Before Manning: Some Aspects of British Social Concern Before 1865

Abstract

“Christian socialism is,” according to Karl Marx, “but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart burnings of the aristocrat”. As always Marx had an element of truth. In the generation before the appointment of Henry Manning to the See of Westminster, British Catholic social concern, if not aristocratic, was undoubtedly paternalist in character. The faults are obvious but alternative strategies in the grim reality of mid-nineteenth century Britain are less apparent. In the prevailing social and economic condition of British Catholics, any immediately effective alternative strategy would be hard to imagine. On these foundations, Cardinal Manning was to build his much publicised social concern and within the Catholic community, these limited, paternalistic ideas of reform were to persist long after the social and economic condition of the laity had changed beyond recognition. In both phases, the paternalist and the socialist, the peculiar condition of the Scottish Catholic community produced imaginative lay responses: Robert Monteith and John Wheatley were indicative.The traditional interpretation of British Catholic social concern has invariably stressed the role of Cardinal Manning. His social interest is contrasted with the more severe intellectual approach of Newman: immediate pastoral considerations defeated longer term interests. Though Manning’s original contribution might be challenged, he remains of great stature. Even in Derek Holmes More Roman than Rome: English Catholicism in the Nineteenth Century. (1978), the relative position of the two men, Manning and Newman, is well portrayed and central. But whichever personality attracts our sympathy and wins our support, they are both clerics.