Preview: Newman and Education

On Monday, June 3, Anna Mitchell or Matt Swaim and I will continue our Santo Subito! Newman series on the Son Rise Morning Show with a discussion of Newman and Education (about 7:50 a.m. Eastern DST/6:50 a.m. Central DST).

In the first half of his life, the Anglican half, Newman participated as a student, tutor, and fellow in England's great educational institutions. He lived and studied at Great Ealing School in London and then at Trinity College at the University of Oxford. Famously, he barely passed his final exams, having overworked and crammed too much in preparation, nevertheless, he was selected as tutor and fellow at Oriel College.

At the same time he had been preparing for ordination in the Church of England. As a minister and a tutor, Newman felt he had a pastoral and clerical obligation to his students, not merely academic. When conflict arose about this idea, he resigned as tutor and remained as fellow.

Newman loved Oxford; he hoped to spend his whole life there. In his novel Loss and Gain, Charles Reading reflects Newman's affection:

There lay old Oxford before him, with its hills as gentle and its meadows as green as ever. At the first view of that beloved place he stood still with folded arms, unable to proceed. Each college, each church—he counted them by their pinnacles and turrets. The silver Isis, the grey willows, the far-stretching plains, the dark groves, the distant range of Shotover, the pleasant village where he had lived with Carlton and Sheffield—wood, water, stone, all so calm, so bright, they might have been his, but his they were not. Whatever he was to gain by becoming a Catholic, this he had lost; whatever he was to gain higher and better, at least this and such as this he never could have again. He could not have another Oxford, he could not have the friends of his boyhood and youth in the choice of his manhood. He mounted the well-known gate on the left, and proceeded down into the plain. There was no one to greet him, to sympathise with him; there was no one to believe he needed sympathy; no one to believe he had given up anything; no one to take interest in him, to feel tender towards him, to defend him. He had suffered much, but there was no one to believe that he had suffered. He would be thought to be inflicting merely, not undergoing, suffering. He might indeed say that he had suffered; but he would be rudely told that every one follows his own will, and that if he had given up Oxford, it was for a whim which he liked better than it. But rather, there was no one to know him; he had been virtually three years away; three years is a generation; Oxford had been his place once, but his place knew him no more. He recollected with what awe and transport he had at first come to the University, as to some sacred shrine; and how from time to time hopes had come over him that some day or other he should have gained a title to residence on one of its ancient foundations. One night in particular came across his memory, how a friend and he had ascended to the top of one of its many towers with the purpose of making observations on the stars; and how, while his friend was busily engaged with the pointers, he, earthly-minded youth, had been looking down into the deep, gas-lit, dark-shadowed quadrangles, and wondering if he should ever be Fellow of this or that College, which he singled out from the mass of academical buildings. All had passed as a dream, and he was a stranger where he had hoped to have had a home.

As Newman wrote in the Apologia pro Vita Sua:

I left Oxford for good on Monday, February 23, 1846. On the Saturday and Sunday before, I was in my House at Littlemore simply by myself, as I had been for the first day or two when I had originally taken possession of it. I slept on Sunday night at my dear friend's, Mr. Johnson's, at the Observatory. Various friends came to see the last of me; Mr. Copeland, Mr. Church, Mr. Buckle, Mr. Pattison, and Mr. Lewis. Dr. Pusey too came up to take leave of me; and I called on Dr. Ogle, one of my very oldest friends, for he was my private Tutor, when I was an Undergraduate. In him I took leave of my first College, Trinity, which was so dear to me, and which held on its foundation so many who have [Note 123] been kind to me both when I was a boy, and all through my Oxford life. Trinity had never been unkind to me. There used to be much snapdragon growing on the walls opposite my freshman's rooms there, and I had for years taken it as the emblem of my own perpetual residence even unto death in my University.

On the morning of the 23rd I left the Observatory. I have never seen Oxford since, excepting its spires, as they are seen from the railway. [Note 124]

Newman did return to Oxford in 1878 when Trinity College offered him its first honorary fellowship: he met with his old tutor, Thomas Short, who was 90; visited Pusey and Keble College. He returned again in May of 1880 after being named a Cardinal.

One of Wolsey's Predecessors: Thomas Rotherham

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Yesterday, we celebrated Blessed Margaret Pole, survivor of the Wars of the Roses and martyr during Henry VIII's English Reformation. Today, some biographical information about a Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of York at the end of those Wars and the beginning of the Tudor Dynasty, Thomas Rotherham, from the Dictionary of National Biography. He was Keeper of the Privy Seal and Lord Chancellor for King Edward IV and concelebrated his Funeral Mass, and then he sided with Edward's widow and heirs:

Rotherham's fidelity to Elizabeth led to the forfeiture of the chancellorship. At the death of Edward IV (9 April 1483) the vantage of power seemed in the queen and her kindred. Before the month closed the boy king was in Gloucester's hands, the queen's brother, Lord Rivers, and her son, Lord Grey, were imprisoned, and the queen herself was seeking sanctuary. Lord Hastings assured Rotherham that there was no danger to the young king, and that all would be well. ‘Be it as well as it will,’ was Rotherham's reply, ‘it will never be as well as we have seen it.’ He hastened with his retinue of servants in the middle of the night to the queen, and found her sitting on the rushes among the trunks and household stuff for her use in sanctuary. Rotherham assured her of his loyalty, declared that if anything should happen to the young king he would crown the next brother, the Duke of York, who was still with the queen, and, as the greatest proof of faithfulness he could give, put the great seal into her hands. This surrender was of course indefensible, and after a few hours' reflection he sent for the seal again. But for his action that night he was deprived of office before the end of May, and on 13 June, concurrently with the hurried and brutal execution of Hastings, he was thrown into prison. In some editions of the ‘History of Richard III’ assigned to Sir Thomas More, and in Holinshed's and Stowe's ‘Chronicles,’ Rotherham appears as a consenting party to the next move of the Duke of Gloucester, by which he gained the delivery of the little Duke of York out of his mother's hands in sanctuary through Bourchier the archbishop of Canterbury; but the actual date of that transaction (16 June) given by the Croyland continuator proves that Rotherham was then in prison. After the coronation of Richard at the beginning of July he was released. But he took no share in the splendid reception of the king and queen shortly afterwards at York. According to the York register, although Richard lodged at the archbishop's palace, Rotherham himself was not present, the bishop of Durham being the officiating prelate (, Hist. of the Metropolitan Church of York, pp. 260–1). He did not wholly withdraw from public affairs. He appears as one of the commissioners at Nottingham for managing a marriage ‘between the Prince of Scottes and one of the Kinge's blood’ (1484), and was among the triers of petitions in the parliaments of Richard and Henry VII until 1496. He attended, although ‘not in pontificals,’ the creation of Henry (afterwards Henry VIII) as Duke of York, and at the three days' jousts which followed (1494) (Gairdner, Letters … illustrative of the Reigns of Richard and Henry VII, pp. 64, 393, 403).

