BOOKS.
CARDINAL YAUGHAN.*
THE Roman Catholic Archbishops of Westminster occupy a strange position in our public life. They rule, and represent directly, the million or so of Roman Catholics, nominally English, but mostly Irish and foreign, who are domiciled in England and Wales. They are supposed to have behind them indirectly, when they deal with politicians, the ten millions, or whatever the number may be, either less or more, of Roman Catholics who are scattered through our Anglo-Celtic Empire, though probably not one million of them all are English in blood ; and our politicians forget that all Roman Catholic sympathies and interests are by no means identical. The Archbishops of Westminster are supported by a docile and vociferous Press which, except in tact and scholarship, is conducted with singular astuteness and ability ; and they can rely as well upon the more veiled sympathy and backing of many writers in the secular papers. They bear a title which is not recognised officially by the State. They expect always a very high precedence in all public assemblies, and if they be Cardinals they claim to rank only after Princes of the Blood. As to this matter, there has been much confused thought and fumbling practice, though our principles are so clear that there should never have been the least confusion. Within this realm the Crown is the sole fount of honour, and in the eye of the law no other authority is acknowledged for conferring rank or titles on British subjects. As a matter of courtesy we allow to foreigners the rank and precedence which are their due ; but foreign titles conferred on British subjects are on a wholly different footing. All such titles are in themselves invalid, if not illegal, and those who bear them are in the eye of the law commoners ; and the secular titles of the Roman Court, such as Monsignor and Cardinal, when held by British subjects, fall under this legal principle. With ecclesiastical distinctions the State has no concern, except among officials of the Established Church. At present a fixed number of Diocesan Bishops are Peers of Parliament; and, so long as the Church remains established, Suffragan Bishops have the recognition of the State ; and the same rule applies in Scotland to officials of the Established Church. Otherwise Chief Rabbis, Bishops, Presidents, and Chairmen are equals ; any recognition given to them is due to those whom they represent, and not to the titles which they may bear. English Roman Catholic officials are, in these respects, precisely in the same position as all other Nonconformist ministers. There is no analogy between our pre-Reformation Cardinals and modern holders of the title, because the former were recognised by the State, and that recognition implied an equal power of approbation or of refusal. If a Pope chose to name Englishmen Generals or Judges, there would be no question of their competing with his Majesty's officials. Nor should there be any more question with regard to nominations by a foreigner to ecclesiastical rank and titles. Let us all, at any rate, be consistent. Those who ignore the State com- pletely in their appointments have no ground of complaint if they are ignored by it. We desire to be perfectly fair and perfectly courteous to the Roman Prelates, but we cannot admit their claims to special favours in the matter of precedence without discourtesy to the Protestant Non- conformists. To give precedence to a Roman Archbishop and to deny it to the Chairman of the Wesleyan Conference would, it seems to us, be a gross act of discourtesy to the latter. Let us give precedence to religious dignitaries, but let us give it fairly, justly, and without favouritism.
Such, then, is the rather anomalous and certainly difficult position of the Cardinal Archbishops of Westminster in the matter of their rank and titles. But there are other and far more serious difficulties below the surface. They represent a system which, if it could, would make fundamental changes in the ecclesiastical order of this realm ; a system, too, which has condemned the whole spirit and fabric of modern society, and which logically is incompatible with the principles and practice of our Constitution. Such a position in itself might well seem intolerable, if not impossible. For its success it must depend entirely on the person who holds it. The assured position of the fourth Archbishop is the best tribute to the
• The Life of Cardinal Vaughan. By J. Snead-Cox. 2 vols. London: Herbert and Daniel. [21e. net.]
personal qualities of his three predecessors. They were men of very dissimilar natures and gifts. Wiseman had an extensive and solid scholarship, but he belonged to an age that had neither scientific method nor the historical spirit ; his essay on The Three Heavenly Witnesses proves how far he was from the problems and positions of modern criticism, and his Last Four Popes shows that in history he was very far indeed from a critical detachment. He began with many disadvantages. Coming, like the pardons in Chaucer, "from Rome all hot," he started in a tumult of unpopularity ; but he lived it down, and gained the quiet respect of his fellow-countrymen. His work was concerned more with internal organisation than with external effect. His labours have lived after him, and they have been well recorded by Mr. Wilfrid Ward. Manning's career was fat more striking. So insular is English public opinion that his dramatic part in the Vatican Council, and his decisive championship of infallibility, were almost ignored except by the few who are interested in theological affairs, while the Socialistic zeal of his declining years placed him among the most popular and conspicuous figures in London. But the interest in his actual life was more than revived by the publication of his biography. In that remarkable book the working of the Roman Curia was displayed as never before in modern times : and as that damaging revelation is so largely autobiographical, it is not easy to refute the con- clusion that Manning wished it to be made, and in making it wished to confess that his ardent Vaticanism had been a mis- take. Few people, perhaps, except those who are on the look- out for books, know that Mr. Purcell had worked at a Life of Newman. It was written, and certainly was advertised, even to the date of its appearance. It was, we believe, actually printed, and all but published, when it was suddenly with- drawn, although copies had been ordered. This very curious action demands, and still waits for, an explanation.
There are no surprises in Cardinal Vaughan's Life, though it is more important than most readers would infer from the superficial notices in the reviews. They have dwelt almost exclusively on the personal aspect of the Life, and have either ignored or have not understood a great deal which can be read between the lines. So far as the personal aspect is concerned, let us begin by congratulating Mr. Snead-Cox unreservedly on a very skilful and competent piece of work. He has told his story with manifest candour, and has made it unusually interesting; We do not profess to look at the subject from his point of view, nor to accept his conclusions ; but none the less we can admire the directness of his style, the life and vigour of his narrative, the clearness with which he conveys impressions, his fine sense of proportion, his clever manage- ment of detail, and the success with which he planned and has carried out his general scheme. He has probably not added a classic to our English literature, but he has given us a thoroughly sound and satisfying biography.
