A Bishop for Our Time: Henry Edward Cardinal Manning - Lecture 1

I recently came across the quote above from Cardinal Manning. Frankly, I never quite trust anything I see in a Facebook meme, so I looked for the source. The cardinal's statement appeared in a collection of lectures:

THE PRESENT CRISIS OF THE HOLY SEE

TESTED BY PROPHECY.

Four Lectures

BY

CARDINAL HENRY EDWARD MANNING, D.D.

LONDON :

BURNS & LAMBERT, 17 & 18 PORTMAN STREET,
AND 63 PATERNOSTER ROW ;
KNOWLES, NORFOLK ROAD, BAYSWATER.
MDCCCLXI.

1861

TO THE VERY REVEREND

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D.

OF THE congregation OF ST. PHILIP NERI

You can read the entire collection online here. 

The document is fascinating and early on in the first lecture, Manning writes:

My intention is, to examine the present relation of the Church to the civil powers of the world, by the light of a prophecy recorded by St. Paul, and to draw out certain principles of a practical kind for the direction of those who believe that the Divine will is also present in the events now taking place before our eyes....My intention is, to examine the present relation of the Church to the civil powers of the world, by the light of a prophecy recorded by St. Paul, and to draw out certain principles of a practical kind for the direction of those who believe that the Divine will is also present in the events now taking place before our eyes.That immediately made me realize Manning's words could easily have seriouis relevance for us as we face the current crisis in the Church.

 Keep in mind that Manning, like Newman, was a convert influenced by the Oxford Movement in England led by Newman himself, our latest Doctor of the Church. His lectures addressed his own time, but he sees elements of the revolt and rebellion against the faith beginning in the apostolic era testified to by St. Paul. How does he define the rebellion?:

...all alike [heresies and schisms] substitute human opinion for Divine faith; and all alike work out, by a sure process, some more rapidly, and some more slowly, a denial of the Incarnation of the Eternal Son.

Interestingly, Manning labels Protestantism, not other heresies or Islam, as the ultimate enemy of the faith. He, a former Protestantist, says this: 

To name no more than these,_Gnosticism, Arianism, and, above all, Protestantism, have generated each a multitude of subordinate and affiliated heresies. But it is Protestantism which, above all others, bears the three notes of the inspired writers in the greatest breadth and evidence. Other heresies have opposed parts and details of the Christian faith and Church; but Protestantism, taken in its historical complex, as we now are able, with the retrospect of three hundred years, to measure it, reaching from the religion of Luther, Calvin, and Cranmer at the one end, to the Rationalism and Pantheism of England and Germany at the other, is of all the most formal, detailed, and commensurate antagonist of Christianity. I do not mean that it has as yet attained its full development, for we shall see reasons to believe that it is still pregnant with a darker future; but even as “the mystery of iniquity has already worked,” no other antagonist has as yet gone so deep in undermining the faith of the Christian world....
All that I wish to point out is, to use a modern phrase, that the movement of heresy is one and the same from the beginning: that the Gnostics were the Protestants of their day, and the Protestants the Gnostics of ours; that the principle is identical, and the bulk of the movement unfolded to greater proportions; and its successes accumulated, and its antagonism to the Catholic Church changeless and essential.

In this initial lecture, Manning goes on to discuss the rise in philosophical thought treating man as God. He describes how belief in the divinity of man is illustrated by the writings of Auguste Comte and he further emphasizes how all these errors are connected to the state which separates itself from God. 

Cardinal Manning lived through all the battles in Italy over the Papal States. He witnessed Pope Pius IX's exile from Rome and the attack by Freemasons. In 1867 he delivered the sermon at a Requiem Mass for those who died defending the pope's domain. Titled Christ and Anti-Christ, Manning honored those who died defending the Holy See and the Vicar of Christ. 

The dead for whose repose we offer the Holy Sacrifice to-day were slain in battle for the defence of the sacred person of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, of his lawful authority over the city which, under the providence of God, he and his predecessors have held, by martyrdom, suffering, and sovereignty, for 1,800 years; for the liberty of his person and office as Head of the Universal Church, for his supreme guardianship of the faith and law of Jesus Christ, in which all Christendom has its vital interest; and finally, for the rights and spiritual liberties of the whole Catholic world.

If it be madness or baseness to die for such a cause, tell me what cause is holy, what cause is glorious? If the world call such men hirelings, the whole Christian world will honour them as martyrs; and we will bide the sentence of the Judge from Whom is no appeal.

Catholics know that the battle in this Valley of Tears is between the soldiers of Christ and those who follow the prince of this world, he who prowls about the world seeking to devour souls and lead them to hell. St. Ignatius depicted that graphically in his meditation on the two standards. Cardinal Manning and Pope Pius IX witnessed to the tragedy of the state separated from the Kingdom of Christ.

And so I come to the end of the first of the four lectures. 

Pray for the recognition and coming in our world of the Kingdom of Christ here on earth. He is not just the ruler in heaven. He rules here and if and when men see that and bend the knee to Him, we will have peace on earth.