Newman's Catholic Achievements

Either Anna Mitchell or Matt Swaim and I will conclude our overview of Blessed John Henry Newman's life this morning on the Son Rise Morning Show--a little after 7:45 Eastern/6:45 Central. Listen live here.  The segment will also be repeated during the EWTN hour later in the week and will be loaded to the SRMS SoundCloud!

There was a time that when I thought of Newman's life as a Catholic, I focused on his struggles and failures: the Achilli trial for libel, the Catholic University of Ireland, the Rambler incident, the Oratory conflicts, the translation of the Holy Bible, and the effort to establish an Oratory in Oxford--all great projects Newman undertook to help the Catholic laity in England (and Ireland) take their recently regained status of full citizens after Catholic Emancipation in 1829--that were stymied, thwarted, or blocked.

Now I think of all that he achieved in his day and in ours.

Blessed John Henry Newman wanted to help the laity in both practical and religious ways. And in that, he succeeded, in spite of all the obstacles, and in ways he never anticipated. Just as the two miracles that have led to his beatification and will lead to his canonization have occurred in the USA, I believe that his vision for an educated, catechized Catholic laity in the USA has been achieved. Think of all the Catholic lay apologists, writers, bloggers, speakers, etc and all the laity who have been leading the pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-family causes, not to mention Catholic education, charitable causes, etc. When the Catholic laity learn their faith and live it, we fulfill Newman's idea:

What I desiderate [desire] in Catholics is the gift of bringing out what their religion is. I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity. I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism and where lies the main inconsistencies and absurdities of the Protestant theory. I have no apprehension you will be the worse Catholics for familiarity with these subjects, provided you cherish a vivid sense of God above and keep in mind that you have souls to be judged and saved. In all times the laity have been the measure of the Catholic spirit; they saved the Irish Church three centuries ago and they betrayed the Church in England. You ought to be able to bring out what you feel and what you mean, as well as to feel and mean it; to expose to the comprehension of others the fictions and fallacies of your opponents; to explain the charges brought against the Church, to the satisfaction, not, indeed, of bigots, but of men of sense, of whatever cast of opinion.

Newman certainly wanted the laity to defend the faith, as I described last year in this post for the National Catholic Register blogs, but he also defended the laity's right to give our input on practical matters affecting how we prepare to defend the faith, in schools, colleges. That was why he wrote The Rambler article "On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine" in first place, as this article from the EWTN library explains:

When 1859 began there was a debate in progress in England about elementary education. The government wanted to see more and more elementary schools established. It provided subsidies for their funding, and it appointed a commission whose representatives were to see that this money was well spent and that schooling was extended to all classes. The main providers of schools were the religious denominations. How were they to maintain their denominational integrity if they were to be subjected to public control?

A number of educated Catholic laity took the view that cooperation between the Catholic Church and the commission was not only possible, it was also advisable since the quality of education in Catholic elementary schools would be seen to be high, and the prejudice that Catholics make bad citizens would be put to flight. The commission's representatives would not be concerned with the content of religious education but with its method.

The Catholic bishops declined to cooperate in this way. Perhaps they would have cooperated if they had been guaranteed that the commission's representatives would have been Catholics. In fact, they probably could have secured that, but they were too slow at the time. Before the decision of the bishops became public, articles were already appearing in the Rambler advancing the contrary policy. This was not intentional contradiction of the bishops, but some embarrassment was caused by it. . . .

Newman agreed with the laity writing and published The Rambler that they had the right to be heard on such practical matters (he apologized to the bishops when he took over the publication of that periodical for some of tone of the arguments for cooperation, but he urged them to hear the laity out).

I think he would urge our bishops and the hierarchy, including the Pope and the Curia, to do the same today in the crisis over sexual abuse and cover up among our priests and bishops.

Compare and Contrast: Newman and the Little Flower

The Communion of Saints is a remarkable aspect of the Church in Heaven: each saint in Heaven--proclaimed by the Church formally or not--is holy (meaning that there are definite features of holiness) and unique (holy in his or her own way). This means that we can look at their lives on earth for not only a general encouragement to become more Christlike but also to seek guidance and inspiration in surprising ways.

