William Clifford (bishop)

William Hugh Joseph Clifford (24 December 1823 – 14 August 1893) was an English prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Clifton from 1857 to 1893.[1]

Life

He was born in Irnham, Lincolnshire on 24 December 1823, the son of Hugh Clifford, 7th Baron Clifford of Chudleigh and Mary Lucy Weld, daughter of Cardinal Thomas Weld.[1][2] He had schooling at Hodder Place, and attended Prior Park College, run by Augustine Baines. He then went to the Accademia dei Nobili Ecclesiastici in Rome.[3][4]

Priest

Clifford was ordained to the priesthood on 25 August 1850, at the Pro-Cathedral of the Holy Apostles, by Joseph William Hendren.[3] He became curate to William Vaughan there, and then moved on as vicar capitular in the new Diocese of Plymouth.[5] In 1851 he travelled to Rome with Herbert Vaughan and William Maskell.[6] From 1852 Clifford was also head of the mission at Stonehouse, Plymouth.[5]

Bishop

On 29 January 1857 Clifford was appointed the Bishop of the Diocese of Clifton.[1] His consecration to the Episcopate took place at the Sistine Chapel on 15 February 1857. The principal consecrator was Pope Pius IX, with George Errington as co-consecrator.[1][2]

When Nicholas Wiseman died in 1865, a prevailing view was that Clifford should succeed him as Archbishop of Westminster. Liberal Catholics were pleased with his response at that time to the Syllabus of Errors.[3] Robert Aston Coffin briefed in a papal audience with Pius IX against this choice as "less than worthy".[7] The formal process involved the Westminister Chapter submitting a terna (list of three candidates, alphabetical, as suggestions with no binding effect) to the Pope. As the Chapter met, it was told by John Morris of advice from Rome not to nominate George Errington;[8] Errington had clashed with Wiseman in the later 1850s, causing Wiseman to ask for his removal from office, and had been in retirement from 1860.[9] In the event, the Chapter nominated Clifford, Errington and Thomas Grant. Further, Clifford and Grant wrote to say that they did not wish to be considered.[3] Lord Palmerston conveyed through Odo Russell the British government's view that Grant was the best candidate.[10]

The Pope took these proceedings very badly.[3] In a letter to Bishop George Talbot of the College of Propaganda in Rome, Henry Edward Manning explained his objections to Errington, and to Clifford, saying of the latter "We should be overrun with worldly Catholics and a worldly policy without his meaning or knowing it."[11] In the end Manning became the new Archbishop.[3]

In 1866 Clifford bought the Prior Park College premises, sold during the 1850s, which again became a Catholic school.[4]

Vatican I

Clifford attended the First Vatican Council held from 8 December 1869 to 20 October 1870. He was there as one of the 693 council fathers.[1] The standard Catholic history of the Council by Cuthbert Butler is now taken to be unfair in its account of Clifford's part.[12] He made his views known on clerical discipline, and a catechism. He spoke against papal infallibility as the Council would define it.[3]

Later life

In the run-up to the apostolic constitution of 1881, Romanos Pontifices, Clifford played a major role, from around 1877. He drafted a document in canon law terms, with William Ullathorne, addressing the relationship of the British Catholic hierarchy and the regular clergy. He went to Rome with it, and later Manning came with Edward Bagshawe to join him in discussions. Clifford may have contributed in draft to Romanos Pontifices, intended to deal with the whole Catholic Church.[13]

In 1887 Clifford helped the nuns of Syon Abbey to create a new monastery in his family town, Chudleigh Abbey. He died in office on 14 August 1893, aged 69.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Bishop William Hugh Joseph Clifford". Catholic-Hierarchy.org. David M. Cheney. Retrieved 26 June 2011.
  2. ^ a b Brady 1876, The Episcopal Succession, volume 3, pp. 407–409.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Harding, J. A. "Clifford, William Joseph Hugh (1823–1893)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/48859. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ^ a b Elwes, G. A. "Baines, Peter [name in religion Augustine] (1786–1843)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/1093. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  5. ^ a b Beck, George Andrew (1950). The English Catholics, 1850-1950: Essays to Commemorate the Centenary of the Restoration of the Hierarchy of England and Wales. Burns, Oates. p. 199.
  6. ^ Snead-Cox, John George (1910). The life of Cardinal Vaughan. Vol. I. London: Burns and Oates. p. 31.
  7. ^ Parker, Kenneth L.; Pahls, Michael J. G. (2009). Authority, Dogma, and History: The Role of the Oxford Movement Converts in the Papal Infallibility Debates. Academica Press,LLC. p. 173. ISBN 978-1-933146-44-7.
  8. ^ Purcell, Edmund Sheridan (1895). Manning as a Catholic. Macmillan. p. 203.
  9. ^ Mould, Paul. "Errington, George (1804–1886)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8844. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  10. ^ Purcell, Edmund Sheridan (1895). Manning as a Catholic. Macmillan. p. 204 and note.
  11. ^ Purcell, Edmund Sheridan (1895). Manning as a Catholic. Macmillan. p. 206.
  12. ^ Champ, Judith F. (2006). William Bernard Ullathorne, 1806-1889: A Different Kind of Monk. Gracewing Publishing. p. 359. ISBN 978-0-85244-654-6.
  13. ^ Champ, Judith F. (2006). William Bernard Ullathorne, 1806-1889: A Different Kind of Monk. Gracewing Publishing. pp. 441–443. ISBN 978-0-85244-654-6.

Bibliography

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