Rotherham ranks among the great benefactors of the two English universities. Oxford lay within his diocese of Lincoln, and he was visitor of Lincoln College. At the time of his first visitation (1474) the college was in great distress. Through the carelessness of a scribe the charter it had received from Edward IV about twelve years before had been so drawn that the crown claimed to resume its grants to it. In the course of a sermon before the bishop, the rector, or one of the fellows, described the desolate condition of the college, and appealed to him for help. Rotherham's response was immediate and thorough. For the present needs of the college he made it an annual grant of 5l. for his life. He afterwards built the southern side of the quadrangle. He impropriated the benefices of Long Combe and Twyford to the endowment; obtained from Edward IV a larger charter, which confirmed the college perpetually in its old rights of property, and in 1480 gave the college a new body of statutes. For these great services he was styled the second founder of Lincoln; his portrait, now removed, was placed in the Bodleian among the benefactors of Oxford and another portrait, in cope and mitre, with a crosier in his hand—the gift, according to tradition, of Bishop Saunderson—hangs in the college hall at Lincoln (Clark, The Colleges of Oxford, pp. 171–6). Cambridge, Rotherham's own university, chose him several times her chancellor (1469, 1473, 1475, 1478, 1483), and petitioned Gloucester to release him from captivity in 1483. The completion of the schools, which had been proceeding slowly for several years, was due to his munificence. The eastern front, with its noble gateway, and the library on its first floor, enriched by him with two hundred volumes, were his special work. His arms also are still visible on the tower of St. Mary's, which he helped to repair (Guest, Rotherham, p. 94; Robert Willis, Architectural Hist. of Cambridge, ed. Clark, iii. 13–15). He was elected also master of Pembroke Hall (1480), and held the office for six years, and perhaps longer (Wrenn MS.)

He died on the 29th of May in 1500. He appears in Shakespeare's Richard III, Act 2, Scene 4. His speech ends the scene:

My gracious lady, go;
And thither bear your treasure and your goods.
For my part, I'll resign unto your grace
The seal I keep: and so betide to me
As well I tender you and all of yours!
Come, I'll conduct you to the sanctuary.

Blessed Margaret Pole, Pray for Us!

Blessed Margaret Pole's early life was greatly affected by the dynastic battles of the Wars of the Roses; her adult life by the English Reformation, and she would die because of her clear loyalty to the universal Catholic faith. She was martyred on May 27, 1541, but her feast day is May 28 since St. Augustine of Canterbury is honored on May 27.

She was born Margaret Plantagenet, the niece of Edward IV and Richard III; her father was George, the Duke of Clarence and her mother Lady Isabel Neville, the Duchess of Clarence. Since her father was attainted a traitor during the reign of Edward IV, so the family lost their lands; she and her surviving sibling, Edward, were also removed from the line of succession by Richard III. Her mother had died when she was three; her father when she was five.

With the fall of Richard III and the House of York, she was in greater danger. Her brother Edward Plantagenet was imprisoned in the Tower of London from 1485 to 1499, when he was executed. Henry VII arranged her marriage to Sir Reginald Pole about 1491 and she bore four sons, including the future Reginald Cardinal Pole, and one daughter. Margaret was widowed in 1504 and had to live with the nuns of Syon Abbey for a time because of the loss of her husband's income. When Henry VIII succeeded he named her the Countess of Salisbury, restored her family's lands, and appointed her governess to Princess Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and Queen Catherine of Aragon. 

In loyalty to Catherine, she opposed Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, and the king exiled her from court, although he had called her “the holiest woman in England.” When her son, Reginald Pole, denied Henry’s Act of Supremacy, she remonstrated with him and tried to assure the king that she repudiated his treason completely.

In 1538, her son Henry Pole, Lord Montague was executed for treason and her other surviving son, Geoffrey was also arrested and found guilty of treason and was pardoned, but the king imprisoned Margaret in the Tower of London for two years and then had her beheaded on May 27, 1541. She was never given a legal trial, but included in an Act of Attainder that accused many of treason on quite flimsy grounds, mostly on the suspicion of opposing the King's religious supremacy. Margaret Pole was devoted to the Five Wounds of Jesus; the Pilgrimage of Grace proceeded under banners emblazoned with the Five Wounds of Jesus; therefore, the flawed logic was that her devotion proved her support of  rebellion. Never mind that devotion to the Five Wounds of Jesus was popular throughout England in the 16th century. Her sons' opposition to Henry's marital and ecclesial efforts was enough. She rightly protested against the lack of due process and there are various reports about how horrible her execution was: certainly the headsman was incompetent.

She was seventy when she was martyred in 1541. Margaret was beatified in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII. She is buried in the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London. Margaret Pole had planned a resting place for herself in what is now Christchurch Priory in what was, before 1539, an Augustinian Priory, in the Salisbury Chantry, where Masses would be said for the repose of her soul. More on her life and times here. Her daughter Ursula had married Henry Stafford, who was the eldest son of Edward Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham executed on May 17, 1521 for treason. Ursula and Henry survived the double blows of two parents beheaded for treason against Henry VIII, and Stafford was named Baron Stafford during the reign of Edward VI. One of their sons, Thomas, would also lose his head after participating in the Wyatt Rebellion against Mary I.

Blessed Margaret Pole's other son, Reginald Cardinal Pole, returned to England in 1554 to reconcile the English church and nation to the Catholic Church and the Papacy, becoming the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury in 1556. He died two years later and is buried in Canterbury Cathedral. You may read my review of her standard biography, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury 1473-1541: Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership by Hazel Pierce here. I also reviewed a more recent biography by Susan Higginbotham here.

One of my favorite passages from a book about Blessed Margaret Pole comes from Dom David Knowles' Saints and Scholars: Twenty-Five Medieval Portraits. In the chapter on William More, the Prior of Worcester, he describes a visit of Princess Mary, Margaret Pole, and her sons, except for Reginald:

The imagination rests for a moment on the guest-hall at Worcester that year. England in 1526 must still have been a settled country with the future predictable, when Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell were still in private places, and the sword that was to divide kinsmen so sharply lay still sheathed. Yet the four visitors who sat there with the prior were all to know sorrow, and were all in their fashion to suffer, or to cause suffering, for their faith. The Countess and her elder son were to perish at the hands of the executioner, while the younger son was to die in exile haunted by the disaster that he had helped to cause. They must often have spoken of the absent brother, Reginald, also in part to be the cause of their fate, who was himself to die, a prince of the Church, on the same day as the little girl, his cousin, each of them alone in the new, harsh world which they had hoped to sweeten, but had only the more embittered.

I do not think that Blessed Margaret Pole had really done anything to embitter the world. It had been harsh when she was born and she had tried to sweeten it through her faith, her devotion to the Princess Mary, and her efforts to remain loyal to both Henry VIII and the Catholic Church.

Blessed Margaret Pole, pray for us!

St. Augustine of Canterbury and Ecumenical Gifts

St. Augustine of Canterbury's Grave in the 

Ruins of the Abbey Church of his Monastery

Image Credit

Since today is the feast of St. Augustine of Canterbury, it seems appropriate to post some comments on the gifts given to the Anglican Archbishops of Canterbury by Pope Paul VI and Pope Francis, noted in this article in The Catholic Herald. When Michael Ramsey visited Pope Paul VI at the Vatican in 1966, Pope Paul gave him a gift of a ring from his own finger:

Many Anglo-Catholics inferred that the ring was the Pope’s way of tacitly repudiating Pope Leo XIII’s papal bull Apostolicae Curae, which declared Anglican orders “absolutely null and utterly void”. Whatever Paul VI meant by it, it was a dramatic gesture of the kind of recognition of Christian brotherhood that was described by Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, from 1964. The two men issued a common declaration, and an official Anglican-Catholic dialogue was born. At a celebration in Rome in 2016 to mark the 50th anniversary of the event, Pope Francis gave Archbishop Justin Welby a replica of the crozier of St Gregory the Great, who commissioned Augustine, later the first Archbishop of Canterbury, to re-Christianise Britain in 595.

