Preview: The Restoration of the Hierarchy/the Gorham Judgment/Anglican Difficulties: 1850

One hundred and seventy five years ago, three events in England now offer some context to the history of religion in England for us to consider: 

1. On September 29, 1850 Blessed Pope Pius IX restored the Catholic hierarchy in England, an act of "Papal Aggression" according to the Queen and her Parliament;

2. The Gorham Judgment on March 8, 1850 led several more Tractarians to "Cross the Tiber";

3. Oratorian Father John Henry Newman reached out to those Tractarians with his public Lectures on Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Submitting to the Catholic Church, starting in July 1850.

So on Monday, September 29, the feast of the Archangels, we'll consider these 2025 Anniversaries in our Son Rise Morning Show series by focusing on the Gorham Judgment, which, like later decisions in the Church of England, led some on the edge of conversion to "submit" to the Catholic Church. I'll be on the air at my usual time around 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central to discuss this anniversary and its importance. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

The Reverend George Cornelius Gorham (1787-1857) was appointed to a "living" (a pastoral position) at the vicarage in Bramford Speke in Exeter. The Anglican bishop of that diocese--the appointment was made by the Lord Chancellor, Charles Christopher Pepys, 1st Earl of Cottenham--Henry Phillpotts, refused to install Gorham in the living because Gorham's views on Baptism weren't orthodox according to Church of England doctrine. He did not believe in the Sacramental Grace of Baptism to be salvific but as conditional. Gorham appealed to the Anglican Bishops Court of Arches and lost on appeal. So Gorham took his cause to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, a secular authority, who overruled the Bishops Court.

To those who'd remained in the Tractarian/Oxford Movement, this was a real blow. Henry Manning, the Archdeacon particularly felt the blow. Newman's "defection" and the bishops' action against the Movement had been bad enough, but here was more proof that the Church of England was an Erastian church, under the control of the secular state which presumed to determine what the Church believed. The Privy Council, not the Court of Arches, had interpreted the Thirty-Nine Articles--this was a real crisis.

Manning and others, including William Gladstone, made an appeal to the bishops to undo this Privy Council action. When that was ignored, Manning and others--but not Gladstone--made the great decision to convert to Catholicism. Among those who joined Manning: Thomas William Allies, William Wilberforce, Jr. and his brothers Robert and Henry Wilberforce, sons of "The Great Emancipator", William Wilberforce, Sr.; John Hungerford Pollen, William Dodsworth, James Hope-Scott, and Edward Badeley.

The context of those conversions, taking place even as Queen Victoria and Parliament felt threatened by Pope Pius IX appointing Catholic bishops to organize Catholic dioceses in England, was momentous. Newman saw the opportunity to reach out to Manning and others, using arguments to answer the kind of difficulties he'd encountered along the way to his conversion, and therefore offered a lecture series in London on those Anglican Difficulties. 

In the wake of the Gorham Judgment, he emphasized the Erastian nature of the Established Church. In the first lecture "On the Relation of the National Church to the Nation" he warned them:

I have said all this, my brethren, not in declamation, but to bring out clearly to you, why I cannot feel interest of any kind in the National Church, nor put any trust in it at all from its past history, as if it were, in however narrow a sense, a guardian of orthodoxy. It is as little bound by what it said or did formerly, as this morning's newspaper by its former numbers, except as it is bound by the Law; and while it is upheld by the Law, it will not be weakened by the subtraction of individuals, nor fortified by their continuance. Its life is an Act of Parliament. It will not be able to resist the Arian, Sabellian, or Unitarian heresies now, because Bull or Waterland resisted them a century or two before; nor on the other hand would it be unable to resist them, though its more orthodox theologians were presently to leave it. It will be able to resist them while the State gives the word; it would be unable, when the State forbids it. Elizabeth boasted that she "tuned her pulpits;" Charles forbade discussions on predestination; George on the Holy Trinity; Victoria allows differences on Holy Baptism. While the nation wishes an Establishment, it will remain, whatever individuals are for it or against it; and that which determines its existence will determine its voice. Of course {9} the presence or departure of individuals will be one out of various disturbing causes, which may delay or accelerate by a certain number of years a change in its teaching: but, after all, the change itself depends on events broader and deeper than these; it depends on changes in the nation. As the nation changes its political, so may it change its religious views; the causes which carried the Reform Bill and Free Trade may make short work with orthodoxy.

