Cardinal Manning...

...has been the subject of an excellent exhibition in Westminster Cathedral for the past few weeks, organised by the diocesan archivist Fr Nicholas Schofield. The exhibition is now touring some other churches in the diocese. Manning's brilliance shone at Oxford and people spoke of him as a future Prime Minister: instead he took Orders in the Church of England and dedicated his life to the message of the Gospel with great seriousness. The early death of his young wife increased that seriousness, and when he became a Catholic it was with a deep sense of solmen commitment which is revealed in all the subsequent photographs. As an old man he looks gaunt, and there seem to be no pictures of him smiling...but he was not a grim figure and his trach record of service to the London poor, of establishing schools (over 40 of them), of public duty (a leading figure in the campagn to build decent homes to replace hideous slums) is extraordinary.

I went to Westminster catheral to meet Fr Nicholas and helped to take down the exhibition and pack it away for its next destination.  The Cathedral looks particularly impressive at the moment, because this coming weekend marks the feast of St John Southworth, the heroic London priest whose body lies in the Chapel of St George and the English Martyrs. Each year it is brought out to the central aisle and surrounded by candles, and people come to venerate it and to pray. He ministered to the dying poor in the years of the London plague in the 17th century - but it was illegal to be a Catholic priest at that time, and he was arrested and executed.

On Saturday  young men will be ordained to the priesthood in the Cathedral, a new generation...