Gift-giving has become expected. But ecumenism between Catholics and Anglicans has not succeeded in the way Ramsey and his generation originally imagined.

According to this article, Ramsey was quite moved by the gesture and wore the ring for the rest of his life. Subsequent Archbishops of Canterbury have worn the ring when meeting with the Pope. The article includes a picture of the ring.

The author of The Catholic Herald article is a former Episcopalian priest, Andrew Petiprin. He cites a comment that Ramsey made about Newman that surprised me:

For those still committed to the success of dialogue in bringing about corporate reconciliation, however, individual defections from the Anglican Communion to the Catholic Church are deemed unfortunate. By the end of his life, Ramsey went so far as to tell American seminarians about the “final tragedy” of John Henry Newman’s conversion in 1845. He regarded Newman as having made a selfish, pre-ecumenical mistake in leaving behind the English Church of his baptism and ordination. Strangely, Ramsey imagined the way for Newman to solve the dilemma of not feeling Catholic enough was to double down on being more Anglican. “He had not quite got historic Anglicanism into his bones,” he said, “and he came to it rather as one who is fulfilling deep personal needs of his own.”

As I've been preparing for my Newman presentation at the Eighth Day Institute's Florovsky-Newman week the first week of June, I'd reread Henry Cardinal Manning's opinion of Newman, which flatly contradicts Ramsey:

"I see much danger of an English Catholicism of which Newman is the highest type. It is the old Anglican, patristic, literary, Oxford tone transplanted into the Church." (Ian Ker, John Henry Newman: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 609).

Newman became a Catholic, not for some selfish reason, but because he believed the Catholic Church was the one, true fold of Christ, the Church Jesus had established. Like St. Augustine of Canterbury, he was a Catholic because, as Andrew Petiprin's book title says, Truth Matters.

St. Augustine of Canterbury, pray for us!

The First Vatican Council and Infallibility

From Harvard University Press:

The enduring influence of the Catholic Church has many sources—its spiritual and intellectual appeal, missionary achievements, wealth, diplomatic effectiveness, and stable hierarchy. But in the first half of the nineteenth century, the foundations upon which the church had rested for centuries were shaken. In the eyes of many thoughtful people, liberalism in the guise of liberty, equality, and fraternity was the quintessence of the evils that shook those foundations. At the Vatican Council of 1869–1870, the church made a dramatic effort to set things right by defining the doctrine of papal infallibility.

In Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church, John W. O’Malley draws us into the bitter controversies over papal infallibility that at one point seemed destined to rend the church in two. Archbishop Henry Manning was the principal driving force for the definition, and Lord Acton was his brilliant counterpart on the other side. But they shrink in significance alongside Pope Pius IX, whose zeal for the definition was so notable that it raised questions about the very legitimacy of the council. Entering the fray were politicians such as Gladstone and Bismarck. The growing tension in the council played out within the larger drama of the seizure of the Papal States by Italian forces and its seemingly inevitable consequence, the conquest of Rome itself.

Largely as a result of the council and its aftermath, the Catholic Church became more pope-centered than ever before. In the terminology of the period, it became ultramontane.

The Contents:

Introduction
1. Catholicism and the Century of Lights
2. The Ultramontane Movement
3. The Eve of the Council
4. Under Way and Moving toward Dei Filius
5. Infallibility
Conclusion
Appendix: English Translation of Pastor Aeternus
Basic Chronology
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index

I've read Father O'Malley's book on Trent and really look forward to another book that's forthcoming, When Bishops Meet about Trent, Vatican I and II.

Why I read this book now: the Eighth Day Institute's second annual theological conference, this year called the "Florovsky-Newman Week", takes up the subject of authority in the Christian Church. The title and description:

The Patristic View of Authority: Bible, Pope, or Conciliarity?

Co-sponsored by Eighth Day Institute and the Gerber Institute for Catholic Studies, the Florovsky-Newman Week promotes a “return to the sources for Christian unity.” Heeding Fr. Florovsky's advice, rather than simply overlooking differences, this conference seeks to overcome the different views of church authority. And we do so by returning to the common Tradition, by learning to read the Fathers as living masters, rather than as historical documents. Our hope is for you to deepen your understanding of the authority by which the Church grounds her faith and morals, examining authority from our respective traditions as Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Christians. Join us for this unique event as we dive into the Church Fathers in order to explore, challenge, and encourage one another to better love God and neighbor.

Note the addition of Blessed John Henry Newman to the title (last year it was just "Florovsky Week"!):

Soon to be St. John Henry Newman, this 19th century educator, poet, pastor, and theologian is considered by many to be the most important (and controversial) figure in the history of England. As a leader in the Oxford Movement, his immersion in the early Tradition of the Church, especially the Church Fathers, led to his conversion from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism. Cited frequently by Fr. Georges Florovsky, a case can be made that Newman's emphasis on the Fathers was key to the development of Florovsky's ecumenical proposal for a neopatristic synthesis.

As at last year's event, three speakers, one Catholic, one Protestant, and one Orthodox, will make presentations in the evening and weekend plenary sessions. The other speakers will respond: the Catholic and the Orthodox to the Protestant speaker, etc. During the day there are academic paper sessions, time for prayer, meetings at Eighth Day Books, etc. The banquet and presentations on Wednesday through Friday are at Newman University; on Saturday, we move to St. George Orthodox Cathedral.

So anyway, this book is part of my preparation--I've submitted a proposal for a paper, but I haven't received notice officially that it's been accepted--for the conference.

Father O'Malley devotes three of the five chapters to the background of the First Vatican Council, the first Church Council since Trent in the 16th century. He reviews the political and culture situation in Europe, especially in Italy, where the Pope's temporal authority over the Papal States and Rome was in danger in the drive for Italian unity and nationhood. He examines the relationship between Church and the nations in Europe, especially trends like Gallicanism,  Febronianism, and Josephinism through which the state or the ruler controlled education, formation of priests, selection of bishops, monastic and religious foundations, etc. O'Malley's survey in those three chapters thus begins in the eighteenth century, explores the grassroots origins of the Ultramontane movement--meaning grassroots from the laity, to the priesthood, to the academic world, and to the episcopacy--and the pontificate of Pope Pius IX (including the history of the treatment of the popes personally during the revolutionary movements of France and Italy).

As Deal Hudson points out in his interview with Father O'Malley from April 2018, Pope Pius IX (Pio Nino) does not come off very well in the narration of the events at the First Vatican Council. He and Archbishop Manning and others in the majority Ultramontane party do things that range from the manipulative to the vindictive. They were already in the majority; there was going to be some statement on Papal Infallibility from the Council; they did not need to treat certain bishops so abusively. The two chapters on the events of the Council also point out how much the press, Catholic and secular, especially Louis Veuillot's Univers, not only covered, but influenced the Council. At the same time, Lord Acton, William Gladstone, and Johann Dollinger were gathered (as shown in the picture above) to talk about the Council and its activities, trying to lobby against a decree on Papal Infallibility.