He was warning them that the Erastian Church of England would follow the spirit of the age and the interests of the establishment and that "changes in the nation" would be the source of church teaching, not those "Truths divinely revealed, developed, and explained by men of genius in the past . . ."

After 1850, there have been other decisions made in the Church of England that have incited Anglican pastors and laymen to become Catholic, like ordaining women as priests and bishops. Pope Saint John Paul II, with the Pastoral Provision, and Pope Benedict XVI, with the creation of the Anglican Ordinariate, acknowledged the impact of such decisions by welcoming Episcopalian and Anglican clergy to the Catholic priesthood, even if married after their conversions, if they felt the call.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Blessed Pius IX, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): Portrait of the Reverend George Cornelius Gorham 

Book Review: "Weep, Shudder, Die" by Dana Gioia

I enjoy listening to, watching, and reading about opera. When I was little my grandparents--and later my parents--had the two volume Lincoln Library of Essential Information (not sure what edition) and it contained a section with synopses of all the major operas and I nearly memorized them. The plot to Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots shocked me and then I had to read about the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre! Probably in the Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedia.

I've attended eight or so operatic performances, but I've watched many more on television and listened to them on the radio (especially the Met's Saturday Matinee broadcasts!), records, compact discs, and now YouTube. So when I saw this book recommended on an OperaAmerica video, I had to read it: Weep, Shudder, Die: On Opera and Poetry, by Dana Gioia.

According to the publisher, Paul Dry Books:

Weep, Shudder, Die explores opera from the perspective by which the art was originally created, as the most intense form of poetic drama. The great operas have an essential connection to poetry, song, and the primal power of the human voice. The aim of opera is irrational enchantment, the unleashing of emotions and visionary imagination.

Gioia rejects the conventional view of opera which assumes that great operas can be built on execrable texts. He insists that in opera, words matter. Operas begin as words; strong words inspire composers, weak words burden them. Ultimately, singers embody the words to give the music a human form for the audience.

Weep, Shudder, Die is a poet’s book about opera. To some, that statement will suggest writing that is airy, impressionistic, and unreliable, but a poet also brings a practical sense of how words animate opera, lend life to imaginary characters, and give human shape to music. Written from a lifelong devotion to the art, Gioia’s book is for anyone who has wept in the dark of an opera house.

Or laughed.

I appreciated the autobiographical background of Gioia's boyhood, college days, and travels to Europe. He describes his discovery of opera, classical music, and literature, and how they set him apart from his classmates. 

His encyclopedic and detailed analysis of the great librettists of the core of the standard repertoire is helpful: 24 of the 50 most performed operas have librettos written by eight poets:

Lorenzo Da Ponte

Felice Romani 

Francisco Maria Piave 

Salvadore Cammarano

Arrigo Boito

Luigi Illica

Hugo von Hoffmansthal

Richard Wagner

Gioia also selects "stellar teams":

Mozart with Da Ponte 

Bellini with Romani

Verdi with Piave 

Verdi with Boito

Puccini with Illica

Strauss with Hoffmansthal

Wagner with Wagner (he wrote his own "poems")

[Cammarano wrote the libretto for Verdi's Il Trovatore]

He also highlights Pietro Metastasio, whose librettos inspired Vivaldi, Handel, Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, and Donizetti, even after his death, especially for the opera seria style.

