Saint John Henry Newman's Political Thought

Earlier this summer I taught a Graduate level course on "Saint John Henry Newman and the New Evangelization" at Newman University. It's not a class on Newman's life and works exclusively, but a class applying some of Newman's ideas for reviving the Church of England when he was an Anglican minister at the University of Oxford, and his efforts to teach and defend the teachings of the Catholic Church as an Oratorian after his conversion in 1845.

We read many of Newman's Parochial and Plain Sermons, The Dream of Gerontius, excerpts from other works, like the Grammar of Assent, his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, etc., and various articles and chapters analyzing his life and works.

Several times the students asked me about some aspect of Newman's life and works that didn't immediately touch on the topic of the New Evangelization, focused on the revival of Catholic life and practice among Catholics or those falling or fallen away from the Church in previously Christian or Catholic cultures. I had to tell them that Newman did not write a comprehensive fundamental theological work on Catholic doctrine, moral, sacramental, or spiritual, etc. 

Although we rightly often speak of Newman as a theologian, he was not a systematic theologian--he was consistent, but not systematic. He addressed certain themes and topics when he thought they need defending, on certain occasions, like Gladstone's contention that Catholics couldn't follow their (English) consciences after the doctrine of Papal Infallibility was proclaimed, or Pusey's not-so-peaceful discussion of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, or the position of the Catholic laity in the Church, particularly regarding practical matters but also regarding the sensus fidelium (the sense of the faithful), etc.

And, as this article by Austin Walker shows, Newman was not a systematic writer about political philosophy, either: 

Newman was an occasional and unsystematic writer who never authored a formal treatise on political philosophy. Nor did he often weigh in on the political issues of the day—in fact, the only time he addressed a contemporary issue was when he wrote a series of pseudonymous letters on the Crimean War to chastise an intemperate British public for expecting too much from political life. [Sic: one might argue that Newman's Tamworth Reading Room letters should be included, as they chastised Sir Robert Peel for dictating a “fundamental rule, that no works of controversial divinity shall enter into the library” Peel was establishing for those who could not benefit from a university education at Oxford with the goal of improving their intellects and morals.]  However, one can find the key to Newman’s political insights in his treatment of the political status of the church.

Newman’s real political concern was the independence and vitality of the church, as viewed through the eyes of the Alexandrian Fathers. As an Anglican, Newman saw the independence of the church most immediately in its relation to the English state. As a Catholic, the same fundamental concerns remained, but they were inflected in a new valence. If Anglican Newman worried about the oppression of the church by the state, Catholic Newman was concerned about the oppression of the church by the predominating philosophy of the day. Liberalism promised an illusory liberty by positing a new mode of human organization, anthropology, and history. Newman’s political project, as both an Anglican and a Catholic, was to reassert a biblical and ecclesial reality that the age was forgetting how to see: the church itself as “an object of veneration and loyalty.”

Walker then unpacks Newman's concerns for the Church of England during his Anglican years, especially as a leader of the Tractarian Movement, and as a Catholic after 1845. 

With all the links to the various works throughout the article, it demonstrates one of the great advantages we do have in this technological age: the reader can both appreciate Professor Walker's analysis and read the entire work he cites without reaching for a book on the shelf, thanks to the newmanreader.org website!

Image: bust of Saint John Henry Newman in the garden of the College in Littlemore (c) Stephanie A. Mann (2023)