In his Conclusion Father O'Malley discusses the aftermath of the First Vatican Council, including, all too briefly I think, Newman's response to Gladstone's overreaction to Pastor Aeternus. In his interview with Deal Hudson, O'Malley opines that since the decree on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, there has been no exercise of Papal Infallibility in matters of faith and morals. But the Church has been more centered on the role of the Pope in the everyday lives of Catholics, with Papal documents, speeches, travels, audiences, etc. One could also argue that the greatest event of the twentieth century for Catholics was the Second Vatican Council, which changed many aspects of daily Catholic life on the local, not Papal, level. Father O'Malley doesn't discuss this, but the long papacy of Pope Saint John Paul II also changed Catholics' view of the pope's role in our lives: his travels, his theological and philosophical influence, the saints he canonized, the reforms he instituted (Canon Law, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, World Youth Day, the Synods of Bishops, etc), his great project of the celebration of the Third Millennium of Christianity, have formed our image of what a pope should be and do.

Father O'Malley is great historian and writer. He uses the sources well; writes succinctly and clearly; analyses cogently.

Highly recommended: except that I think he should have dedicated a few paragraphs to show how Newman's response to Gladstone formed the mainline interpretation of Papal Infallibility and authority.

Note that I purchased my copy of this book.

Et In Arcadia Ego: Sweeney's Southwell

As Gary Bouchard comments in his recently published study of St. Robert Southwell, SJ, it is sad that Anne R. Sweeney died too soon (of cancer) to continue her work on Southwell's life and poetry. She alludes to her illness in the Introduction of this book, Robert Southwell: Snow in Arcadia: redrawing the English lyric landscape, 1586-1595, published by Manchester University Press but distributed by Oxford University Press, which describes Sweeney's achievement in this book thus:

It has traditionally been held that Robert Southwell's poetry offers a curious view of Elizabethan England, one that is from the restricted perspective of a priest-hole. This book dismantles that idea by examining the poetry, word by word, discovering layers of new meanings, hidden emblems, and sharp critiques of Elizabeth's courtiers, and even of the ageing queen herself.

Using both the most recent edition of Southwell's poetry and manuscript materials, it addresses both poetry and private writings including letters and diary material to give dramatic context to the radicalisation of a generation of Southwell's countrymen and women, showing how the young Jesuit harnessed both drama and literature to give new poetic poignancy to their experience.

Bringing a rigorously forensic approach to Southwell's 'lighter' pieces, Sweeney can now show to what extent Southwell engaged exclusively through them in direct artistic debate with Spenser, Sidney, and Shakespeare, placing the poetry firmly in the English landscape familiar to Southwell's generation. Those interested in early modern and Elizabethan culture will find much of interest, including new insights into the function of the arts in the private Catholic milieu touched by Southwell in so many ways and places.

The contents of the book:

Preface and acknowledgements

Introduction: Ben Jonson's admiration for Southwell's 'Burning Babe'
1. Rome: the discernment of angels
2. The 'Spiritual Exercises': the 'inward eie'
3. Hidden ways and secret veins: into England
4. The flight of angels: England's altered confidence
5. Snow in Arcadia: rewriting the English lyric landscape
6. Southwell's war of words
7. The 'performing Word': Southwell's sacralised poetic
8. Conclusion

Bibliography 

Index

Sweeney comments in her preface on her limitations and those who helped her overcome them:

Stonyhurst College kindly made its Library available to my studies, its late librarian, Father Turner, S.J., and the late Bishop Foley, contributing much at the outset to a project that I was so very less qualified than they to embark upon. I am also very grateful that Father Thomas McCoog, S.J., of Mount Street, took the time to look over and comment on aspects of the work, which has, in any case, called much upon his expertise in this area. If I have committed any solecisms against the belief systems of the bodies represented by these gentlemen, it is unintentional, and regretted. I have been acutely aware from the outset that, in discussing a saint from outside the boundaries of religious studies, I was on the thinnest of ice. I hope it is evident that I am addressing discoursal and literary issues only: St. Robert Southwell is beyond all comment spiritually, but as a poet and an Englishman he earned his garlands, I believe. 'Muse not,' as he said, 'to see some mud in cleerest brooke / They once were brittle mould, that now are Saintes.'

Notwithstanding her statement, as I read her study of Southwell I appreciated his religious faith and spirituality more and more. His great efforts to comfort Catholics, reach out to those who had fallen away, confront the state authorities, and challenge other poets to greater things, as Sweeney explicates them, made his love for Jesus and His Church so clear. Because she consults and references his journals and letters as well as his poetry, the reader can see Southwell's struggles in his formation in Rome and his frustrations during his mission in England, sometimes with his Jesuit authorities on the Continent and their decisions. Although this may have been beyond her intent, Sweeney's study made him real to me, not just his poetry, his martyrdom, or his garlands.

Sweeney chose an appropriate motto for the book:

"To live at peace among . . . those who oppose us, is a great grace, and a most commendable and manly achievement." (from Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, translated and introduction by Leo Sherley-Price (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1952, repr. 1979), p. 71)

Southwell's formation as a Jesuit, his experience living in Counter-Reformation Rome, his vocation as priest and avocation as poet, graced him with that peace even in the midst of torture and imprisonment, as reports of his trial and execution attest.

One of the parts of the book that impressed me the most was Sweeney's exploration of the effects of art in Rome on Southwell while he was studying there in combination with his formation with the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola--referencing Between Renaissance and Baroque: Jesuit Art in Rome, 1565-1610 by Gauvin Alexander Bailey (University of Toronto Press, 2003). She elucidates how Southwell's formation influenced the brilliant imagery of his poetry, translating ideas into pictures, describing images to symbolize concepts, expressing the transcendent through earthly things in the imagination.

I highly recommend Snow in Arcadia to anyone interested in the era, Southwell, the English mission, Southwell's poetry, the situation of Catholics in England during Elizabeth I's reign, an understanding of the Jesuits in Rome, etc. 

As Gary M. Bouchard said, it is sad that Anne R. Sweeney died before she could continue developing her insights into St. Robert Southwell's poetry and his place in English literature. May she rest in the peace of Christ.

My review of Bouchard's Southwell's Sphere: The Influence of England's Secret Poet is forthcoming.

UPDATE: note that I purchased my copy of Snow in Arcadia.

Sir Thomas More Resigns

Sir Thomas More resigned as Lord Chancellor of England on May 16, 1532 after the Convocation of Bishops met to discuss and accept Henry VIII's three articles on how they would follow his guidelines for Church governance, the Submission of the Clergy.