Although Gioia argues that opera is an incredibly collaborative art of the theatre, he focuses mostly on the composer and the librettist and even notes that he will not--except for one slip--talk about the singers who sing the words and music, even though he admits later in the book that each singer will interpret the words and music differently. He mentions singers he heard in Vienna, with Cesare Siepi, Sena Jurinac, Gundula Janowitz, and Wilma Lipp--so a long time ago. He mentions Leontyne Price, William Warfield, and others, including Leyla Gencer, but the index doesn't tell me where; she was a great bel canto soprano but did not make many commercial recordings; I think she was called "the queen of the bootlegs"! He briefly mentions the system of "fach"; on page 151 he states: "Opera exists only through the skill and artistry of singers. I didn't understand opera until I saw great singers perform it." He also does not write much about the conductors of opera. His focus is on the libretto as it inspires the composer to compose the music the conductor, the orchestra, and the singers will perform.

Chapters on individual opera librettists and composers in the USA from Menotti and Floyd to Bernstein and Sondheim are discerning and fascinating and then in last chapters he gets into his own experience writing opera librettos and how much it differed from his work as a poet, expressing himself, not the characters in the operas, etc. Crucially, he also discusses the relationship between opera in the USA and our musical theater--what American works are operas and which are musical theater pieces? Porgy and Bess? Sweeney Todd? A Little Night Music? Candide?

Gioia also discusses the state of opera in the USA: there's a dwindling market but it's passionate and devoted. The OperaAmerica video I watched (in which this book was recommended) highlighted the great quality of the singers prepared and trained in the USA and their limited opportunities: the interviewee said he was encouraging singers to go the European houses (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) where they can become "house singers" and practice and perform their repertoire. That is certainly going to affect the opportunities for librettists and composers in the USA. It's a fascinating book.

I found Leyla Gencer! Page 99 not page 211 as it's listed in the index.

Preview: Henriëtte Bosmans and "Lead, Kindly Light" in 1945

I had never heard of Henriëtte Bosmans until earlier this month! And I certainly did not know that she had composed a work for soprano and either piano or orchestra based on Saint John Henry Newman's poem "Lead, Kindly Light"--and that it had premiered in 1945, thus 80 years ago. With that date, however, I knew this was a topic for our Son Rise Morning Show 2025 Anniversary series. 

Therefore, on Monday, September 22, I'll be on the air at my usual time around 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central to discuss this anniversary and its background. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

Bosmans was born in Amsterdam on December 6, 1895 (130 years ago); her father was Catholic and her mother was Jewish--and her father died when she was six months old. It was a musical family as her father had been the principal cellist of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and her mother, Sarah Benedicts, was a piano teacher at the Amsterdam Conservatory.

Henriëtte studied piano with her mother and other instructors at the Conservatory and taught piano herself; then she began her concert and composing careers as this website explains:

Bosmans debuted as a concert pianist in 1915 in Utrecht. She performed throughout Europe with among others Pierre Monteux, Willem Mengelberg and Ernest Ansermet. She gave 22 concerts with the Concertgebouw Orchestra alone between 1929 and 1949. She played one of her own compositions at a concert in Geneva in 1929. In 1940, one of her compositions was performed in concert by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, with Ruth Posselt as the soloist. In 1941, Posselt again performed work by Bosmans, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

The BBC Music Magazine recounts a terrible event in her life even as she was forbidden from publishing or performing her works because her mother Jewish and because Henriette refused to cooperate with the Nazi cultural authorities in occupied Netherlands:

One day, in a climate of constant threat, the worst happened: Sara was arrested by the Gestapo. Taken to the Westerbork transit camp, the last stop for many before they were deported and murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Sobibor, her fate seemed sealed.

Bosmans went to the Gestapo HQ in Amsterdam to plea for her mother’s life, apparently confronting the officers. She also turned to Willem Mengelberg, conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, to ask his help. Astonishingly, five days after arriving at Westerbork, Sara was freed and sent back to Amsterdam.

The same article explains how she turned from composing for the piano, cello, and other stringed instruments after the end of World War II and to composing for the voice, including Newman's "Lead, Kindly Light":

Her creative spirit was rekindled by the end of the war. ‘Oppression is crushed and freedom begins,’ cries her liberation song Daar Komen de Canadezen (Here come the Canadians). She dedicated both this and Gebed (Prayer) to Jo Vincent, a famous Dutch soprano who had appeared at the Proms [in England]. In 1945, Vincent appeared in Amsterdam with the Concertgebouw and Sir Adrian Boult to sing Lead, kindly light, Bosmans’s setting of a hopeful English text by Cardinal Newman.

