Nicholas Wiseman and the English Catholic Church
Bishop Mullock was not only associated with a network of Irish bishops in North America and Australia; his Roman connections also extended to English bishops educated in the eternal city, most notably to the first archbishop of the restored Catholic hierarchy in England, Nicholas Wiseman (1802–65). Born in Seville to an Irish merchant family, Wiseman studied first at St. Cuthbert's College, Ushaw, in Ireland and then at the English College in Rome, which had reopened in 1818 after a twenty-year closure due to the French Revolution. Having received his doctorate in divinity in 1824, he became priest in 1825. With the encouragement of his superiors, Wiseman specialized in oriental studies, publishing his first major work on the history of Syriac manuscripts of the Old Testament (Horae Syriacae) in 1827. He became a member of the Royal Asiatic Society, corresponding with the most celebrated Orientalists of his time. Subsequently, Wiseman was appointed to the rectorship of the English College in 1828 and remained in this position until 1840. As rector Wiseman was the official representative of the English hierarchy in Rome and, as such, he welcomed many of the leading Englishmen of the age. During this period, he also became increasingly familiar with the problems of the Catholic church in England.
As part of his duties as special preacher for English visitors, Wiseman gave Twelve Lectures on the Connexion between Science and Revealed Religion (1836). According to the “Advertisement” to the volume, Wiseman upheld his conviction: “The more [Wiseman] has watched the progress of every science here treated of, the more he has found reason for conviction, that religion has nothing to fear from the legitimate advance of human learning.” These lectures greatly added to his reputation. The volume in the Mullock collection is the first of a two-volume set. It contains six lengthy lectures which clearly reveal the broad range of Wiseman's knowledge: the development of languages (chapter 1), comparison of languages (chapter 2), development of the human race (chapters 3 and 4), relation of natural sciences and scripture (chapter 5), and relation of geology and scripture (chapter 6). As Mullock was studying in St. Isidore's in 1829 and 1830, it is highly probable that he heard some of Wiseman's lectures in Rome.
Wiseman returned to England in 1840 where he was elevated to the episcopate and appointed president of Oscott College near Birmingham. He attracted many associates of the Oxford Movement, including John Henry Newman, who like other members advocated the reintroduction of older Christian practices into the Church of England. On his part, Wiseman exhorted Catholics to gain a deeper understanding of Anglicans. In fact, it was Wiseman who confirmed the convert Newman in the Oscott chapel in 1845. In the following years, Wiseman played a pivotal role in the restoration of Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales. In 1850, he was elevated by the pope to the see of Westminster, becoming the first cardinal-archbishop of the restored English Catholic church. It is in this crucial period that Mullock met Wiseman. According to his diary, Mullock heard Wiseman preach at St. George's in London on the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6), while he himself “said Mass that day at the Oratory.” Two days later he dined with Wiseman and met many distinguished converts of the Oxford Movement. It may have been on this occasion that Mullock acquired the third edition of Wiseman's Twelve Lectures, which had been published a year earlier in 1849.