British History Online documents his resignation and surrender of the Great Seal in the Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, June 1532, 1-15:

1075. Delivery Of The Great Seal.

Memorandum that on the 16th May 24 Hen. VIII. the Great Seal, being in the custody of Sir Thos. More, chancellor of England, enclosed in a white leather bag sealed with his seal, was delivered into the King's hands in the garden of York Place by Westminster, about 3 o'clock p.m., in presence of Thos. duke of Norfolk, when the said Sir Thomas surrendered his office of Chancellor. And on Monday, 20 May, about 4 p.m., the King, at his manor of Plesaunce or Est Grenewych, in a certain inner chamber near his oratory, took the said Seal out of the bag in presence of Thos. duke of Norfolk, treasurer of England, Henry marquis of Exeter, Henry earl of Northumberland, Rob. earl of Sussex, Steph. bp. of Winchester, Sir Will. Fitzwilliam, treasurer of the Household, Brian Tuke, treasurer of the Chamber, Sir Will. Kyngeston, John Sampson, dean of the Chapel, Thos. Crumwell, keeper of the Jewels, and others of the Privy Chamber; and after inspecting the same, delivered it to Thos. Audeley, whom he ordered to be called keeper of the Great Seal, and to exercise all the functions of the Chancellor in the Chancery, Star Chamber, and Council. And the said Thomas received it, and therewith, in presence of the King, caused to be sealed certain letters patent of the stewardship of the manors of Lewsham and Est Grenewych in Kent granted to Henry Norres, and afterwards replaced it in the bag, and sealed it with his own seal, and retained it in his custody. The King also then made him a knight.

And on Wednesday, 5 June, the first day of Trinity term, the said Sir Thomas Audeley in the Court of Chancery at Westminster took his oath of office as keeper of the Privy Seal. (Form of the oath subjoined.)

About a month later, More wrote to Desiderius Erasmus an explanation for his resignation that emphasized his health:

The thing which I have wished for from a boy, dear Desiderius, which I rejoice in your having ever enjoyed, and myself occasionally,—namely, that being free from public business, I might have some time to devote to God and myself,—that, by the grace of a great and good God, and by the favour of an indulgent prince, I have at last obtained.

I have not, however, obtained it as I wished. For I wished to reach that last stage of my life in a state, which, though suitable to my age, might yet enable me to enjoy my remaining years healthy and unbroken, free from disease and pain. But it remaineth in the hand of God, whether this wish, perhaps unreasonable, shall be accomplished. Meantime a disorder of I know not what nature hath attacked my breast, by which I suffer less in present pain than in fear of the consequence. For when it had plagued me without abatement some months, the physicians whom I consulted gave their opinion, that the long continuance of it was dangerous, and the speedy cure impossible; but that it must be cured by the gradual alterative effects of time, proper diet and medicine. Neither could they fix the period of my recovery, or ensure me a complete cure at last.

Considering this, I saw that I must either lay down my office, or discharge my duty in it incompletely. And since I could not discharge that duty without the hazard of my life, and by so doing should lose both life and office, I determined to lose one of them rather than both. Wherefore, that I might consult the public good as well as my own welfare, I entreated of the kindness of my good and great prince, that from the high office with which (as you know) he honoured me by his incredible favour, far above my pretensions, above my hopes, above my wishes, he should now release me, sinking as I was under the weight of it.

That letter is documented in Henry VIII's State Papers:

1094. More to Erasmus.
Gives an account of his resignation of the chancellorship. Complains of the rapid progress of heretical doctrines, notwithstanding the efforts that have hitherto been made to repress them. Incorrect versions of the Scriptures, and heretical books of all kinds, make their way from Flanders into England. Has replied to several, and does not fear what the result will be with impartial judges. Chelsea, 14 June 1532.
Lat.

2. Erasmus to John Faber, Bishop of Vienne.
Enclosing the above letter, and speaking very highly in praise of More. States that cardinal Wolsey, who was a man of no small ability, said, when he saw no prospect of being restored to favor, that More was the only person who was fitted to succeed him, though he was not partial to More when he was alive. Gives an account of his house at Chelsea, and his family, and their mode of education. Encloses a copy of the epitaph composed by More for himself.
Lat.

The Future Pope Blessed Innocent XI Born

Benedetto Odescalchi, the future Pope Innocent XI was born in Como, Italy on May 16, 1611. He was elected Pope on September 21, 1676, over the objections of King Louis XIV of France, succeeding Pope Clement X. He died on August 11, 1689 but his feast on is August 12 (St. Clare of Assisi is celebrated on August 11--that's also why Blessed John Henry Newman's feast is on October 9 even though he died on August 11, to avoid conflict with such an important saint).**

Speaking of conflicts, Pope Innocent XI and Louis XIV were in conflict throughout his reign and that conflict spilled over into the pope's official relations with King James II of England, even as that monarch tried to advance Catholic freedom of worship in his country, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

The tension between the pope and the king [Louis XIV] was still increased by the pope's procedure in filling the vacant archiepiscopal See of Cologne. The two candidates for the see were Cardinal Wilhelm Fürstenberg, then Bishop of Strasburg, and Joseph Clement, a brother of Max Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria. The former was a willing tool in the hands of Louis XIV, and his appointment as Archbishop and Elector of Cologne would have implied French preponderance in north-western Germany. Joseph Clement was not only the candidate of Emperor Leopold I of Austria but of all European rulers, with the exception of the King of France and his servile supporter, King James II of England. At the election, which took place on 19 July, 1688, neither of the candidates received the required number of votes. The decision, therefore, fell to the pope, who designated Joseph Clement as Archbishop and Elector of Cologne. Louis XIV retaliated by taking possession of the papal territory of Avignon, imprisoning the papal nuncio and appealing to a general council. Nor did he conceal his intention to separate the French Church entirely from Rome. But the pope remained firm. The subsequent fall of James II of England destroyed French preponderance in Europe and soon after Innocent's death the struggle between Louis XIV and the papacy was settled in favour of the Church. Innocent XI did not approve the imprudent manner in which James II attempted to restore Catholicism in England. He also repeatedly expressed his displeasure at the support which James II gave to the autocratic King Louis XIV in his measures hostile to the Church. It is, therefore, not surprising that Innocent XI had little sympathy for the Catholic King of England, and that he did not assist him in his hour of trial. There is, however, no ground for the accusation that Innocent XI was informed of the designs which William of Orange had upon England, much less that he supported him in the overthrow of James II. . . . 

Yesterday, I highlighted Innocent XI's refusal to allow Father Edward Petre, SJ, to accept the (Anglican?) See of the Archdiocese of York at James II's request. 

Pope Innocent, like Pope St. Pius V before, rallied the Holy League to defend Europe from the invasion of the Ottoman Empire:

It was due to Innocent's earnest and incessant exhortations that the German Estates and King John Sobieski of Poland in 1683 hastened to the relief of Vienna which was being besieged by the Turks. After the siege was raised, Innocent again spared no efforts to induce the Christian princes to lend a helping hand for the expulsion of the Turks from Hungary. He contributed millions of scudi to the Turkish war fund in Austria and Hungary and had the satisfaction of surviving the capture of Belgrade, 6 Sept., 1688.

