Preview: Newman and Papal Infallibility

On Monday, June 17, I presume that Anna Mitchell and I (since I talked to Matt Swaim last time) will discuss Blessed John Henry Newman and Papal Infallibility on the Son Rise Morning Show. We are continuing our Santo Subito! series at 7:50 a.m. Eastern DST and 6:50 a.m. Central DST on Sacred Heart Radio. She'll repeat the segment during the EWTN national hour sometime after our live broadcast.

On October 6, 1845, just days before he became a Catholic, Blessed John Henry Newman retracted his statements against the Catholic Church and the Papacy. In his Apologia pro Vita Sua, he notes that when he was 15 years old he firmly believed the Pope was the Antichrist:

Now I come to two other works, which produced a deep impression on me in the same Autumn of 1816, when I was fifteen years old, each contrary to each, and planting in me the seeds of an intellectual inconsistency which disabled me for a long course of years. I read Joseph Milner's Church History, and was nothing short of enamoured of the long extracts from St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, and the other Fathers which I found there. I read them as being the religion of the primitive Christians: but simultaneously with Milner I read [Sir Isaac] Newton On the Prophecies, and in consequence became most firmly convinced that the Pope was the Antichrist predicted by Daniel, St. Paul, and St. John.

Under the influence of his beloved friend Richard Hurrell Froude, he explains later in the Apologia, he explains how his feelings toward Rome and Papacy changed, although his reasons for rejecting the "Church of Rome" and the Pope had not:

But now, as to the third point on which I stood in 1833, and which I have utterly renounced and trampled upon since,—my then view of the Church of Rome;—I will speak about it as exactly as I can. When I was young, as I have said already, and after I was grown up, I thought the Pope to be Antichrist. At Christmas 1824-5 I preached a Sermon to that effect. But in 1827 I accepted eagerly the stanza in the Christian Year, which many people thought too charitable. "Speak gently of thy sister's fall." From the time that I knew Froude I got less and less bitter on the subject. I spoke (successively, but I cannot tell in what order or at what dates) of the Roman Church as being bound up with "the cause of Antichrist," as being one of the "many antichrists" foretold by St. John, as being influenced by "the spirit of Antichrist," and as having something "very Antichristian" or "unchristian" about her. From my boyhood and in 1824 I considered, after Protestant authorities, that St. Gregory I. about A.D. 600 was the first Pope that was Antichrist, though, in spite of this, he was also a great and holy man; but in 1832-3 I thought the Church of Rome was bound up with the cause of Antichrist by the Council of Trent. When it was that in my deliberate judgment I gave up the notion altogether in any shape, that some special reproach was attached to her name, I cannot tell; but I had a shrinking from renouncing it, even when my reason so ordered me, from a sort of conscience or prejudice, I think up to 1843. Moreover, at least during the Tract Movement, I thought the essence of her offence to consist in the honours which she paid to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints; and the more I grew in devotion, both to the Saints and to our Lady, the more impatient was I at the Roman practices, as if those glorified creations of God must be gravely shocked, if pain could be theirs, at the undue veneration of which they were the objects.

On the other hand, Hurrell Froude in his familiar conversations was always tending to rub the idea out of my mind. . . .Moreover, from Froude I learned to admire the great medieval Pontiffs; and, of course, when I had come to consider the Council of Trent to be the turning-point of the history of Christian Rome, I found myself as free, as I was rejoiced, to speak in their praise. Then, when I was abroad, the sight of so many great places, venerable shrines, and noble churches, much impressed my imagination. And my heart was touched also. Making an expedition on foot across some wild country in Sicily, at six in the morning, I came upon a small church; I heard voices, and I looked in. It was crowded, and the congregation was singing. Of course it was the Mass, though I did not know it at the time. And, in my weary days at Palermo, I was not ungrateful for the comfort which I had received in frequenting the Churches; nor did I ever forget it. Then, again, her zealous maintenance of the doctrine and the rule of celibacy, which I recognized as Apostolic, and her faithful agreement with Antiquity in so many other points which were dear to me, was an argument as well as a plea in favour of the great Church of Rome. Thus I learned to have tender feelings towards her; but still my reason was not affected at all. My judgment was against her, when viewed as an institution, as truly as it ever had been.

As Newman was writing himself into the Catholic Church in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, he noted signs among the Fathers of the Church that argued for Papal Supremacy or Primacy:

