torculari stringitur,
Suique Jesus immemor,
Sibi nil reservat Sanguinis.

Venite, quotquot criminum
Funesta labes inficit:
In hoc salutis balneo
Qui se lavat, mundabitur.

Summi ad Parentis dexteram
Sedenti habenda est gratia,
Qui nos redemit Sanguine,
Sanctoque firmat Spiritu.

Which Henry Nutcombe Oxenham translated. According to the old Catholic Encyclopedia, Oxenham, although attracted to the Catholic Church, and defintely High Church, had troubles after his conversion, although he never reverted or left:

An English controversialist and poet, born at Harrow, 15 Nov., 1829; died at Kensington, 23 March, 1888; was the son of the Rev. William Oxenham, second master of Harrow. He was educated at Harrow School and Balliol College, Oxford, taking his degree in 1850. After receiving Anglican orders, he became curate first at Worminghall, in Buckinghamshire, then at St. Bartholomew's, Cripplegate. While at the latter place, he was received into the Church by Monsignor (afterwards Cardinal) Manning. For a time he contemplated becoming a priest, for which purpose he entered St. Edmund's College, Old Hall, but after receiving minor orders, he left: it is said that his reason was that he believed in the validity of Anglican orders, and considered himself already a priest. He continued to dress as an ecclesiastic and in this anomalous position he spent the remainder of his life. His ambition was to work for the reunion of the Anglican with the Catholic Church, with which end in view, he published a sympathetic article, in answer to Pusey's "Eirenicon", in the shape of a letter to his friend and fellow-convert, Father Lockhart . After the Vatican Council his position became still more anomalous, for his unwillingness to accept the doctrine of Papal Infallibility was known. Though influenced by the action of Dr. Döllinger, with whom he was on intimate terms, he never outwardly severed his connexion with the Catholic Church, and before his death received all the sacraments at the hands of Father Lockhart. His published works include: "The Sentence of Kaires and Poems" (3rd ed., London, 1871); Translation of Döllinger's "First Age of Christianity" (London, 1866, 2 vols: two subsequent editions) and "Lectures on Reunion" (London, 1872); "Catholic Eschatology" (1876; new edition, enlarged, 1878); "Memoir of Lieut. Rudolph de Lisle, R. N." (London, 1886); numerous pamphlets and articles, especially in "The Saturday Review", over the initials X. Y. Z.

He tried his vocation at the London Oratory and travelled to Germany for a long stay. Oxenham never married and was 58 when he died. As an aside, it is interesting that Balliol produced some other famous converts to Catholicism: Gerard Manley Hopkins, Hilaire Belloc, Ronald Knox, Graham Greene, and Christopher Hollis. Don't forget that Lord Peter Wimsey attended Balliol too, according to Dorothy L. Sayers!

Westminster Cathedral in London is dedicated to the Precious Blood of Jesus: DOMINE JESU REX ET REDEMPTOR PER SANGUINEM TUUM SALVA NOS (Lord Jesus, King and Redeemer, save us by your blood) !

Manning as Newman's Equal, from CTS

The Catholic Truth Society in the U.K. has published this new pocket-sized biography of Henry Cardinal Manning, who followed Blessed John Henry Newman into the Catholic Church and with whom Newman had some disagreements, shall we say. The author, Russell Sparkes, posted a two-part consideration of why Cardinal Manning should be of equal importance, in quite different ways, to Cardinal Newman:

Part One:

Like many English Catholics, I suspect, I was both proud and delighted when the Pope beatified Cardinal Newman during his visit to Britain in September 2010. But at the same time I was also saddened by the thought of another Englishman, now almost totally neglected, whom I believe to be at least as worthy of this great honour as Newman.

This was Henry Manning, along with Newman one of the two “convert cardinals” who shaped the English Catholic Church into the form we know it today. Born a Protestant, and regarded as one of the most promising young clergymen in the Church of England, Manning was received into the Catholic Church in 1851. He became priest soon after, and to general surprise was appointed Archbishop of Westminster on Pope Pius IX’s personal insistence in 1865. He was a close contemporary of Newman’s, dying just a year after him in January 1892. Yet while books and articles about Newman continue to pour off the press, Manning’s great works, and indeed his name, are largely forgotten today. To those who knew them both in the flesh it was very different; Newman died a relatively obscure figure, while after Manning’s death the crowds thronged his funeral procession through the streets of London in a way that had been seen only once before for the funeral of the Duke of Wellington 40 years earlier.