The date of that concert was November 3, 1945, just six months after the liberation of The Netherlands on May 5 when the Germans officially surrendered at the demand of the Royal Canadian Regiment (thus the song about the Canadians coming!). 

Unlike the hymn settings by John Bacchus Dykes (Lux Benigna), William Henry Harris (Alberta), David Evans (Bonifacio), Charles H. Purday (Sandon), or Arthur Sullivan (Lux in Tenebris), this is a work for a professional vocalist with either orchestral or piano accompaniment. The piano score is marked throughout as "Adagio sostenuto" for the keyboard and either "piu tranquillo" or "poco animato" for the soprano soloist, so it is delicate and subdued, in spite of its hopeful ending.

Henriëtte died on July 2, 1952. May she rest in the peace of that Kindly Light.

Saint John Henry, pray for us!

Image Source (Public Domain): Photograph of Henriëtte Bosmans (1917) by Jacob Merkelbach (1877-1942)

Preview: Fifteen Years Ago, Newman's Beatification

Earlier this month, King Charles III visited the Birmingham Oratory in honor of Saint John Henry Newman being named a Doctor of the Catholic Church. You might recall that as the Prince of Wales he attended Newman's canonization in 2019. 

Fifteen years ago this month, Pope Benedict XVI came to Scotland and England on a State Visit and beatified Newman in Cofton Park outside Birmingham. So on Monday, September 15--very appropriately, since Pope Benedict arrived in Scotland on September 16, 2010--we'll remember this anniversary on the Son Rise Morning Show, at my usual time (6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern); please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

You can still find details about that State Visit here! Just some highlights:

Thursday, September 16, 2010: Queen Elizabeth II met Pope Benedict XVI at the airport and offered some remarks:

. . .Your Holiness, in recent times you have said that ‘religions can never become vehicles of hatred, that never by invoking the name of God can evil and violence be justified’. Today, in this country, we stand united in that conviction. We hold that freedom to worship is at the core of our tolerant and democratic society.

On behalf of the people of the United Kingdom I wish you a most fruitful and memorable visit.

Pope Benedict responded by remembering another anniversary, the end of World War II:

. . . As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a "reductive vision of the person and his destiny" (Caritas in Veritate, 29).

Sixty-five years ago, Britain played an essential role in forging the post-war international consensus which favoured the establishment of the United Nations and ushered in a hitherto unknown period of peace and prosperity in Europe. . . .

He participated in a parade honoring Saint Ninian after an official visit with the Queen and Prince Philip at Holyroodhouse, and then celebrated Mass in Glasgow's Bellahouston Park, where Saint John Paul II celebrated Mass in 1982.

Friday, September 17, 2010: After leaving Scotland for England, the pope attended several events in London, met with the Archbishop of Canterbury and then spoke at Westminster Hall to politicians and other government officials, where he highlighted another great Englishman and saint:

As I speak to you in this historic setting, I think of the countless men and women down the centuries who have played their part in the momentous events that have taken place within these walls and have shaped the lives of many generations of Britons, and others besides. In particular, I recall the figure of Saint Thomas More, the great English scholar and statesman, who is admired by believers and non-believers alike for the integrity with which he followed his conscience, even at the cost of displeasing the sovereign whose “good servant” he was, because he chose to serve God first. The dilemma which faced More in those difficult times, the perennial question of the relationship between what is owed to Caesar and what is owed to God, allows me the opportunity to reflect with you briefly on the proper place of religious belief within the political process. . . .

Later that evening he prayed Evensong in Westminster Abbey with the Archbishop of Canterbury and other church dignitaries.

