The restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England in 1850 provoked strong reaction. This Punch cartoon, published in November of that year, depicts the Pope as “The Guy Fawkes of 1850 – preparing to blow up all England !”
Date: 1850.
Source:
Punch magazine, November 1850.
Author: Unknown.
(Wikimedia Commons)
We are grateful to the excellent Blog “Once I Was A Clever Boy” for announcing this most interesting Article under the Title of “The Restoration Of The English Catholic Hierarchy In 1850”. That Blog is available HERE
“Universalis Ecclesiæ” was a Papal Bull of 29 September 1850 by which Blessed Pope Pius IX (“Pio Nono”) recreated the Roman Catholic Diocesan hierarchy in England, which had been extinguished with the death of the last Marian Bishop in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
New names were given to the Dioceses, as the old ones were in use by the Church of England. The Bull aroused considerable anti-Catholic feeling among English Protestants.
When Catholics in England were deprived of the normal episcopal hierarchy, their general pastoral care was entrusted at first to a Priest with the Title of Arch-Priest (in effect an Apostolic Prefect), and then, from 1623 to 1688, to one or more Apostolic Vicars, Bishops of Titular Sees governing not in their own names, as Diocesan Bishops do, but provisionally in the name of the Pope.
At first, there was a single Vicar for the whole Kingdom, later their number was increased to four, assigned respectively to:
The London District;
The Midland District;
The Northern District;
The Western District.
The London District;
The Western District;
The Eastern District;
The Central District;
The Wales District;
The Lancashire District;
The Yorkshire District;
The Northern District.[1]
The legal situation of Catholics in England and Wales was altered for the better by the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, and English Catholics, who before had been reduced to a few tens of thousands, received in the 19th-Century thousands of Converts from Anglicanism and millions of Irish Catholic immigrants, so that Catholics came to form some ten per cent of the general population of England and a considerably higher proportion of Church-goers.[2]
In response to petitions presented by local Clergy and Laity, Blessed Pope Pius IX issued the Bull “Universalis Ecclesiæ” restoring the normal Diocesan hierarchy.[3]
The reasons stated in the Bull are: “Considering the actual condition of Catholicism in England, reflecting on the considerable number of the Catholics, a number every day augmenting, and remarking how from day to day the obstacles become removed which chiefly opposed the propagation of the Catholic Religion, We perceived that the time had arrived for restoring in England the ordinary form of ecclesiastical government, as freely constituted in other Nations, where no particular cause necessitates the ministry of Vicars Apostolic.”[4]
The Northern District became the Diocese of Hexham.
The Yorkshire District became the Diocese of Beverley.
The Wales District (which included neighbouring English territory) became the two Dioceses of Menevia and Newport, and Shrewsbury.
The Central District became the Dioceses of Nottingham and Birmingham.
The Eastern District became the Diocese of Northampton.
Thus, the restored hierarchy consisted of one Metropolitan Archbishop and twelve Suffragan Bishops.
The Sees thus assigned to the new Catholic Diocesan Bishops of England did not correspond to the pre-Reformation Dioceses, and were instead newly-erected ones.
Thus, there was not to be a Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury. Instead, the Diocese of Westminster was created with its own Archbishop.
However, he and his successors see themselves as successors to the Catholic Archbishops of Canterbury. Accordingly, the Heraldic Arms of Westminster, featuring the Pallium, is similar to that of Canterbury, with Westminster claiming to have better right to display the Pallium, which is no longer granted to the Archbishop of Canterbury.[5][6]
The Bull “Universalis Ecclesiæ” did not indicate the reason for choosing to erect new Dioceses rather than to restore the old.
The main factor is likely to have been the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 (10 Geo. 4. c. 10), which “forbade the use of the old Titles, except by the Clergy of the Protestant Church by law established”.[7]
Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman declared:
“A second Temple rises on the ruins of the old. Canterbury has gone its way, and York is gone, and Durham is gone, and Winchester is gone.
“It was sore to part with them. We clung to the vision of past greatness, and would not believe it could come to nought; but the Church in England has died, and the Church lives again.
“Westminster and Nottingham, Beverley and Hexham, Northampton and Shrewsbury, if the World lasts, shall be names as musical to the ear, as stirring to the heart, as the glories we have lost.
“And Saints shall rise out of them if God so will, and Doctors once again shall give the law to Israel, and Preachers call to penance and to justice, as at the beginning.”[2]
Roman Catholic Dioceses of England and Wales,
including the Isle of Man, as of 2024.
Names of Arch-Dioceses are underlined.
Date: 17 October 2024.
Source: Own work.
This File is licensed under the
Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.
Author: DankJae
(Wikimedia Commons)
In contrast with what was done in England and Wales, when in 1878 the normal Catholic hierarchy was re-established in Scotland, where the established Reformed Church did not maintain an Episcopate, the old Dioceses were re-established; until then, Catholics in Scotland were, as in England and Wales, under the pastoral care of Vicars Apostolic.
The first Apostolic Vicar for Scotland was appointed in 1694,[8] and the Country was divided into two Vicariates in 1727, the Lowlands District and the Highlands District,[9] which became three Vicariates in 1827:
Eastern District;
Western District;
Northern District.[10]
In Ireland, the Catholic Church maintained without break the succession in the old Sees, with a parallel succession claimed, with government support, by the Church of Ireland.
In his first Pastoral Letter as Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Wiseman wrote a sentence often quoted later:
“Catholic England has been restored to its orbit in the Ecclesiastical Firmament”.[11]
The remainder of this fascinating Article can be read in full at “Universalis Ecclesiæ”, available HERE
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