Because of his assistance to the Austro-Hungarians during the siege of Vienna and until the Turks were driven from Belgrade, he is called the "Savior of Hungary." Pope Leo XIII paid tribute to him in his August 22, 1886 encyclical Quod Multum on the liberty of the Church, written to the Bishops of Hungary:

We have long and ardently desired an opportunity to address you with an apostolic letter. Just as We have addressed the bishops of many other nations, We desire to inform you of Our plans, which concern the prosperity of the Christian cause and the salvation of the Hungarian nation. These days present Us with an excellent opportunity, since Hungary is celebrating the liberation, two centuries ago, of Budapest. - That victory will stand out forever in the memory of the Hungarian people. It was granted to your ancestors, because of their strength and perseverance, to recapture their capital city, which for a century and a half had been occupied by their enemies. That the grace and memory of this divine blessing might remain, Pope Innocent XI justly decreed a celebration throughout all Christendom in honor of St. Stephen, the first of your apostolic kings, on the second day of September, the anniversary of this great event. Moreover it is well-known that the Apostolic See took a significant part in the almost spontaneous victory three years before over the same foe at Vienna. This victory, rightly attributed in great part to the apostolic efforts of Pope Innocent, began the decline of the influence of the Mohammedans in Europe. - Besides, even before that age and under similar circumstances, Our predecessors assisted the Hungarian forces with counsel, aid, money, and treaties. From Callistus III to Innocent XI, many Roman Ponfiffs are recorded whose names deserve to be honored for their activity in such affairs.

He was beatified by Pope Pius XII in 1956. There's a video of a new report of the event! 

**Note that Newman's feast of October 9 will be the mandatory feast to be celebrated on that date in England and Wales, once he has been canonized. The optional memorials that are on that date will be moved:

The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales agrees to the raising of Bl. John Henry Newman to the rank of Feast on 9 October, subsequent to his canonisation, in the National Calendar for England and the National Calendar for Wales.

It requests the optional memorials of St Denis and Companions and St John Leonardi be transferred to 10 October.

Sir/Father Edward Petre, SJ, RIP

Father Edward Petre, SJ was an adviser to King James II. According to the Dictionary of National Biography he was a victim of the Popish Plot but survived:

the second son of Sir Francis Petre, bart., of the Cranham branch of the family, of which the Barons Petre constituted the eldest branch. His mother was Elizabeth, third daughter of Sir John Gage, bart., of Firle Place, Sussex, and grandson of Sir John Gage [q. v.], constable of the Tower under Henry VIII. The story told in ‘Revolution Politicks,’ implying that he was educated at Westminster under Busby, is apocryphal. His family being devout Roman catholics (sic), he was sent in 1649 to study at St. Omer, and three years later he entered the Society of Jesus at Watten, under the name of Spencer, though he was not professed of the four vows until 2 Feb. 1671. He obtained some prominence in the society, not so much for learning as for boldness and address. On the death of his elder brother Frances, at Cranham in Essex, about 1679, he succeeded to the title, and about the same time he received orders from his provincial, and was sent on the English mission. Being rector of the Hampshire district at the time of the popish plot (1679), he was arrested and committed to Newgate; but, as Oates and his satellites produced no specific charges against him, he was released, after a year's confinement, in June 1680. In the following August he became rector of the London district and vice-provincial of England; and, intelligence of this appointment having leaked out, he was promptly rearrested and imprisoned until 6 Feb. 1683. Exactly two years after his liberation James II ascended the throne, and at once summoned Petre to court.

James wanted Father Petre to have a high position in the Catholic Church to serve him, but Pope Innocent XI did not cooperate:

James recognised in him ‘a resolute and undertaking man,’ and resolved to assign him an official place among his advisers. As a preliminary step, it was determined to seek some preferment for him from Innocent XI. In December 1686 Roger Palmer, earl of Castlemaine [q. v.], was sent to Rome to petition the pope to this effect. The first proposal apparently was that the pope should grant Petre a dispensation which would enable him to accept high office in the English church, and Eachard states that the dignity ultimately designed for Petre was the archbishopric of York, a see which was left vacant (from April 1686 to November 1688) for this purpose. The pope, however, who had little fondness for the Jesuits, proved obdurate, both to the original request and to the subsequent proposal which Sunderland had the effrontery to make, that Petre should be made a cardinal. Innocent professed himself utterly unable to comply ‘salva conscientia,’ and added that ‘such a promotion would very much reflect upon his majesty's fame’ (see abstract of the correspondence in Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 424–5; D'Adda Correspondence in Addit. MS. 15396). He shortly afterwards ordered the general of the Jesuits to rebuke Petre for his ambition.

He barely escaped the fall of King James II and the invasion of the William of Orange:

The night before the king's departure he slept at St. James's, whence, making his exit next day by a secret passage, he escaped to Dover in disguise, and succeeded in reaching France before his master. He never saw James again. His rooms at Whitehall were occupied by Jeffreys for a short time after his flight; when Jeffreys himself decamped to Wapping, they were broken into by a protestant mob (cf. Twelve Bad Men, ed. Seccombe, p. 92). Petre spent the next year quietly at St. Omer, unheeding the torrent of abusive pamphlets and broadsides with which he was assailed. In December 1689 he was at Rome, but ‘not much lookt on there’ (Luttrell, i. 616). In 1693 he was appointed rector of the college at St. Omer, where the enlightened attention that he paid to the health and cleanliness of the community made him highly valued (Oliver, Collections). In 1697 he was sent to Watten, where he died on 15 May 1699.
 
As this blog points out, we don't have a reliable portrait of Father Petre; the images we have of him are all caricatures, salacious and suggestive.

The Catholic Encyclopedia reminds us that we have no evidence that Father Petre did anything immoral and that, among his famous recusant family he

fills more space in history than any of his family, owing to the multiplicity of attacks made upon him as a chaplain and adviser of James II. Petre's unpopularity as a Jesuit was so great that it harmed the king's cause; but if we regard his conduct by itself, no serious fault has yet been proved against him. If we cannot yet confidently acquit him of all blame, that is chiefly because first-hand evidence is very deficient; but the nearer we get to first-hand evidence, the better does Petre's conduct appear. Before James's accession (6 Feb., 1685) he had shown good, but not extraordinary virtue and ability, and was then vice-provincial of his order. . . . 

Setting aside prejudiced witnesses (and it will be remembered that there was a party against him, even among Catholics), and studying those in sympathy with the Jesuit, we seem to perceive in him a steadfast, kind-hearted English priest, devoting himself with energy to the opportunities for spiritual good that opened out before him. With little gift for politics, nor paying much heed to them, he was nevertheless severely blamed when things went wrong. He was also regardless, almost callous, as to what was said about him by friend or foe.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. Amen.

Image source.

Newman and Consulting the Faithful

Matt Swaim and I will discuss Newman and the Laity early this morning on the Son Rise Morning Show at 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. On Friday, I included Newman's famous statement about the Catholic laity knowing and defending their faith. Newman's Oratory, the Catholic University of Ireland, and his famous article in The Rambler "On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine" are three examples of his efforts to stress the role of the laity in nineteenth century England.

Newman became the rector of the Catholic University of Ireland in 1851; first he opened the chapel for the university, Our Lady Seat of Wisdom in 1853; then the university opened for classes in 1854. Three years later, he resigned because the bishops of Ireland decided they really wanted a seminary for priests, not a university for laymen on the model of Oxford or Cambridge.

As Rev. Michael Sharkey explains:

The Irish bishops who had invited him were not yet ready for Newman's Idea of a University, which included appointing laymen to the professorships. In 1873 he recalled:

"One of the chief evils which I deplored in the management of the affairs of the University twenty years ago, was the resolute refusal with which my urgent representations ever met that the Catholic laity should be allowed to cooperate with the archbishops in the work. As far as I can see there are ecclesiastics all over Europe, whose policy is to keep the laity at arm's length, and hence the laity have been disgusted and become infidel, and only two parties exist, both ultras in opposite directions. I came away from Ireland with the distressing fear that in that Catholic country, in like manner, there was to be an antagonism, as time went on, between the hierarchy and the educated classes.

