In 1850 the Catholic hierarchy of England and Wales was restored by Rome; Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman issued his vainglorious pastoral letter written from “outside the Flaminian Gate of Rome” announcing his appointment as Archbishop of Westminster. In it he announced “the restoration of Roman Catholic England to its orbit in the ecclesiastical firmament”. Three years later, St John Henry Newman gave his famous “Second Spring” sermon at Oscott:
“O Mary, my hope, O Mother undefiled, fulfil to us the promise of this Spring. A second temple rises on the ruins of the old. Canterbury has gone its way, and York is gone, and Durham is gone and Winchester is gone. It was sore to part with them. We clung to the vision of past greatness, and would not believe it could come to nought; but the Church in England has died, and the Church lives again. Westminster and Nottingham, Beverley and Hexham, Northampton and Shrewsbury, if the world lasts, shall be names as musical to the ear, as stirring to the heart, as the glories that we have lost...”
