Timothy Manning

Manning was named the first Bishop of Fresno on October 16, 1967. During his tenure, he supported the organization of a labor union for Central Valley farm workers, and sought to help wine producers and grape pickers reconcile their differences.[2]

After less than two years in Fresno, Manning was named Coadjutor Archbishop of Los Angeles and Titular Archbishop of Capreae on May 26, 1969. He succeeded James Francis McIntyre as the third Archbishop of Los Angeles on January 21, 1970. While a strong proponent of ecclesiastical authority, Manning took a more gentle style than his predecessor.[4] The end of McIntyre's tenure saw tensions with the clergy and minorities[2] and, following Manning's ascension, the new archbishop stated, "My first reaction was to make it known that I was here to listen."[2] He instituted ministries for blacks and Hispanics, a presbyterial council to grant the clergy greater participation in the governance of the Archdiocese, and an Inter-Parochial Council to extend the same participation to the laity.[2] Shortly after becoming Archbishop, a majority of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, who had feuded with McIntyre, left the religious life and founded a lay community.[5] He also supported the 1973 merger of the all-male Loyola University and all-female Marymount College into Loyola Marymount University in 1973; McIntyre had resisted attempts to allow co-education in the Archdiocese's Catholic university and colleges.

Pope Paul VI created him Cardinal-Priest of S. Lucia a Piazza d'Armi in the consistory of March 5, 1973. During the Vietnam War, Manning counseled young men on their right to become conscientious objectors.[2] Staunchly anti-abortion, the Archbishop declared that any Catholic who cooperated in an abortion would suffer excommunication from the Church, including the mother herself.[2] In 1974, in response to the Supreme Court's ruling on Roe v. Wade, he testified before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments of the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying, "An amendment is necessary first of all to protect the lives of the unborn children who can be killed—indeed, are being killed at this very moment—in the wake of the Supreme Court's decisions. But it is also needed to restore integrity to the law itself, to make the American legal system once more the guarantor and protector of all human rights and the human rights of all."[6]

Manning was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the conclaves of August and October 1978, which selected Popes John Paul I and John Paul II respectively. Before entering the August conclave, he noted that the Church "has no political support in many places" and called for a pope who could "change people through warmth."[7] In 1981, John Paul II sent him as a special papal envoy to the celebration in Drogheda, Ireland of the third centennial of Saint Oliver Plunkett's martyrdom.[1] He called for a halt to the deportation of Salvadoran civil war refugees in 1983.[2]