Reply of his Eminence Cardinal Wiseman to an address presented by the clergy secular and regular of the Archdiocese of Westminster

Abstract

Right Reverend, Very Reverend, and Reverend Brethren.

The Address, presented to me by you this morning, calls for my warmest and most affectionate thanks. It expresses sentiments of attachment and sympathy with which, thank God, I am familiar, and the sincerity of which has been long well tested. It renews assurances of your powerful and hearty co-operation with me ; of which experience in the past is the firmest security, and an infallible guarantee.

Every repetition of such kind words is a balm that soothes, and strengthens, a Bishop's heart, never exempt from trials and discouragements; and therefore I sincerely thank you, for once more pronouncing them. But in the present moment they are a motive for a peculiar thankfulness. For they afford me an opportunity, such as never before has occurred to me, of communicating to you my recollections of great events, and of the impressions which they have made upon my mind; both of which might have passed away without any record from me, if you had not made it my duty to lay them before you...

In assisting at the magnificent function in the Vatican Basilica, on Whit-Sunday, for the canonization of the Martyrs of Japan, I felt that I was not merely occupying a place honourable beyond any personal deserts, and held only as a distinction bestowed upon the See which I occupy: but that I stood there the surety for your loyalty to the throne of Peter, and for your affection to his living successor. I felt that I was your representative in admission and acknowledgment of the supreme power, publicly claimed and exercised in that act ; -witness and attestor for you of the recognition of the infallible judgment then pronounced... [Excerpt]