In the most recent issue of Homiletic & Pastoral Review, Doctor John C. Caiazza compares and contrasts Saint Therese of Lisieux and Blessed John Henry Newman. His focus on is how they prepared the Church for the crucial development at the Second Vatican Council of the universal call to holiness:

It is common these days to read of certain figures whose contribution to the Church in some way prefigured the reforms of Vatican II—e.g., de Lubac, Congar—but among them also are the figures of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower, and Cardinal John Henry Newman. (They will be referred to as “Thérèse” and “Newman” in this article.) Their contributions are the subject of this essay, not in terms of exact and specific contributions to the fully developed doctrine of current Church teaching on the laity, but in terms of the development of spiritual aspirations of lay people—namely that it is not necessary to be a priest or a professed religious to seek the higher altitudes of Jesus’ holy mountain. Both insisted that the highest degrees of holiness, and lively participation in spiritual life, are not restricted to cloistered nuns, or ascetic monks, but are available to lay people, as well. Both figures then, the cloistered nun and the Oxford Scholar, wrote and inspired lay spirituality that was prophetically aimed at the full enunciation of the teaching by the Catholic Church in the documents of the Second Vatican Council and the Catholic Catechism. . . .

What do Thérèse and Newman have in common in regards to their doctrines of lay spirituality? First, that they have such a doctrine that extends the option of spiritual advancement, in a positive and direct sense, to lay people. This is new enough in its way to require notice. Thérèse and Newman readily give an answer to the question: “What is the general means by which lay people may acquire holiness?” Thérèse’s and Newman’s answer is “all you need is love,” that is love expressed in doing one’s daily duties in life. In Thérèse’s case, we have photographs of her doing laundry, and on knees, washing the floor, while in her autobiography, she details her attention she paid to an elderly nun whose irascibility she had to learn to overcome, and ignore; that is, nothing heroic, but doing each day what daily living required. Doing such duties without seeing praise or notice, suppressing resentment, not overlooking details because no one would notice, doing these things for the love of Jesus, was the essence of her “little way” to holiness, a way that is available to all.

Please read the rest there.

I'm sorry for some interruptions in blogging. My mother, Rita, died on Monday, October 16 and my husband was in hospital this week too. Please pray for his complete recovery and please pray for the repose of my mother's soul. Her funeral is on Tuesday, October 24. Thank you.

Newman at Grandpont House in Oxford

I met with a rep from Scepter Publishers a couple of weeks ago and he gave me a copy of a book of essays published by Grandpont House in Oxford (England). John Powers asked me to read and review it. The essays were published after a series of presentations on John Henry Newman leading up to his beatification by Pope Benedict XVI in September 2010: Grandpont Papers 2: The Legacy of John Henry Newman: Essays for the Beatification.

Before I write more about the volume, let me introduce you to Grandpont House and give some more background on the presentations:

According to its website--source of the photo above--"Grandpont House is a late-Georgian building constructed over a branch of the Thames, overlooking Christ Church Meadows in central Oxford. Since 1959 it has acted as a venue for academic, cultural, outreach and religious activities for students and others. Like many other such university centres throughout the world, its establishment was inspired by St Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei."

The centre just completed a series of lectures on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien during Hilary term and Trinity term, which included presentations by Walter Hooper and Stratford Caldecott--"To mark the anniversaries of Lewis and Tolkien – fifty and forty years ago respectively – six seminars will take place at Grandpont House with a view to exploring different aspects of the two scholar-writers. These seminars are not primarily intended for English literature specialists, but aim to engage a general public who are interested in a whole range of topics from ecology to political systems, story-telling to film, philosophy to theology. Each speaker will talk for around 45 minutes, followed by discussion and dialogue—and if something of the convivial atmosphere of the Inklings is rekindled, so much the better." I hope I can get a review copy of those lectures too!

