Cardinal Manning and the Papacy

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 36, 3 September 1903, Page 18

Cardinal Manning and the Papacy

The only Englishman who occupied the Chair of St. Peter was Adrian IV. (Nicholas Breakspear). He reigned from 1154 to 1159, and his brief lease of rule was disturbed at frequent intervals by the clang of arms. In English-speaking countries he is best remembered as the Pope who is credited with having, by a Bull entitled ' Laudabihter,' conferred Ireland on Henry 11. to hold in fief. The question of the genuineness or spunousness of the Bull has for seven centuries given rise to occasional severe bouts of controversy. Nowadays, however, few historians, if any, stand by the genuineness of the document attributed to Adrian The last kick has been given to it by Professor Thatcher, of the Chicago University, in a monograph entitled ' Studies Concerning Adrian IV.,' which was issued a few weeks ago from the University press. After a year's study of the documents of Adrian's reign in the Vatican Library, Professor Thatcher says : ' " Laudabihter " cannot have been written by one who knew what was essential to such a document. It is merely a Latin exercise of some twelfth century student who was practising in the art of composition, and for this purpose chose to impersonate Adrian IV. It must be rejected as entirely worthless '

We are reminded of Adrian and the fabled Bull by a fact which the lamented death of Leo XIII. has again brought to the fore— namely, that another great Englishman, Cardinal Manning, was, on the death of Pius IX., proposed as his successor in the papal chair. ' The Cardinal,' says an English exchange, ' was in Rome on the day when Pius IX. died. He knelt and kissed the hand of his Holiness before he passed away, and the Pontiff, who had been to him a steadfast friend, said : <( Addio, carissimo.' On the Pope's death the Camerlingo then took possession of the Vatican. The Sacred College met every morning until the Conclave, which began, in accordance with the regulation, on the 18th February, ten days after the Pope's death. There were discussions between the Cardinals as to the future Pope. Cardinal Manning wrote : " Cardinal Bilio said that he held it necessary, in the present conflict of the Church, that the next Pope should be a foreigner, and then suggested myself. I then said that in my judgment, as they already knew, the next Pontiff must be Italian in blood and speech, and one who knows and loves Italy and is known and loved by Italians ; that the election of a foreigner might lose Italy to the Holy See through political causes, as England was lost in the sixteenth century ;

that the reconciliation of Italy with the Holy See is vital; not only to Italy, but to the Catholic world. . . . We then agreed on Cardinal Pecci, and undertook to apeak to other Cardinals." And so Cardinal Pecci was elected, taking the title of Leo XIII.'