More on Josephine Ward: Elizabeth Huddleston's Project

I do believe Josephine Ward's time for revival and reevaluation has come! (Here's some detail about the books she wrote.)

From the University of Notre Dame's Cushwa Center:

Elizabeth Huddleston is head of research and publications at the National Institute for Newman Studies and associate editor of the Newman Studies Journal. She also teaches in the Department of Catholic Studies at Duquesne University. In 2024, she received a Research Travel Grant from the Cushwa Center to carry out archival research at Notre Dame in support of her project, “‘A Story of Well-Defined Purpose’: Josephine Hope-Scott Ward’s Social Criticism of Modernism.” Shane Ulbrich corresponded with Huddleston following her visit in April to the Notre Dame Archives.

Huddleston is focused on the Modernist Crisis and what Ward can teach us about it:

The Modernist Controversy has often been studied through the lens of its key figures—Tyrrell, Loisy, Hébert, Houtin, Sabatier, von Hügel, Bremond, to name a few—and their anti-modernist counterparts—Garrigou Lagrange, Merry del Val, Pius X, etc. What can be lost in only viewing the crisis through these polarized and zoomed-in lenses is a sense of how the crisis spilled into the lives of others not at the epicenter. Wilfrid and Josephine were conversant with tenets of both modernism and anti-modernism. Of course they did not want to be censored or condemned, but they also felt that the church was lacking in her relationship with the modern world. Their writings, both personal and published, reflect the tumult felt within the Catholic landscape of the era. While it is important to study the central figures and tenets of movements and crises, it is also important to take a step back and try to view the ripple effects of the crisis to the wider church. The correspondence and writings of Josephine Ward help us gain a better understanding of these currents.

Please read the rest there . . .

Years ago (pre-blog) I read Critics on Trial: An Introduction to the Catholic Modernist Crisis by Marvin O'Connell. One reason I've been interested in the subject is of course the effect on Cardinal Newman's reputation at the time. You may be sure that I'll be following this project with great interest! It especially makes me hope that Out of Due Time, the novel Huddleston mentions, might be published soon.