The First Vatican Council, Archbishop Henry Manning, and Papal Infallibility CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN* Although Henry Edward Manning, archbishop and later cardinal of Westminster, often is labeled an extreme ultramontanist, he can be more accurately described as holding a “moderate” view of infallibility similar to the one defined at the First Vatican Council and held by Cardinal John Henry Newman. Manning thought that the Council’s definition of papal infallibility came at an opportune moment; he also accepted a wider range of secondary objects that can be defined infalli- bly by the pope than did Newman. Keywords: First Vatican Council; Manning, Cardinal Henry; papal infallibility; ultramontanism he history of the First Vatican Council is presented frequently as a Tclash between the radical or absolute ultramontanists and the minor- ity bishops who were able to thwart the majority from defining a recent and extreme doctrine of papal infallibility. It is now commonplace to list, as the most noted “radical” or “extreme” ultramontanists, theologians such as Louis Veuillot (1813–83); William G. Ward (1812–82); and Henry Edward Manning, archbishop and later cardinal of Westminster (1808– 92; see figure 1). Although perhaps Ward and Veuillot can be labeled extreme ultramontanists, this article will show that Manning is more accu- rately described as holding a “moderate” view of infallibility similar to the one defined at the First Vatican Council and held by Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–90; see figure 2). This thesis is based on Manning’s pub- lished Catholic works both prior to and after the Council and therefore represents his constant view of the matter, a view that he thought was con- sistent with what had been explicitly taught since the sixteenth century. To this end this article will examine Manning’s understanding of papal infal- *Dr. Washburn is associate professor of dogmatic theology in the Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity at the University of Saint Thomas, email: [email protected]. This research was supported in part through a grant provided by the Center for Theological For- mation at the Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity. 712 CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN 713 FIGURE 1. Henry Manning, archbishop and later cardinal of Westminster. From Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians (Garden City, NY, 1918), frontispiece. libility, focusing on his view of the subject of papal infallibility, the object of papal infallibility, and the definitive nature of papal definitions. Moderate Infallibilism and Extreme Infallibilism In the early 1970s, the Lutheran theologian George A. Lindbeck rein- troduced the terms moderate infallibilism and extreme or absolute infallibilism into the ecclesiological controversies following the Second Vatican Coun- cil.1 It was Jesuit theologian Avery Dulles, however, who was to give the term moderate infallibilism a distinctly Catholic meaning. Dulles explains that “moderate infallibilism” has two characteristics. It affirms, first, that the pope is infallible (otherwise it could not be moderate infallibility) and, second, that papal infallibility is limited and therefore “subject to inherent conditions which provide critical principles for assessing the force and meaning of allegedly infallible statements.”2 It is in this sense that the term 1. George A. Lindbeck, Infallibility (Milwaukee, 1972). 2. On the use of these terms, see Avery Dulles, “Moderate Infallibilism,” Teaching Authority & Infallibility in the Church, ed. Paul Empie, T. A. Murphy, and Joseph Burgess, 714 ARCHBISHOP HENRY MANNING AND PAPAL INFALLIBILITY moderate infallibilism is used here, which is congruent with the First Vati- can Council’s Pastor aeternus,3 as explained in Vinzenz Gasser’s Relatio.4 There are four concrete limiting conditions that characterize this moderate infallibilism. The first condition pertains to the subject—that is, the pope must be speaking as pope with supreme authority and not merely as a doctor privatus. Second, the teaching must be presented to the universal Church. Third, the pope must propose that the teaching be held definitively. Finally, the object of the teaching must be on a matter of faith or morals. Often by way of contrast to Manning, Newman, Bishop Josef Fessler (1813–72), and Bishop Gasser (1809–79) are described as teaching a mod- erate infallibilism that maintained these distinctions. Dulles defines extreme infallibilism, on the other hand, as that type of infallibilism that “questions or denies the limitations and conditions emphasized by moderate infalliblism.”5 Ward is cited most often as an extreme infallibilist, since he appears to have thought that all papal docu- ments, including decrees of Roman congregations that deal with theolog- ical matters, contain infallible definitions.6 Manning, in both his day and [Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue VI], (Minneapolis, 1980), pp. 81–100, here pp. 81–82; Dulles, “Infallibility Revisited,” America, August 4, 1973, 55–58; and Dulles, “The Papacy: Bond or Barrier,” Origins, 3 (1974), 705–12. Even Newman was pleased by the moderate tone of Pastor aeternus. See Dulles, “Newman on Infallibility,” Theological Studies, 51 (1990), 434– 49, here 444. Of course, if that is all that is required for moderate infallibility, then the Coun- cil’s definition is essentially moderate. Dulles seems to concede as much. Lindbeck argues that Walter Kasper and Karl Rahner are both “moderate infallibilists.” This is not quite correct, since they do not hold to the doctrine of infallibility at all and have instead essentially replaced it with indefectability. Some Protestant historians still employ Lindbeck’s categories; see Mark E. Powell, Papal Infallibility: A Protestant Evaluation of an Ecumenical Issue (Grand Rapids, MI, 2009), pp. 17–18. 