20 Facts About Nicholas Wiseman

Nicholas Patrick Stephen Wiseman was an English Roman Catholic prelate who served as the first Archbishop of Westminster upon the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales in 1850.

Nicholas Wiseman was born in Seville on 2 February 1802, the younger son of merchant James Nicholas Wiseman and his second wife, Xaviera, of Waterford, Ireland, who had settled in Spain for business.

In 1818, Nicholas Wiseman proceeded to the English College in Rome, which had reopened in 1818 after being closed by the Napoleonic Wars for twenty years.

Nicholas Wiseman graduated with a doctorate of theology with distinction in July 1824, and was ordained to the priesthood 10 March 1825.

Nicholas Wiseman was appointed vice-rector of the English College in 1827, and rector in 1828, although he was not yet twenty-six years of age.

That man was Nicholas Wiseman, better known afterward as Cardinal Wiseman.

In 1836, Nicholas Wiseman initiated the periodical Dublin Review, partly to give English Catholics greater ideals for their religion and enthusiasm for the papacy, and partly to deal with the Oxford Movement.

Nicholas Wiseman, preaching at the opening of St Mary's Church, Derby, in the same year, anticipated Newman's argument on religious development, published six years later.

On his arrival from Rome in 1847, Nicholas Wiseman acted as an informal diplomatic envoy from the pope, to ascertain from the government what assistance England was likely to give in implementing the liberal policy with which Pius inaugurated his reign.

Nicholas Wiseman was zealous for the establishment of religious communities, both of men and women, and for performing retreats and missions.

Nicholas Wiseman preached on 4 July 1848 at the opening of St George's, Southwark, an occasion unique in England since the Reformation, 14 bishops and 240 priests being present, and six religious orders of men being represented.

The progress of Catholicism was undeniable, but Nicholas Wiseman found himself opposed by a minority among his own clergy, who disliked his ultramontane ideas of his "Romanizing and innovating zeal", especially in regard to the introduction of sacred images into the churches and the use of devotions to the Blessed Virgin and the Blessed Sacrament, lately forgotten among English Catholics.

In July 1850, Nicholas Wiseman heard of the pope's intention to create him a cardinal, and took this to mean that he was to be permanently recalled to Rome.

Nicholas Wiseman displayed calmness and courage, and immediately penned a pamphlet of over 30 pages titled Appeal to the English People, in which he explained the nature of the pope's action.

Nicholas Wiseman argued that the admitted principle of toleration included leave to establish a diocesan hierarchy.

Nicholas Wiseman wrote Fabiola in part as an answer to the vigorously anti-Catholic book Hypatia by Charles Kingsley.

Nicholas Wiseman retired to Prior Park, near Bath, where he died in 1886.

Nicholas Wiseman was able to use considerable influence with English politicians, partly because in his time English Catholics were wavering in their historical allegiance to the Liberal party.

Nicholas Wiseman was in a position to secure concessions that bettered the condition of Catholics in regard to poor schools, reformatories and workhouses, and in the status of their army chaplains.

Nicholas Wiseman had to condemn the Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom, with which he had shown some sympathy at its inception during 1857, and to forbid Catholic parents to send their sons to Oxford or Cambridge, though at an earlier date he had hoped that at Oxford at least a college or hall might be assigned to them.