Saturday, September 18, 2010: This day was dedicated to Catholic Westminster: the Cardinal Archbishop, Mass at Westminster Cathedral, and Eucharistic Adoration that night in Hyde Park, where Pope Benedict talked about Newman and alluded to other English martyrs:

Newman’s life also teaches us that passion for the truth, intellectual honesty and genuine conversion are costly. The truth that sets us free cannot be kept to ourselves; it calls for testimony, it begs to be heard, and in the end its convincing power comes from itself and not from the human eloquence or arguments in which it may be couched. Not far from here, at Tyburn, great numbers of our brothers and sisters died for the faith; the witness of their fidelity to the end was ever more powerful than the inspired words that so many of them spoke before surrendering everything to the Lord. In our own time, the price to be paid for fidelity to the Gospel is no longer being hanged, drawn and quartered but it often involves being dismissed out of hand, ridiculed or parodied. And yet, the Church cannot withdraw from the task of proclaiming Christ and his Gospel as saving truth, the source of our ultimate happiness as individuals and as the foundation of a just and humane society.

Finally, Newman teaches us that if we have accepted the truth of Christ and committed our lives to him, there can be no separation between what we believe and the way we live our lives. Our every thought, word and action must be directed to the glory of God and the spread of his Kingdom. Newman understood this, and was the great champion of the prophetic office of the Christian laity. . . .

And finally, Sunday, September 19, 2010: The day of the Beatification Mass at Cofton Park. Pope Benedict had admired Newman since he was a young man and he certainly knew the depths of Newman's intellectual, historical, and rhetorical brilliance but he emphasized a different aspect at the end of his homily:

While it is John Henry Newman’s intellectual legacy that has understandably received most attention in the vast literature devoted to his life and work, I prefer on this occasion to conclude with a brief reflection on his life as a priest, a pastor of souls. The warmth and humanity underlying his appreciation of the pastoral ministry is beautifully expressed in another of his famous sermons: “Had Angels been your priests, my brethren, they could not have condoled with you, sympathized with you, have had compassion on you, felt tenderly for you, and made allowances for you, as we can; they could not have been your patterns and guides, and have led you on from your old selves into a new life, as they can who come from the midst of you” (“Men, not Angels: the Priests of the Gospel”, Discourses to Mixed Congregations, 3). He lived out that profoundly human vision of priestly ministry in his devoted care for the people of Birmingham during the years that he spent at the Oratory he founded, visiting the sick and the poor, comforting the bereaved, caring for those in prison. No wonder that on his death so many thousands of people lined the local streets as his body was taken to its place of burial not half a mile from here. One hundred and twenty years later, great crowds have assembled once again to rejoice in the Church’s solemn recognition of the outstanding holiness of this much-loved father of souls. What better way to express the joy of this moment than by turning to our heavenly Father in heartfelt thanksgiving, praying in the words that Blessed John Henry Newman placed on the lips of the choirs of angels in heaven:

Praise to the Holiest in the height
And in the depth be praise;
In all his words most wonderful,
Most sure in all his ways!

After visiting the Birmingham Oratory and other meetings, Pope Benedict received a farewell from David Cameron the Prime Minister as this had been a State Visit:

. . . Your Holiness, your presence here has been a great honour for our country. Now you are leaving us – and I hope with strong memories. When you think of our country, think of it as one that not only cherishes faith, but one that is deeply, but quietly, compassionate. I see it in the incredible response to the floods in Pakistan. I see it in the spirit of community that drives countless good deeds done for friends and neighbours every day. And in my own life, I have seen it in the many, many kind messages that I have had as I have cradled a new daughter and said goodbye to a wonderful father. . . .

Those comments seem quite heartfelt.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Preview: The Composition and Publication of the "Dream of the Gerontius" in 1865

Before Edward Elgar set the text of Newman's Dream of Gerontius to music in 1900, of course, Newman had written that eloquent poem about death, judgment, Heaven, and hell in 1865, 160 years ago this year. 

