CARDINAL MANNING ON THE CONCLAVE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 267, 14 June 1878, Page 11

CARDINAL MANNING ON THE CONCLAVE.

His Eminence Cardinal Manning arrived in London on the 10th of April, after an absence of five months, most of the time in Rome. ■ A large number of leading Catholics— among them the Marquis oi Eipon, Mrl Denbigh, Lord Petrc,,and many members of Parliament— met him at Charing Cross ; and his Eminence was loudly cheered and very warmly saluted as he passed to his carriage. Shortly after his arrival at his residence, a company of noblemen and gentlemen waited on him and presented an address of welcome, which was read by the Marquis of Ripon. The Cardinal, who seemed in very indifferent health, and whose voice was exceedingly weak, in reply alluded to the election of Leo XIII. as follows : " The world without amused itself -with describing the deliberations of the Sacred College and the election of the Pontiff in the parliamentary dialect of,' groups,' and ' sections,' and ' parties' led one day by such a cardinal, and the nest by another. The prompt decision of the Conclave, the unanimity of the protest in defence of the rights of the Holy See, and the almost unexampled rapidity of the election prove beyond all need of words the absence of all foundation for these daily and elaborate misstatements. For plain men these three facts are enough ; for others nothing else will suffice. You have expressed your regret that, as you say, ' persistent and ridiculous attempts' should have been made to misrepresent my words and actions, and that by some of our own countrymen. I learned day by day, for the first time from the Italian papers and periodically from the English correspondents in Home to our leading journals, the counsels I had given, the parties I was leading, the number of my supporters, the vehemence of my language and the isolation in which my eminent and indignant colleagues left me at last. No readers of this contemporary history were more amused with it than were my colleagues themselves, who daily condoled with me over my misconduct. I think It is a duty to the Sacred College on my part to say, and I think you have a right to know, all that I can make known without infraction of my oath. For if at such_ a moment and in presence of such events and under such responsibilities, and surrounded by such an assembly— the highest and most august on carth — I had so far forgotten myself as to act, to speak even for a moment, as both you and I have learned from the newspapers, you would have had a just right to be ashamed of me, and I should have been in conscience bound to be more profoundly ashamed of myself. I violate no obligation in making the two following statements— first, that no proposition of mine was ever so much as contested by my colleagues ; and secondly, that I had the happiness to be always united to the majority, I may say all but unanimity of the Sacred College." His Eminence concluded by thanking the assemblage for their manifestation of trust and affection towards him. Finally he said, " And now, as in my last audience I received authority from the Sovereign Pontiff Leo XIII. to convey his blessing to all in England, I give to you, in his name, and in pledge of his paternal care for England, the Apostolical Benediction." — Catholic Review,