Restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England

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Westminster Cathedral , London, Archbishop's cathedra , modeled after the papal cathedral in the Lateran Basilica

The restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England , i.e. the re-establishment of a regular Roman Catholic diocesan system for England and Wales , took place with the circumscription bull Universalis Ecclesiae of Pope Pius IX. dated September 29, 1850. It was a highly symbolic event in the history of the Church in the United Kingdom .

prehistory

Since the separation of the English Church from Rome by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I in the 16th century, all historical episcopal seats have been Anglican . The Catholicism was a king hostile and treasonable forbidden and partly traced bloody . It was not until the second half of the 18th century that the laws of repression began to be relaxed , which ultimately led to the emancipation of Catholics in 1829.

At the same time, the Great Famine in Ireland brought hundreds of thousands of Irish Catholics to English cities, while the Anglican clergy and bourgeoisie began to convert . The proportion of Catholics in the total population rose to 10%; Their share in the total number of churchgoers was far higher.

Dioceses

As early as 1622, the Holy See had set up a Vicariate Apostolic for the Kingdom of England , based in London . It was divided into four vicariates in 1688 and eight in 1840. The Vicars Apostolic were titular bishops . In the Vicariate of London, Warwick Street Church, which was under Bavarian protection, served as a makeshift bishop's church from 1790 .

In 1830 King George IV had signed a law that  reserved the titles of the historic episcopal seats to officials of the Church of England - as such members of the House of Lords . Therefore Pius IX renewed. In 1850, not the lost dioceses, but created new episcopal seats and titles according to local conditions. Where today the episcopal seats of the Church of England have the same titles as Roman Catholics - such as Liverpool, Southwark, Birmingham and Portsmouth - they arose after the Catholic. The first Archbishop of Westminster and thus the highest representative of the Catholic Church in England was Nicholas Patrick Stephen Wiseman .

Dioceses created in 1850 Today's archbishoprics and dioceses
  • Archdiocese of Westminster
    with the Suffragan Dioceses
    • Beverley diocese
      (repealed in 1878;
      see titular Beverley diocese )
    • Diocese of Birmingham
    • Bishopric of Clifton
    • Bishopric of Hexham
    • Diocese of Liverpool
    • Diocese of Newport and Menevia
      (divided in 1895, repealed in 1916,
      see titular diocese of Newport )
    • Diocese of Northampton
    • Diocese of Nottingham
    • Bishopric of Plymouth
    • Diocese of Salford
    • Shrewsbury bishopric
    • Diocese of Southwark

Reactions

John Henry Newman , in his homily before the First Provincial Synod of the Ecclesiastical Province of Westminster in 1852, expressed the sentiments of many English Catholics when he said: “ Canterbury is gone and York is gone and Durham is gone and Winchester is gone; ... but ... the names Westminster and Nottingham, Beverley and Hexham, Northampton and Shrewsbury, if the world continues, will be as much music to the ear and excitement to the heart as the glories we have lost ”.

In the Protestant majority society, the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy and the triumphalistic tone associated with it met with violent protest. There were sharp newspaper comments and anti-Catholic demonstrations. Parliament passed the Ecclesiastical Titles Act 1851 , tightening the 1830 ban on titles , although the new Catholic diocesan names did not violate it. Until the time after the Second World War , Catholics were perceived as foreign bodies within English society.

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d Modern History Sourcebook
  2. ^ Catholic-hierarchy.org
  3. ^ Reginald Fuller: A short history of Warwick Street Church, formerly the Royal Bavarian Chapel . Catholic Rectory Warwick Street Church, London, 1973, p. 38
  4. ^ "Canterbury has gone its way, and York is gone, and Durham is gone, and Winchester is gone; ... but ... 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. " newmanreader.org
  5. victorianweb.org