3. Newman found the First Vatican Council’s definition “moderate.” Dulles, “Newman on Infallibility,” pp. 444, 446. 4. Gasser’s Relatio is present in Giovan Domenico Mansi, Nicolò Coleti, Gabriel Cos- sart, and Philippe Labbe, Sacrorum conciliorum nova, et amplissima collectio: in qua præter ea quæ Phil. Labbeus, et Gabr. Cossartius S.J. et novissime Nicolaus Coleti in lucem edidere ea omnia insu- per suis in locis optime disposita exhibentur, quæ Johannes Dominicus Mansi . evulgavit (Flo- rence, 1927), 52: cols. 1204–32. There also is an English translation of Gasser’s Relatio: Vinzenz Gasser and James T. O’Connor, The Gift of Infallibility: The Official Relatio on Infallibility of Bishop Vincent Gasser at Vatican Council I (Boston, 1986). Gasser explicitly responded to the objection that the Council was attempting to define the “extreme opinion” of a certain school of theology; see Gasser’s Relatio, in Mansi et al., Sacrorum conciliorum nova, 52: col. 1218. 5. Dulles, “Moderate Infallibilism,” p. 82. 6. Cuthbert Butler described Ward’s position on infallibility in this way: He held that the infallible element of bulls, encyclicals, etc., should not be restricted to their formal definitions but ran through the entire doctrinal instructions; the decrees of CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN 715 ours, is often labeled as “extreme”; however, almost invariably scholars do so without either defining what is meant by this term or demonstrating that he meets this definition of “extreme.”7 If they do offer proof, it is usu- ally the same three or four quotations selected out of Manning’s more than 700 pages written on the topic. Generally, the case against Manning is based on the following three points. First, Manning clearly made claims that appear “extreme” when he said, for example, that the First Vatican Council “makes all pontifical acts infallible”8 or when he claimed that he recognized “the infallible certainty of all his [Pope Pius IX’s] declara- the Roman Congregation, if adopted by the Pope and published with his authority, thereby were stamped with the mark of infallibility, in short “his every doctrinal pro- nouncement is infallibly rendered by the Holy Ghost.” Cuthbert Butler and William Bernard Ullathorne, The Vatican Council: The Story from Inside in Bishop Ullathorne’s Letters (London, 1930), 1:73. On Veuillot, see John C. Rao, “Louis Veuillot and Catholic ‘Intransigence’: A Re-Evaluation,” Faith and Reason, Winter 1983, 282–306. A grave injustice has been done to Manning in listing him with Ward and Veuillot, as the Council Fathers do not seem to have taken the views of Ward and Veuillot seriously, yet Ward and Veuillot tend to dominate the histories covering the First Vatican Council. Theologians such as Giovanni Perrone, S.J. (1794–1876), who certainly held a moderate view of infallibility, at least as defined by Dulles, are rarely treated. See Giovanni Perrone, Praelec- tiones Theologicae (Paris, 1842), 2:1017–44. 7. Some scholars label Manning as an “extreme infallibilist” or some other equivalent expression. See August Hasler, How the Pope Became Infallible: Pius IX and the Politics of Persuasion (Garden City, NY, 1981), p. 298; Terence L. Nichols, That All May Be One: Hierarchy and Participation in the Church (Collegeville, MN, 1997), p. 227; Ian Ker, John Henry Newman: A Biography (New York, 1990), pp. 615, 658; and Hermann Josef Pottmeyer, Towards a Papacy in Communion: Perspectives from Vatican Councils I and II (New York, 1998), pp. 80–82. Mark E. Powell refers to Manning as holding “maximal infallibility”; see Papal Infallibility: A Protestant Evaluation of an Ecumenical Issue (Grand Rapids, MI, 2009), p. 49. See also C. S. Dessain, “What Newman Taught in Manning’s Church,” in Infallibility in the Church: An Anglican-Catholic Dialogue (London, 1968), pp. 59–80, here p. 60; John T. Ford, “Different Models of Infallibility?,” Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America, 35 (1980), 217–33, here 221; and Francis A. Sullivan, Creative Fidelity: Weighing and Interpreting Documents of the Magisterium (New York, 1996), p. 178. Other scholars lump Veuillot, Ward, and Manning together. See Dulles, “Moderate Infallibilism,” p. 82; Richard R. Gaillardetz, Teaching with Authority: A Theology of the Magisterium in the Church (Collegeville, MN, 1997), p. 211; Margaret O’Gara, Triumph in Defeat: Infallibility, Vatican I, and the French Minority Bishops (Washington, DC, 1988), pp.