So, since two weeks ago on the Son Rise Morning Show we featured the Elgar anniversary, this coming Monday, September 8, we'll look at the composition and publication of Saint (Doctor) John Henry Newman's poem itself in 1865. (The Son Rise Morning hosts were busy the week before at the EWTN Radio Conference in Washington, DC and took the Monday, September 1 Labor Day holiday off!) I'll be on the air at my usual time around 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

Newman's other most famous poem is "The Pillar of the Cloud", better known as "Lead, Kindly Light". He wrote that poem and many others while he was travelling with his friend Hurrell Froude in Italy and the Mediterranean. He wrote those verses in the Romantic mode as defined by William Wordsworth in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800): as ". . . the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity", reflecting on his experiences on that journey.

Newman wrote this poem, the longest we have of his, on 52 scraps of paper between January 17 and February 7, 1865. There was a sudden inspiration and an urge to write it--and a definite end to the inspiration. One of his biographers, Wilfrid Ward, describes its composition:

Now, after the abandonment of the Oxford scheme [to found an Oratory for Catholic students, who could at last attend Oxford] gave him leisure for it, he set down in dramatic form the vision of a Christian's death on which his imagination had been dwelling. The writing of it was a sudden inspiration, and his work was begun in January and completed in February 1865. "On the 17th of January last," he writes to Mr. Allies in October, "it came into my head to write it, I really can't tell how. And I wrote on till it was finished on small bits of paper, and I could no more write anything else by willing it than I could fly." To another correspondent [The Rev. John Telford, priest at Ryde] also, who was fascinated by the Dream, and longed to have the picture it gave still further filled in, he wrote:

"You do me too much honour if you think I am to see in a dream everything that is to be seen in the subject dreamed about. I have said what I saw. Various spiritual writers see various aspects of it; and under their protection and pattern I have set down the dream as it came before the sleeper. It is not my fault if the sleeper did not dream more. Perhaps something woke him. Dreams are generally fragmentary. I have nothing more to tell."

As I wrote in an earlier post about this poem, Newman was able to turn away from controversy and difficulties to contemplate eternal truths:

Perhaps after such strain of confusion, controversy, and confrontation, it was restful to contemplate the certainties of God's justice and mercy when a man dies. No more secrecy and indirection; the soul meets Jesus, knows Him, knows himself, and looks forward to being with the Holy Trinity and the saints in Heaven after his purgation. Newman explored the Church's dogmatic teachings about death and judgement, heaven and hell in a mystical, dreamy poem, harking back to his childhood love of fantasy and wonder--his sense that life was somehow a dream--while reflecting his assent to the certainties of divine revelation and his faith in the reality of God. He also includes liturgical and devotional prayers for the dying and the death, including the Litany of the Saints and the Proficiscere prayer ("Go forth, Christian Soul") in a supremely, confidently Catholic poem.

Although though it is "a supremely, confidently Catholic poem" The Dream met with ecumenical approval--even his former defamer Charles Kingsley liked it! William Gladstone and Algernon Charles Swinburne, the decadent school poet, admired the poem's verse and power. Francis Hastings Doyle, the Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford, gave a lecture on The Dream of Gerontius in 1868. News that General George Gordon, "Chinese Gordon", had a copy of the poem with him at Khartoum--and that he had annotated it--when he was attacked and killed in January 1885 gave the poem even greater notoriety. As Father Ian Ker of happy memory noted in his biography of Newman, "interest in the fate of Gordon of Khartoum" was so intense that William Neville transcribed Gordon's annotations into copies of The Dream of Gerontius (p. 741).

The Dream of Gerontius was then published in the May and June issues of The Month, a periodical founded in 1864 by the convert Frances Margaret Taylor (Mother Magdalen of the Sacred Heart, Poor Servants of the Mother of God). The Jesuits in England bought The Month in 1865 and Father Henry James Coleridge, another convert (great nephew of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge), became the publisher and editor.

So the 160th anniversary of this poem is worth remembering as the work continues to have its impact artistically and theologically. It may not always be, as Francis Hastings Doyle commented, the greatest artistic success, but it has perdured through the decades through its beauty and depth.

[In 2022, throughout the month of November, Matt and Anna and I went through The Dream of Gerontius in as much detail as we could in our Monday morning segments!]

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!