Some Recent News on Newman

Just a couple of brief blurbs on Saint John Henry Newman:

The Catholic World Report has posted Edward Short's article on Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua:

What makes the Apology such an extraordinary book is that it furnishes the “key” to the author’s “whole life” not by mining the usual autobiographical quarries of family, childhood, and education but by focusing on his evolving religious convictions, which, far from being deceitful or rote, were of the most guileless probity. With no confessional exhibitionism or unseemly volubility, Newman wrote the history of how his avid and exacting faith took shape in a book that merits comparison with perhaps the greatest of all Christian autobiographies, St. Augustine’s Confessions.

Indeed, he wrote his account, partly, as he said, for “religious and sincere minds, who are simply perplexed… by the utter confusion into which late discoveries or speculations have thrown their most elementary ideas of religion.” And it was on their behalf that he invoked those “beautiful words,” as he called them, of the Bishop of Hippo, who knew from bitter personal experience “the difficulty with which error is discriminated from truth, and the way of life is found amid the illusions of the world.”

Some literary genius only comes of religious genius, and, Newman, like St. Paul, possessed it in excelsis. His Apologia captures this genius in all of its depth and incandescence. Indeed, in some of the greatest prose in all of English literature, prose which influenced G.K. Chesterton, Ronald Knox, Graham Greene, and Muriel Spark, Newman succeeded in showing his readers that it was not imposture that animated his conversion, but love.

Please read the rest there.

At Homiletic & Pastoral Review, Dr. Bud Marr, Director of the National Institute of Newman Studies and Associate Editor of the Newman Studies Journal, reviews three recent books about Newman:

Cimorelli, Christopher. John Henry Newman’s Theology of History: Historical Consciousness, Theological ‘Imaginaries’, and the Development of Tradition. Leuven: Peeters, 2017. xii + 356 pages. Softcover: $98.00. ISBN: 978-90-429-3438-2.
Hütter, Reinhard. John Henry Newman on Truth and Its Counterfeits: A Guide for Our Times. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2020. xiii + 267 pages. Softcover: $24.95. ISBN: 978-08-132-3232-4.
Duffy, Eamon. John Henry Newman: A Very Brief History. London: SPCK, 2019. xxi + 145 pages. Hardcover: $16.00. ISBN: 978-02-810-7849-3.

I've read Reinhard Hütter's book and have Eamon Duffy's brief book in hand to read soon. The Cimorelli book from Louvain, Belgium is out of my price range! I'll drink a Stella Artois, brewed in that university town, instead.

Of John Henry Newman on Truth and Its Counterfeits: A Guide for Our Times, Marr opines:

. . . Hütter’s monograph also deserves praise for bringing Newman’s work into conversation with that of Thomas Aquinas. Many of the recent publications in Newman studies have been, in effect, commentaries on Newman’s writings. While this type of scholarship certainly has its place, a great deal can be learned, as Hütter shows, by setting Newman’s theology alongside the contributions of other great theologians. This methodology, of course, has to be employed with due caution. Newman and Aquinas, for instance, were writing in noticeably different historical contexts, and a scholar who treats them together must remain sensitive to nuances in their language and conceptualization of doctrines. In the prologue, Hütter signals his awareness of the complexities involved in this type of study: “I do not mean to establish any historical connection between Aquinas’s and Newman’s thought; nor do I intend to claim Newman as a crypto-Thomist or anything else along those lines” (15). Hütter remains true to on his word, and what follows in the rest of the book is a necessarily cautious, but deeply insightful study of key themes that have been treated by Newmanists, for sure, though not in the Thomistic key that Hütter employs. The end result is an impressive achievement indeed, and one that this reviewer hopes other scholars in the field will imitate. Here’s to hoping, as well, that Hütter maintains a foot in Newman studies for years to come.

I agree with that last statement completely!

Of Eamon Duffy's book, Marr states:

The strength of Duffy’s treatment is rooted in the way that he navigates a via media between biographers who are overly hagiographical in their approach to Newman’s life and those scholars who are hypercritical and, in some cases, even hostile to Newman as a historical figure. Duffy strikes a nice balance. On the one hand, he’s more than happy to acknowledge Newman’s enduring legacy as one of the great Catholic thinkers of the modern era. On the other hand, Duffy refuses to paper over some of Newman’s rougher edges for the sake of preserving a supposedly pristine understanding of the English convert’s saintliness. As Duffy writes near the end of his book, “The canonization of Newman is no conventional accolade to a very pious man. Newman strove all his life after holiness, but he had more than his share of human frailties. He could be tyrannical in friendship, he was thin-skinned and easily offended, slow to forgive, even at times implacable” (118). For this reviewer, it was refreshing to read an author who affirms Newman’s saintliness yet is willing to shine a light on the less exemplary facets of his personality. Books like Duffy’s are helpful reminders that the canonized saints were not otherworldly figures free from all imperfections, but ordinary human beings whom God used to accomplish extraordinary ends.

I think it would have been appropriate, however, to highlight some of Newman's strengths, which would like mirror those faults: he was a loyal friend and one who drew friends to himself, so he can't have always been a tyrant; he often reached out to those who had offended him and sometimes they had really treated him unfairly (Manning's actions over Newman becoming a Cardinal for example)--saying that Newman "had more than his share of human frailties"! What does that mean? That he was weaker than other men? Didn't he have some moral strengths? I'll have to read Duffy to find out more, but Marr's praise of that commentary seems another unfair judgment. It does not seem as balanced as Marr thinks it is!

I'll let you know what I find.