CARDINAL WISEMAN.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 601, 7 May 1851, Page 4

CARDINAL WISEMAN.

[From the Illustrated London News, Nov. 2.] The Cardinal has attained, for the present at least, the height of his ambition. How soon the Papacy may be vacant, it is impossible to foresee ; nor are we aware that his eminence immediately aspires to that, but the choice of the conclave, if it seek a vigorous Pope, may yet place the tiara on his head. Cardinal Wiseman is now in his 49th year, having been born, as we are informed by a correspondent, to whom we are indebted for a memoir of the Cardinal, at Seville, on August 2, 1802. He is descended from an Irish family, long settled in Spain. At an eaily age he was brought to England, and sent for his education to St. Cuthbert’s Catholic College, at Ushau, near Durham. From thence, having gone through the “ humanities” with success, he was removed to the English college at Rome, where he distinguished himself I'VE F* OWF #■ 191 n Ait AaliMn .... 1 A — 1 — • •'J uu vav*au4u*uuij aiiabukuuut *0 ICarHiug. At the age of eighteen, he published in Latin a work on the Oriental languages ; and he bore, off the gold .medal at ,e,very competition of the colleges at Rome. , His merit recommended him to his superiors; he obtained several honours, was ordained a Priest, and dubbed a Doctor of Divinity. He was a Professor, for a number of years, in the Roman University : and then Rector of the English college where he had achieved his earliest success.

luc vaiumai vbuiu urai vu JCsugiauu Slier he had reached manhood in 1835; and in the winter of that year delivered a series of lectures on the Sundays in Advent. From the moment of his arrival he attracted attention, and soon became a conspicuous teacher and writer on the side of the Catholics. In Lent, 1836, he vindicated, in a course of lectures—delivered at St. Mary’s Moorfields,—the doctrines of the Catholic Church ; and gave so much satisfaction to his co-religionists, that they presented him with a gold medal, struck by Mr. Scipio Clint, to express their esteem and gratitude, and commemorate the event, tie returned to Rome, and seems to have been instrumental in inducing Pope Gregory XVI, to increase the Vicars-Apostolic in England. The number was, doubled ; and Dr.

Wiseman came back as coadjutor to Bishop Walsh, of the Midland district. He was appointed President of St. Mary’s College, Oscott, and by his teaching, his preaching, and his Writings, very much to promote the spread of Catholicism in England He was a contributor to the Dublin Review, and the author of some controversial pamphlets. In 1847 he again repaired to Rome on the affairs of the Catholics, and no doubt prepared the way for the present change. It was resolved on in 1848, but delayed by the troubles which then ensued at Rome. The Cardinal’s second visit to Rome led to further preferment. He was made pro-Vicar Apostolic of the London district, in place of Dr. Griffiths, deceased. Subsequently he was appointed coadjutor to Dr. Walsh, translated to London, cum jure et succession; and in 1849, on the death of Dr. Walsh, he became Vicar Apostolic of the London district. To him the Catholic body acknowledges u--if indebted fnr the completion and dedica(ion of the Cathedral in S|t. George’s-fields, described in our journal of July 15, 1848. It seems, however, to regard his last service as the greatest. In August he went again to Rome, “ not expecting,” as he says, “ to return ;” but “ delighted to be commissioned to come back” clothed in bis new dignity. His success in negotiating the re-establishment of the Roman hierarchy amongst us in all its splendour, seems to have gratified his Holiness. In a Consistory held on September 30, Nicolas Wiseman was elected to the dignity of Cardinal, by the title of Saint Padentiuna, and was appointed Archbishop of Westminster. Under the Pope, he is the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England, and a Prince of the Church of Rome.

As a Cardinal, he has sworn temporal as well as spiritual allegiance to the Pope. Whether that will be consistent with his allegiance to the Queen, or whether he hold himself to be on aiisu not bound to ner allpgiance, we know not; but he is accused of having had removed from the Canon of the Mass that portion of it in which the priest prayed for the Queen. He even caused, it is said, all the missals of his diocese to be changed, in order to expunge the obnoxious passage. That Cardinal Wiseman possesses grent abilities, and a ready and fascinating eloquence, is evident; but we doubt whether he be over scrupulous, and we are certain that he has all the ambition of the “Romish priests.’’ From his previous success, and his very marked hostility to the English Church, his Holiness could scarcely have nominated a person to the new dignity he has created less acceptable than Cardinal Wiseman to the non-Romish portion of the people. His Holiness has carried out an obnoxious partitioning of England in a most obnoxious manner. No statute is, we believe, violated by the Pope or the Cardinal, but there is an arrogant assumption of Papal power, requiring to be checked by a strong expression of opinion. It is obviously part of a system, for the last papers we have received from the United States mention that the Romish Church there has been similarly extended and elevated. The Bishopric of New York has been converted into an Archbishopric.

Cardinal Wiseman is the seventh English Cardinal—if he can be called English, having been born in Spain, and passed the greater part of his life in Rome—since the Reformation. The other six were Pole, Allen, Howard, York (a son of the Pretender, who was never in England), Weld, and Acton (member of an English family, we believe, long settled in Naples.)