"You will be doing the greatest possible benefit to the Catholic cause all over the world, if you succeed in making the University a middle station at which clergy and laity can meet, so as to learn to understand, and to yield to each other—and from which, as from a common ground, they may act in union upon an age which is running into infidelity".

In 1859, Newman took over the editorship of The Rambler, a Catholic publication for and by the laity to save it from closure. As Father Paul Chavasse of the Birmingham, formerly postulator for Newman's Cause explains:

In May 1859 the first issue with Newman as editor was published. The magazines attitude was changed, and Newman published an apology for the previous criticism of the bishops but suggested that their Lordships really desire to know the opinion of the laity on subjects in which the laity are especially concerned. He added that if even in the preparation of a dogmatic definition, such as recently on that of the Immaculate Conception, the laity were consulted, how much more they should be in a practical matter that concerned them closely, such as education. A row developed, as some theologians, principally John Gillow of Ushaw College, Durham, thought Newman's language had implied too much to the role of the laity; and Dr. Ullathorne, Newman's bishop in Birmingham, asked him to give up the newly acquired editorship. Newman had one issue still in hand, that of July 1859, and he regarded it as his last remaining opportunity to explain both himself and the true place of the laity within the Church. He worked hard, his letters almost ceased, and in July there duly appeared On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine. What Newman taught in that article was to be taught in a more solemn manner some one hundred years later in the decrees of the Second Vatican Council. But in the Church of 1859 the reception to his words was very different, and eventually he was secretly delated to Rome for heresy by Bishop Brown of Newport. Early in 1860 Dr. Ullathorne informed Newman of this, and he at once offered to explain his writings in a Catholic sense. Due to a series of misunderstandings between Newman, Wiseman, and Manning, Rome gained the impression that Newman had refused to comply with the request. Much whispering against Newman in both Rome and London for years to come meant that his influence was both suspect and curtailed heavily. As John Coulson put it:

"His publication of this essay was an act of political suicide from which his career in the Church was never fully to recover; at one stroke he, whose reputation as the one honest broker between the extremes of English Catholic opinion had hitherto stood untarnished, gained the Popes personal displeasure, the reputation in Rome of being the most dangerous man in England, and a formal accusation of heresy proffered against him."

Newman had answered the charges of heresy but Bishop Ullathorne had not forwarded his answer to Rome! This was the cloud that hung over Newman for years.

Some of bishops and others in the newly formed hierarchy seemed to fear the laity or not understand us at all. Monsignor George Talbot wrote to Henry Manning, Archbishop of Westminster:

"What is the province of the laity? To hunt, to shoot, to entertain? These matters they understand, but to meddle with ecclesiastical matters they have no right at all, and this affair of Newman is a matter purely ecclesiastical…. Dr. Newman is the most dangerous man in England, and you will see that he will make use of the laity against your Grace."

Even Newman's own bishop, Ullathorne, asked, "Who are the laity?" Newman reported that he "answered (not in these words) that the Church would look foolish without them". As if the church could be made up of only the ordained!

As Father Ian Ker explains in his book Newman on Vatican II, this is one of the ways that Newman anticipated the Second Vatican Council with its emphasis on holiness for all the baptized, not just the ordained or those who've taken religious vows, including the laity. The fact that the laity had a document dedicated  to us and our in role the Church indicates that the bishops at Vatican II knew who they laity are and believed we have a mission beyond hunting, shooting, entertaining, praying, and paying.

Preview: Newman and the Laity

On Monday, May 13, Matt Swaim and I will talk about Newman and the Laity on the Son Rise Morning Show (7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central). Blessed John Henry Newman was a champion of the Catholic laity in 19th century England at a crucial time.

Remember the important dates and events:

1829: Catholic Emancipation or Relief Passed: Catholics able to vote, serve in office, take up any profession, etc.,

1845: Newman, with some Oxford Movement followers preceding him and following him, became a Catholic

1846: Newman goes to Rome to study for the priesthood

1847: He decides to become an Oratorian, takes St. Philip Neri as a patron

1848: Newman returns to England and establishes the first Oratory there in Maryvale

1849: The Oratory moves to Birmingham

Newman's choice of the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri indicates his vocation to serve the laity. As the website for the Brooklyn Oratory explains he was following his patron's way:

Perhaps because of his long and dedicated life as a layman going about the business of charity and prayer and his reluctance to receive Holy Orders, Philip built within the structure of the Oratory a collaborative and representative constitution. Unlike some other religious orders in the Catholic Church where the laity are the “third order” (after the priests – first order – and the religious brothers and sisters – the second order) in the Oratory the laity are the first and the priests and brothers exist only to serve the laity who are therefore rightly the first order.

Some have said that Philip’s emphasis on the laity put him 400 years ahead of his time. But Newman also emphasized this aspect of Church tradition in 19th Century England. The role of the laity in his ministry and work was also an authentic expression of Catholicity. It is little surprise then that one of Newman’s most famous works is “On Consulting the Laity on Matters of Doctrine.” It remains to this day an important work in the area. There is also more than an echo of Philip in another of Newman’s seminal works “On the Development of Doctrine” for he too sought means to preserve fidelity to the deposit of faith while being responsive to the needs of his day. Perhaps we can see in Newman’s extraordinarily productive correspondence a continuation of Philip’s own highly personal approach to ministry. “Each one,” Philip said, “has a particular gift which he must follow and this is a matter to which he must pay great attention.”

Remember also that the Catholic laity of England--and of Ireland--had led the fight for Catholic Emancipation; the laity had saved the Catholic Church in England in special ways: sending their sons to the Continent to study for the priesthood; sheltering the priests who returned (St. Oliver Plunkett of Ireland was the last Catholic priest to be executed, but it was still an act of treason for a priest to be present in England), funding the chapels and chaplains who served their communities, etc.

The process of Catholic Emancipation in the late eighteenth century had been championed by Catholic nobles like Robert Edward Petre, 9th Baron Petre. The Catholic laity wanted to be full citizens of their country and be able to practice their religion at the same time. The UK Parliament website explains what the first Catholic Relief Acts achieved:

In 1778 Parliament passed the Catholic Relief Act. Although it did not grant freedom of worship, it allowed Catholics to join the army and purchase land if they took an oath of allegiance.

The Act raised a storm of protest, however, and after a huge petition had been presented to the House of Commons, organised by Lord George Gordon, several days and nights of rioting erupted on London’s streets.

The Catholic Relief Act of 1791 was a much broader measure which gave Catholics freedom to worship. It also removed a wide range of other restrictions and allowed Catholics their own schools, to hold junior public offices, and to live in London.

In the 1820's, Catholic Emancipation was driven by the election of Daniel O'Connell in Ireland, who wouldn't be allowed to take his seat unless the laws were changed (from the same source as above):

The question of political rights for Catholics was driven largely by Irish politics after the Act of Union of 1800.

Although Catholics made up most of the Irish population, they were not allowed to become Members of Parliament.

In 1823 an Irish barrister, Daniel O’Connell, formed the Catholic Association which began a mass movement in Ireland demanding full public and political rights.