His hero was a man of splendid presence, and with many fine qualities. It must be owned frankly that be was neither learned nor intellectual, and his tact often left something to be desired ; but be had a high courage, a dogged persistence, and a keen practical sense in dealing with affairs. Undoubtedly he made mistakes ; but, when he recognised them, he was great and brave enough to confess his error, and if possible to undo it. There was in his nature a very large element of adventure and romance. He satisfied it in early life by his missionary zeal, and his wanderings through America to beg money for missionary work occupy some very interesting pages. Destiny and the conditions of modern life made him a priest, though he was certainly meant also to be a soldier. In other times the adventurous as well as the spiritual and romantic sides of his nature might have been fully satisfied in one of the military Orders. He was the beau-ideal of a Templar or a Knight of Rhodes. It was in this spirit, too, that he con- ceived and fulfilled his episcopate, and even the sordid and grimy life of Salford could not choke the flame of his ideal visions. In later life his romance turned into bricks and mortar. Certainly it required an adventurous spirit to face the building of Westminster Cathedral in spite of material difficulties and of internal opposition, and on the scale in which Vaughan conceived it. His extremely practical nature is shown by the skill with which the necessary land was obtained, and added to, and exchanged, and financed at a handsome profit, and finally built on. The chapter on
the Cathedral is perhaps the most absorbing in the whole book. Only a remarkable man could have accomplished so great and difficult a feat, and London remains indebted to Cardinal Vaughan for the erection of one of her most striking buildings, nor can Herbert Vaughan be forgotten so long as his building stands. But as we know, alas ! even greater architecture and more durable buildings have not proved immortal. Only the poets have raised monu- ments more lasting than bronze and higher than the pyramids. But it is impossible to study Cardinal Vaughan's Life without feeling that he was better, greater, and far more interesting than most people suspected. Whatever • his defects and failures, his intentions were good and undeniably honest. His limitations fall away in the light of his inner life ; they vanish in the flame of that high romance by which we are able now to judge him. Mr. Snead-Cox has done a real service both to his hero and to his readers.
But, putting the personality of Herbert Vaughan aside, there are other and more important matters which must be considered. This Life has no such revelations as were given us in Purcell's Manning, but it does show us, first of all, the " mentality" in which a strict modern English Roman Catholic is nurtured, educated, and lives. He is taught to misread the past, both of his country and his Church, and he is very unlikely in this atmosphere to understand the present. His Church is presented to him as if it were identical through all its history with the existing Papacy ; while the penal laws are mentioned without any reference to Papal aggression, Jesuit plots, the whole policy and method of the Catholic Reaction, and the various events of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, all of which explain the attitude of our forefathers to the Papacy, and go very far towards explaining their action against its more zealous and responsible adherents.
Such was the historical and political atmosphere in which young Vaughan was reared. The devotional atmosphere was calculated to separate him still more from the average Englishman, and indeed from the older generations of English Roman Catholics. His mother was a convert, and she followed those extreme Italian fashions which only came into England after the Oxford Movement. Vaughan was in a very peculiar position : by birth he was an old English Roman Catholic ; by training and conviction he was "Italianate," he was a new Romanist of Manning's kind. His " simple rule of conduct, his easy test for Catholic loyalty, was always, and under all circumstances, to stand on the side of Rome. Instinctively in any controversy he would be for the Pope against all corners. To uphold and strengthen the authority of the Vicar of Christ was one of the guiding motives of his life." Therefore he supported Manning and his policy before and during the Vatican Council. Vaughan became proprietor first of the Tablet and then of the Dublin Review ; and with regard to the former a great deal is said which throws a curious light upon the uses made by modern Romanism of the Press. This part of the Life is, perhaps, more instructive than pleasant, and the theology it presents is mere journalism.
Most interesting and instructive, too, is the account of Vaughan's battle with the Jesuits. Chaps. 12 and 113 throw as much light upon the methods and working of the Religious Orders as anything in Manning's Life did upon the working of the Curia. To the curious we commend' especially Father Gallwey's letters, and the whole account of the Jesuits' very dubious proceedings. It is not without interest to find a Jesuit boasting "that the Society had been employed by the Popes all over the world for three hundred years to contend against and control Bishops who were troublesome to the Holy See ; that the Holy See feels that their co-operation is necessary." No doubt this statement is true. It explains the growth of Ultramontanisin since the restoration of the Jesuits in 1814-15, and the inevitable pressure that can be exercised on the Vatican in all disputes between Regulars and Bishops, as well as the waning, authority of the episcopate before the centralised Papacy and its monastic forces.
The question of Anglican Orders is gone into at some length, and with considerable frankness ; and, again, we must point out a revelation, which is worth noting. Manning's Life showed us that the oath of secrecy imposed on the Council was dispensed by Pius IX. for purposes of intrigue. This Life tells us that "absolute secrecy was imposed on all members of the Commission appointed [to examine
Anglican Orders) and an armed sentry stood before the doors" (Vol. II., p. 202); yet Vaughan was kept informed by letter of everything that went on.
It will be seen from these few allusions that there is much valuable matter in this Life, which ought not to be overlooked by those who wish to understand the character of English Romanism and the working of the Papal system. In conclusion, it may be doubted whether the exaggerated Ultramontanism of the English Roman Catholics since 1850 has not done them more harm than good. It has raised a barrier, which before that time was much less impenetrable, between them and the High Church Anglicans.
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