Part Two:

In the last half of his article, Russell Sparkes points out that although Cardinal Manning was not a theologian to compare with Newman, the former’s vision of the holy calling of the priest makes him a model to follow even today.

One of the first sermons he gave as a young priest describes the standards that he always lived by, and which he expected from other priests:

“The mind of Christ must be transfused into our own. There must be somewhat of the same intense love of perishing sinners, of the same patient endurance of moral evil, and unwearied striving to bring the impenitent to God … What a mission, Brethren, is ours!”

Sounds intriguing! I would take issue about the "obscurity" of Newman's death and funeral. The London Times eulogized him, 14 bishops were present at his funeral Mass, and 15,000 people lined the streets of Birmingham as his cortege carred him to Rednal. It was in Birmingham, not in London--but it was not obscure!

The Gorham Judgment, March 9, 1850

The Privy Council, a secular Court, announced a decision on the case of the Reverend George Cornelius Gorham on this date in 1850. The Anglican bishop of Exeter Henry Phillpotts had refused to allow him to become vicar of St. Peter's in Bramford Speke, Devon because of Gorham's theology of Baptism, which did not conform to the doctrine of the Church of England. Reverend Gorham held that Baptism was not sacramentally effective and that an adult decision to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour was necessary. Bishop Phillpotts, however, was a High Church Anglican who could not accept such a denial of Article XXVII of the Thirty-Nine Articles:

Baptism is not only a sign of profession and mark of difference whereby Christian men are discerned from other that be not christened, but is also a sign of regeneration or new birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive baptism rightly are grafted into the Church; the promises of the forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God, by the Holy Ghost are visibly signed and sealed; faith is confirmed, and grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God. The baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained in the Church as most agreeable with the institution of Christ.

This decision had a great impact on Henry Edward Manning, one of the leaders of the High Church Anglican movement with connections to William Gladstone and James Hope-Scott. The Gorham Judgment, with a secular institution interfering with ecclesiastical matters, convinced Manning (and Hope-Scott) to become Catholics, which they did in 1851.

The Gorham matter, like the appointment of Renn Dickson Hampden as Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford in 1836, was a great controversy in the Church of England, contributing to "defections" like Manning's and Hope-Scott's. It demonstrated the Erastian nature of the Church of England which did not support the High Church view of ecclesiology. When the authority of the local Bishop to teach and uphold Christian doctrine is rejected by the authority of the State it is difficult to maintain the notion that Anglican bishops are successors of the Apostles. Blessed John Henry Newman responded to this crisis with his series of lectures on Anglican Difficulties:

Anglican Difficulties is ad­dressed specifically to Anglo­-Catholics to show them that if they would remain true to their principles -- specifically, those of the Oxford Movement, born in 1833 -- they would have to go over to Rome.

Newman knew all the Anglo-Catholic arguments for not going to Rome, and he knocked them over one by one. What is truly pro­phetic about this book, though, is that Newman, understanding the debilitating weakness of the Anglo-Catholic position, foresaw how the position of Anglo-Catholics in the C. of E. could only get more and more precarious -- and preposter­ous -- over time. . . .

Newman contended that the C. of E. had no real identity and no future. It was not beholden to Christ or Catholic doctrine or the universal Church (either the actual one centered in Rome or the one imagined by Anglo-Catholics), but to the nation, public opinion, and the Spirit of the Age. It could only move further and further away from its "mimic Catholicism." For Anglo-Catholics to remain in the C. of E. could not alter this destiny, only slow it down for a time. Re­garding the Spirit of the Age, and with reference to the Privy Council decision, Newman exclaimed elo­quently: "The giant ocean has sud­denly swelled and heaved, and ma­jestically yet masterfully snaps the cables of smaller craft...and strands them upon the beach.... One vessel alone can ride those waves; it is the boat of Peter, the ark of God."

Newman saw that if the doc­trine of baptismal regeneration could be reduced to a mere matter of opinion, then any doctrine could be so reduced.

The Anglo-Catholic blog posts this great lecture by Father George Rutler, discussing "The Present Importance of Newman's View of Anglicanism".