After 1790, a new mood emerged as thousands of Catholics fled the French Revolution and Britain was allied in the Napoleonic Wars with the Catholic states of Portugal and Spain as well as with the Holy See itself. By 1829, the political climate had changed enough to allow Parliament to pass the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, giving Catholics almost equal civil rights, including the right to vote and to hold most public offices.
The Catholic Church in England included about 50,000 people in traditional ("recusant") Catholic families. They generally kept a low profile. Their priests usually came from St Edmund's College, a seminary founded in 1793 by English refugees from the French revolution. The main disabilities, as referenced above, were lifted by the Catholic Relief Act of 1829. In 1850 the pope restored the Catholic hierarchy, giving England its own Catholic bishops again. In 1869 a new seminary opened.[2]
Another, larger group comprised very poor Irish immigrants escaping the Great Irish Famine. Their numbers rose from 224,000 in 1841 to 419,000 in 1851, concentrated in ports and industrial districts as well as industrial districts in Scotland. A third group included well-known converts from the Church of England, most notably the intellectuals John Henry Newman and Henry Edward Manning (1808–1892). Manning became the second Archbishop of Westminster. The next most prominent leader was Herbert Vaughan (1832–1903), who succeeded Manning as Archbishop of Westminster in 1892 and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1893.[3]
Manning was among the strongest supporters of the pope and especially of the doctrine of papal infallibility. In contrast Cardinal Newman acknowledged this doctrine but thought it might not be prudent to define it formally at the time. Manning promoted a modern Catholic view of social justice. These views are reflected in the papal encyclical Rerum novarum issued by Pope Leo XIII, which became the foundation of modern Catholic social justice teaching. Catholic parochial schools, subsidised by the government, were set up in urban areas to serve the largely Irish element. Manning spoke for the Irish Catholic labourers and helped settle the London dock strike of 1889.[4] He gained acclaim for building a new cathedral in Westminster and for encouraging the growth of religious congregations largely filled by the Irish.
In large parts of Northern Ireland, Catholicism is the dominant religion. Also in a few Scottish council areas Catholics outnumber other religions, including in the most populous one: Catholics outnumber members of the Church of Scotland in Glasgow City (27% versus 23%). Other council areas in which Catholics outnumber members of the Church of Scotland are North Lanarkshire, Inverclyde, and West Dunbartonshire, according to the 2011 Scottish Census.[13]
In 2011 according to a YouGov poll, 70% of British Catholics believed a woman should be able to have an abortion. Some 90% of Catholic worshippers supported contraceptives being widely available.[14]
According to a 2015 YouGov poll, 50% of religious British Catholics supported same-sex marriage and 40% opposed it.[15] According to a Pew Research Center poll 78% of UK Catholics support same-sex marriage while 21% oppose it. The same poll maintains that 86% of UK Catholics believe society should accept homosexuality, while 12% believe society should not accept homosexuality.[16]
^"England's Mother Teresa moves closer to sainthood," News, The Tablet, 10, January 2021, 29. www.thetablet.co.uk
^"English convert priest and royal relative step closer to sainthood," Catholic Herald, 20 February 2021
Further reading
Beck, George Andrew, ed. The English Catholics, 1850–1950 (1950), scholarly essays
Corrin, Jay P. Catholic Progressives in England After Vatican II (University of Notre Dame Press; 2013) 536 pages;
Dures, Alan. English Catholicism, 1558–1642: Continuity and Change (1983)
Harris, Alana. Faith in the Family: A Lived Religious History of English Catholicism, 1945–1982 (2013); the impact of the Second Vatican Council on the ordinary believer
Hughes, Philip. The Catholic Question, 1688–1829: A Study in Political History (1929)
Latourette, Kenneth Scott. Christianity in a Revolutionary Age. Vol. I: The 19th Century in Europe; Background and the Roman Catholic Phase (1958), pp 451–59
Latourette, Kenneth Scott. Christianity in a Revolutionary Age. Vol. IV: The 20th Century in Europe; The Roman Catholic, Protestant and Eastern Churches (1961) pp 210–20
McClelland, Vincent Alan. Cardinal Manning: the Public Life and Influences, 1865–1892 (1962)
Mathew, David. Catholicism in England: the portrait of a minority: its culture and tradition (1955)
Mullet, Michael. Catholics in Britain and Ireland, 1558–1829 (1998) 236pp
Watkin, E. I Roman Catholicism in England from the Reformation to 1950 (1957)
Primary sources
Mullet, Michael. English Catholicism, 1680–1830 (2006) 2714 pages
Newman, John Henry. Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England (University of Notre Dame Press, 2000) 585pp; based on 6th edition of 1889
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