Sophie Scholl's Conscience and Blessed John Henry Newman

Sophie Scholl, White Rose objector to Nazi rule in Germany, and her brother Hans were guillotined on February 22, 1943. Scholl is one of the most admired women in 20th Century German history because she and her brother, with a few others at the University of Munich, tried to persuade the German people to reject that Nazi rule by publishing pamphlets and distributing them widely.

As Paul Shrimpton explains in a 2018 article in the UK's Catholic Herald, Blessed John Henry Newman's teachings on conscience inspired Sophie and The White Rise group because of Theodor Haecker's translations:

The man who brought Newman’s writings to the attention of the Munich students was the philosopher and cultural historian Theodor Haecker. Haecker had become a Catholic after translating Newman’s Grammar of Assent in 1921, and for the rest of his life Newman was his guiding star. He translated seven of Newman’s works, and on several occasions read excerpts from them at the illegal secret meetings Hans Scholl convened for his friends. Strange though it may seem, the insights of the Oxford academic were ideally suited to help these students make sense of the catastrophe they were living through. . . .

When Sophie’s boyfriend, a Luftwaffe officer called Fritz Hartnagel, was deployed to the Eastern Front in May 1942, Sophie’s parting gift was two volumes of Newman’s sermons. After witnessing the carnage in Russia, Fritz wrote to Sophie to say that reading Newman’s words in such an awful place was like tasting “drops of precious wine”.

In another letter, Fritz wrote: “We know by whom we were created, and that we stand in a relationship of moral obligation to our creator. Conscience gives us the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.” These words were taken almost verbatim from a famous sermon of Newman’s called “The Testimony of Conscience”. In it, Newman explains that conscience is an echo of the voice of God enlightening each person to moral truth in specific situations. All of us, he argues, have a duty to obey a right conscience over and above all other considerations.

At the White Rose trial, Sophie said that it was her Christian conscience that had compelled her to oppose the Nazi regime non-violently. The same was true for Hans: he, like his sister, had found in Newman and other Christian writers the resources and inspiration to make sense of the brutal and demonic world around him.

More on Haecker here. He also translated Newman's Development of Christian Doctrine, Historical Sketches, and The Dream of Gerontius! (Edith Stein, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, translated The Idea of a University.) More about Newman's influence among Catholics in 1920's Germany here.

Sophie and Hans wanted to follow Haecker, Newman, and their White Rose partner Christoph Probst into the Catholic Church right before their executions, but were persuaded not to because of how it would have affected their mother, a devout Lutheran lay preacher!

In 1990, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger explained how he had been inspired by Newman's thoughts on conscience after the Nazi regime had been destroyed:

In January 1946, when I began my study of theology in the Seminary in Freising which had finally reopened after the confusion of the war, an older student was assigned as prefect to our group, who had begun to work on a dissertation on Newman's theology of conscience, even before the beginning of the war. In all the years of his military service he had not lost sight of this theme, which he now turned to with new enthusiasm and energy.

We were soon bonded by a personal friendship, wholly centred on the great problems of philosophy and theology. Of course, Newman was always present. Alfred Läpple— the name of the abovementioned prefect — published his dissertation in 1952 with the title: Der Einzelne in der Kirche (The Individual in the Church).

For us at that time, Newman's teaching on conscience became an important foundation for theological personalism, which was drawing us all in its sway. Our image of the human being as well as our image of the Church was permeated by this point of departure.

We had experienced the claim of a totalitarian party, which understood itself as the fulfilment of history and which negated the conscience of the individual. One of its leaders had said: "I have no conscience. My conscience is Adolf Hitler". The appalling devastation of humanity that followed was before our eyes.

So it was liberating and essential for us to know that the "we" of the Church does not rest on a cancellation of conscience, but that, exactly the opposite, it can only develop from conscience.

Precisely because Newman interpreted the existence of the human being from conscience, that is, from the relationship between God and the soul, was it clear that this personalism is not individualism, and that being bound by conscience does not mean being free to make random choices — the exact opposite is the case.

I wonder if Sophie, Hans, and Christoph realized they were being executed--born into eternal life--the day after their guide to conscience John Henry Newman's birthday 142 years earlier?

Henry VIII's Musical Spy (and Double Agent)

From Alamire, directed by David Skinner, comes this new release of Tudor church music with a connection to the White Rose of York:

One of the most magnificent musical treasures in the British Library is a sumptuously illuminated choir book given the shelf-mark Royal MS 8.g.vii. It is magnificent for several reasons, not least its beauty and contents, but also its origin, history, and ultimate destination. The book was devised and assembled in the finest scriptorium of all of Europe in the early sixteenth century: the workshop of Petrus Alamire (c. 1470-1536). Alamire (aka Peter van den Hoven), was not only a brilliant illuminator and music scribe, he was also a noted musician and composer in his own right.

But there were many interests of Petrus Alamire: the merchant, the mining engineer, and, most famously, the diplomat and spy. Musicians of Alamire’s popularity and talent were often widely travelled, frequently visiting the various courts of Europe; such a career was a perfect cover for sensitive political and diplomatic exchanges. Between 1515 and 1518 a number of letters survive which show that Alamire acted as a spy for Henry VIII against Richard de la Pole, last member of the House of York who openly sought claim to the English throne. Pole in turn, hired Alamire as a counter-spy against Henry VIII.

This so-called ‘Spy’s Choirbook’ contains some of the finest music of Continental Europe from the early sixteenth century by such noted composers as Heinrich Isaac, Petrus de la Rue and Josquin Desprez. Most of the works have not been performed in modern times, and this is the first recording dedicated to this most interesting of musical manuscripts from the Alamire scriptorium.

Hannah Furness highlights the two-disc CD set for The Telegraph:

Choral music not heard since the time of Henry VIII has been brought to life for the first time in 500 years.

The manuscript, a book of 34 religious songs, was given to Henry VIII as a lavish gift from a French diplomat in his early reign.

Containing songs referencing Henry and his then-bride Catherine of Aragon, it is considered the most "luxurious" surviving diplomatic gift of its kind.

It remained in the Royal Collection after the king's death, and was later given to the nation by George II where it has remained in the vaults of the British Library ever since.

Dr David Skinner, a Cambridge fellow, has now examined the manuscript to bring the music back to life with ensemble choir featuring nine singers and period instruments. . . .

Dr Skinner said the whole score "has certainly never been performed live in its entirety before", adding: "I think that our version is pretty close to what might have been heard in around 1520."

The entire collection has now been recorded, and will be available for sale under the name The Spy's Choirbook from October 1. (October 14 in the U.S.A.)

Petrus Alamire was a double agent and also informed on Henry VIII to Richard de la Pole. Henry found out and Alamire stayed away from England!