By E. E. Reynolds

John Henry Newman. Nicholas Patrick Wiseman. Henry Edward Manning. These three men, Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church, were the leading players in the development of the Church in England during the second half of the nineteenth century. Absent their distinctive and powerful contributions, the English Catholic Church would have been sorely impoverished, its growth stunted, its character encumbered by undue Anglican attachments. Comparing the personalities, achievements, and relationships of his subjects, E. E. Reynolds examines the efforts of Wiseman, first Cardinal Archbishop of England, to establish the Church as an integral part of the national life; the selfless work of Manning to channel the social doctrine of the Church into the educational and economic spheres; and the crowning achievements of Newman to revive, inspire, and sustain the Catholic faith in the hearts of the English people.

Yet there are different kinds of gifts, though it is the same Spirit who gives them, just as there are different kinds of service, though it is the same Lord we serve. (1 Corinthians 12:4, 5)

Praised at its publication in 1958 as an “excellent and readable account” of three outstanding princes of the modern Church, Three Cardinals: Newman, Wiseman, Manning endures as a twofold success in scholarship and literary sympathy.

Ernest Edwin Reynolds (1894–1981) was an English–Welsh Catholic author and historian. Specializing in the Tudor period and the Protestant Reformation, he wrote over a dozen books, notable among which are his numerous works on Saint Thomas More, his biography of Saint John Fisher, and his Three Cardinals, a study of John Henry Newman, Nicholas Wiseman, and Henry Edward Manning.

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Paperback: 280pp.

ISBN: 978-1685952327