Great concern was felt at Westminster about the possible effects of Catholic emancipation but government fears that British rule in Ireland might otherwise break down persuaded MPs in 1829 to pass the Catholic Emancipation Act.

This landmark measure allowed Catholics to sit as MPs, vote in elections and hold most senior government offices.  

Obviously, the rights of Catholics to worship and practice their faith were also addressed in the 1829 Act, although Parliament was still not comfortable with the presence of Jesuits in England:

And whereas Jesuits and members of other religious orders, communities or societies, of the church of Rome, bound by monastic or religious vows, are resident within the United Kingdom; and it is expedient to make provision for the gradual suppression and final prohibition of the same therein; Be it therefore Enacted, That every Jesuit, and every member of any other religious order, community or society of the church of Rome, bound by monastic or religious vows, who at the time of the commencement of this Act shall be within the United Kingdom, shall within Six calendar months after the commencement of this Act, deliver to the clerk of the peace of the county or place where such person shall reside, or his deputy, a notice or statement, in the form and containing the particulars set forth in the Schedule to this Act annexed; which notice or statement, such clerk of the peace, or his deputy, is hereby required to preserve and register amongst the other records of such county or place, for which no fee shall be payable, and a copy of which said notice or statement shall be by such clerk of the peace, or his deputy, forthwith transmitted to the chief secretary of the Lord Lieutenant, or other Chief Governor or Governors of Ireland, if such person shall reside in Ireland, or if in Great Britain, to one of His Majesty's principal Secretaries of State; and in case any person shall offend in the premises, he shall forfeit and pay to His Majesty, for every calendar month during which he shall remain in the United Kingdom without having delivered such notice or statement as is hereinbefore required, the sum of Fifty pounds.

Another important date:

In 1850: Pope Pius IX restored the Catholic hierarchy, replacing the Vicars Apostolic with Diocesan Bishops.

Queen Victoria and Parliament were not pleased with what they saw as Papal Aggression, and some in the laity thought the Pope and the returning hierarchy were too triumphant in their tone and would harm the progress Catholics had made with integration into their communities. 

So Newman was stepping into the conflict between the hierarchy and the educated laity who heretofore had been the leaders of the Catholic community in England when as an Oratorian he championed the rights of the laity to contribute to the Church and to spread the Gospel to their fellow Englishmen. As he saw it, the laity were the ones who needed to reach out to Englishmen and women to defend the Catholic Faith.

In The Present Position of Catholics in England Newman told the laity of the Oratory:

What I desiderate [desire] in Catholics is the gift of bringing out what their religion is. I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity. I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism and where lies the main inconsistencies and absurdities of the Protestant theory. I have no apprehension you will be the worse Catholics for familiarity with these subjects, provided you cherish a vivid sense of God above and keep in mind that you have souls to be judged and saved. In all times the laity have been the measure of the Catholic spirit; they saved the Irish Church three centuries ago and they betrayed the Church in England. You ought to be able to bring out what you feel and what you mean, as well as to feel and mean it; to expose to the comprehension of others the fictions and fallacies of your opponents; to explain the charges brought against the Church, to the satisfaction, not, indeed, of bigots, but of men of sense, of whatever cast of opinion.

More on Monday about Newman's efforts to defend the Catholic laity's right to a voice in the Church, especially in practical matters, like education.

Image Source Top: Poster from my Theology on Tap Presentation Last Month: the quotation is "The Voice of the Whole Church in Time will Make Itself Heard" a partial version of one of Newman's reactions to the Doctrine of Papal Infallibility*

Image Source Middle: George Romney (English, 1734–1802), Robert, 9th Baron Petre, Demonstrating the Use of an Écorché Figure to His Son, Robert Edward c. 1775 – 1776**

*The writer of this icon seems to apply this quotation to Newman's defense of the laity, but the quotation is not complete. Father Ian Ker does not present the quotation from one of Newman's letters completely either, but Newman seems to referring to theologians ("the voice of the Schola Theologorum, of the whole Church diffusive" would "in time make itself heard" LD xxv 284) p. 681 in Ker's John Henry Newman: A Biography (OUP: 1988, 2009)

**UPDATE: an Écorché Figure is a 3D model of the musculature of the body without skin. 

Spring Time for the Martyrs

From Blessed John Henry Newman's "Second Spring" sermon, preached July 13, 1852, in St. Mary's, Oscott, in the first Provincial Synod of Westminster:

Can we religiously suppose that the blood of our martyrs, three centuries ago and since, shall never receive its recompense? Those priests, secular and regular, did they suffer for no end? or rather, for an end which is not yet accomplished? The long imprisonment, the fetid dungeon, the weary suspense, the tyrannous trial, the barbarous sentence, the savage execution, the rack, the gibbet, the knife, the cauldron, the numberless tortures of those holy victims, O my God, are they to have no reward? Are Thy martyrs to cry from under Thine altar for their loving vengeance on this guilty people, and to cry in vain? Shall they lose life, and not gain a better life for the children of those who persecuted them?Is this Thy way, O my God, righteous and true? Is it according to Thy promise, O King of saints, if I may dare talk to Thee of justice? Did not Thou Thyself pray for Thine enemies upon the cross, and convert them? Did not Thy first Martyr win Thy great Apostle, then a persecutor, by his loving prayer? And in that day of trial and desolation for England, when hearts were pierced through and through with Mary's woe, at the crucifixion of Thy body mystical, was not every tear that flowed, and every drop of blood that was shed, the seeds of a future harvest, when they who sowed in sorrow were to reap in joy? . . .

When the English College at Rome was set up by the solicitude of a great Pontiff in the beginning of England's sorrows, and missionaries were trained there for confessorship and martyrdom here, who was it that saluted the fair Saxon youths as they passed by him in the streets of the great city, with the salutation, "Salvete flores martyrum"? And when the time came for each in turn to leave that peaceful home, and to go forth to the conflict, to whom did they betake themselves before leaving Rome, to receive a blessing which might nerve them for their work? They went for a Saint's blessing; they went to a calm old man, who had never seen blood, except in penance; who had longed indeed to die for Christ, what time the great St. Francis opened the way to the far East, but who had been fixed as if a sentinel in the holy city, and walked up and down for fifty years on one beat, while his brethren were in the battle. Oh! the fire of that heart, too great for its frail tenement, which tormented him to be kept at home when the whole Church was at war! and therefore came those bright-haired strangers to him, ere they set out for the scene of their passion, that the full zeal and love pent up in that burning breast might find a vent, and flow over, from him who was kept at home, upon those who were to face the foe. Therefore one by one, each in his turn, those youthful soldiers came to the old man; and one by one they persevered and gained the crown and the palm,—all but one, who had not gone, and would not go, for the salutary blessing.

The Collect for the Feast of the Martyrs of England and Wales from the Divine Worship form of the Roman Rite of the Anglican Ordinariate:

O MERCIFUL GOD, who, when thy Church on earth was torn apart by the ravages of sin, didst raise up men and women in England who witnessed to their faith with courage and constancy: give unto thy Church that peace which is thy will, and grant that the who have been divided on earth may be reconciled in heaven and be partakers together in the vision of thy glory; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Image Credit: English Martyrs window at Holy Name,Oxton,Birkenhead by Margaret Agnes Rope, Sister Margaret of the Mother of God (CC BY-SA 3.0)