The seminars adapted for the Grandpont Papers took place in May, June, and July of 2010, and this bulletin from Opus Dei gives us details about the speakers and their topics:

In the months leading up to the beatification of John Henry Newman (held in Birmingham, on September 19), Grandpont House university residence organized a cycle of seminars on the writings of the English cardinal. The sessions were directed to the university population of Oxford who wanted to learn more about Newman’s thought.

The first seminar, entitled “Newman and the Laity,” was held on May 22. Msgr. Richard Stork spoke about Newman’s vision of the role of the laity in the Church and in society. Professor Paul Shrimpton then discussed Newman’s ideas on the formation of the laity. He put special emphasis on approach taken at the “Catholic University” that Newman founded in 1854, and at the “Oratory School,” also founded by Newman in 1859.

The sessions on Saturday, June 19, centered on “Newman and Humanism.” Rev. James Pereiro spoke about reason and faith in the Cardinal’s thought and the influence of Aristotle’s ethics. Professor Shrimpton looked at Newman’s vision for the university. Following the thought of the new Blessed, he said that the university should be aimed not a imparting a specific body of knowledge, but rather at the development of a balanced and mature human personality.

The last of the seminars, on “Newman and Conscience,” took place on Saturday, July 17. The first speaker, Fr. Peter Bristow, said that one of Newman’s principal contributions to religious thought was the emphasis placed on the role of conscience in Christian life. This is a recurrent theme in his works and letters, especially in his well-known “Letter to the Duke of Norfolk.” The concluding session was given by the spokesman for Newman’s beatification, Jack Valero, who talked about “Newman and Communication.” Valero highlighted the influence of Newman’s writings on the young Joseph Ratzinger, and on the German student Sophie Scholl and other members of the “White Rose” student movement, some of whom lost their life in opposing Nazism.

Those are three great Newmanian topics: the Laity, Humanism (reason and education), and Conscience! The volume concludes with a reprint of Pope Benedict XVI's Homily at the Beatification of John Henry Newman in September 2010. The other contents are:

Introduction by James Mirabel, Director of Grandpont House

Newman's Idea of the Laity by Monsignor Richard Stork

Newman and the Formation of the Laity by Dr. Paul Shrimpton

"Lead Kindly Light": Reason and Faith by Father James Pereiro

Newman's Pastoral Idea of A University by Dr. Paul Shrimpton

Newman's Teaching on Conscience by Father Peter Bristow

Communicating Newman in the Media by Jack Valero

I'm familiar with the content of most of these essays, of course; Monsignor Stork creatively uses three of Newman's marks of true development to survey Newman's passion and concern for the formation of a laity "who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. . . . an intelligent, well-instructed laity".  I particularly appreciated Professor Paul Shrimpton's analysis of Newman's Idea of of A University because of the focus in his first essay on how Newman wanted the Irish University and the Oratory School to help form the laity for their proper roles in society. Shrimpton addresses Newman's efforts to establish a community of learning and formation; his balance of the instruction and formation students would receive--lectures and tutoring; instruction and counselling; order and recreation--Newman had a definite vision. Unfortunately, the bishops in Ireland began to see the need for a seminary, not a college, and Newman's idea of a university was never completely implemented.

Thinking of Newman as an Aristotelian was a bit of a stunner, but Father James Periero also references Bishop Butler's Analogies, which was more familiar to me. Newman's teaching on conscience is very familiar to me, and Father Bristow really brings out that both the Popes and Newman knew what conscience really meant. Newman had to defend true conscience against even Gladstone's misunderstanding of Pope Pius IX's anathema against "so-called freedom of conscience." That form of freedom of conscience, not the classic Catholic sense, was mere self-will. The final essay just demonstrates how hard it is to portray a Victorian saint in the modern media--Mr. Valero covers several "controversies" in the mix of stories about Newman from his sexuality to his teaching on conscience.

This is a very successful volume of essays, delivered in the place on earth Newman loved the best, where he hoped to be like snapdragon, forever growing on the walls--and in a way he is, now more than ever.

To get your own copy, please check with the Grandpont website on the Library tab--again, I hope Grandpont Papers 3 or 4 is the collection of essays on Lewis and Tolkien. (Images from the website used by permission.)