10. A partial fulfilment, or at least indications of what was to be, there certainly were in the first age. Faint one by one, at least they are various, and are found in writers of many times and countries, and thereby illustrative of each other, and forming a body of proof. Thus St. Clement, in the name of the Church of Rome, writes to the Corinthians, when they were without a bishop; St. Ignatius of Antioch addresses the Roman Church, out of the Churches to which he writes, as "the Church, which has in dignity the first seat, of the city of the Romans," [Note 27] and implies that it was too high for his directing as being the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. St. Polycarp of Smyrna has recourse to the Bishop of Rome on the question of Easter; the heretic Marcion, excommunicated in Pontus, betakes himself to Rome; Soter, Bishop of Rome, sends alms, according to the custom of his Church, to the Churches throughout the empire, and, in the words of Eusebius, "affectionately exhorted those who came to Rome, as a father his children;" the Montanists from Phrygia come to Rome to gain the countenance of its Bishop; Praxeas, from Asia, attempts the like, and for a while is successful; St. Victor, Bishop of Rome, threatens to excommunicate the Asian Churches; St. Irenæus speaks of Rome as "the greatest Church, the most ancient, the most conspicuous, and founded and established by Peter and Paul," appeals to its tradition, not in contrast indeed, but in preference to that of other Churches, and declares that "to this Church, every Church, that is, the faithful from every side must resort" or "must agree with it, propter potiorem principalitatem." "O Church, happy in its position," says Tertullian, "into which the Apostles poured out, together with their blood, their whole doctrine;" and elsewhere, though in indignation and bitter mockery, he calls the Pope "the Pontifex Maximus, the Bishop of Bishops." The presbyters of St. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, complain of his doctrine to St. Dionysius of Rome; the latter expostulates with him, and he explains. The Emperor Aurelian leaves "to the Bishops of Italy and of Rome" the decision, whether or not Paul of Samosata shall be dispossessed of the see-house at Antioch; St. Cyprian speaks of Rome as "the See of Peter and the principal Church, whence the unity of the priesthood took its rise, whose faith has been commended by the Apostles, to whom faithlessness can have no access;" St. Stephen refuses to receive St. Cyprian's deputation, and separates himself from various Churches of the East; Fortunatus and Felix, deposed by St. Cyprian, have recourse to Rome; Basilides, deposed in Spain, betakes himself to Rome, and gains the ear of St. Stephen.

11. St. Cyprian had his quarrel with the Roman See, but it appears he allows to it the title of the "Cathedra Petri," and even Firmilian is a witness that Rome claimed it. In the fourth and fifth centuries this title and its logical results became prominent. Thus St. Julius (A.D. 342) remonstrated by letter with the Eusebian party for "proceeding on their own authority as they pleased," and then, as he says, "desiring to obtain our concurrence in their decisions, though we never condemned [Athanasius]. Not so have the constitutions of Paul, not so have the traditions of the Fathers directed; this is another form of procedure, a novel practice … For what we have received from the blessed Apostle Peter, that I signify to you; and I should not have written this, as deeming that these things are manifest unto all men, had not these proceedings so disturbed us." [Note 28] St. Athanasius, by preserving this protest, has given it his sanction. Moreover, it is referred to by Socrates; and his account of it has the more force, because he happens to be incorrect in the details, and therefore did not borrow it from St. Athanasius: "Julius wrote back," he says, "that they acted against the Canons, because they had not called him to the Council, the Ecclesiastical Canon commanding that the Churches ought not to make Canons beside the will of the Bishop of Rome." [Note 29] And Sozomen: "It was a sacerdotal law, to declare invalid whatever was transacted beside the will of the Bishop of the Romans." [Note 30] On the other hand, the heretics themselves, whom St. Julius withstands, are obliged to acknowledge that Rome was "the School of the Apostles and the Metropolis of orthodoxy from the beginning;" and two of their leaders (Western Bishops indeed) some years afterwards recanted their heresy before the Pope in terms of humble confession.

Remember that Newman wrote the Apologia pro Vita Sua in 1864, restoring his reputation for honesty and authenticity, especially regarding his conversion to Catholicism. Just a few years later, the prospect of the First Vatican Council taking up the issue of Papal Infallibility arose. Newman had some concerns about the timing and the purposes of the Ultramontane movement at that Council, the first held since the Council of Trent. From the paper I presented last week at the Florovsky-Newman week:

As a historian of the early Church and a student of the Fathers of the Church who had defended the orthodox doctrines decided at the early Church Councils, Newman was at first enthusiastic about the idea of a general council in 1867, according to Father Ian Ker. He thought there were many issues to discuss: the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, a new Code of Canon Law, relations with Eastern Churches, and even with the Anglo-Catholics, but he feared that the Infallibility of the Pope would also be considered and that the Ultramontane party “would push for” it and “be unscrupulous in doing so.”

As the Council dates and location were set: to convene on December 8, 1869 (the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which doctrine Pius IX had proclaimed in 1854) and be held in the Vatican Basilica (the last Councils held in Rome had convened at the Lateran Basilica, the popes’ church as the Bishop of Rome), Newman was surprised at the end of 1867 that Bishop Felix Dupanloup of Orléans (who was opposed to a definition of Papal Infallibility) wanted him to be his personal theologian at the Council; in October of 1868, he was even more surprised when Pope Pius IX (who was in favor of a definition of Papal Infallibility) had requested his presence as a theological consultor! Then Bishop Joseph Brown of Newport, who had delated Newman to Rome over The Rambler incident, asked him to be his personal theologian! He declined all three job offers and remained at the Oratory in Birmingham. Referring to the Fathers of the Church, he compared himself to saints “whose vocation [did] not lie in such ecclesiastical gatherings” like Gregory Nazianzen, John Chrysostom, and Basil. Although he admired them, he decided he was “too old to learn the ways of other great Saints” like Athanasius, Augustine, and Ambrose. Besides, he did not think the food in Rome would agree with him. 

As Father John W. O’Malley describes the situation at the Council in his book Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church, Newman was right about the food. The accommodations, the weather, and the acoustics were bad too.

Newman received many letters from concerned converts and other Catholics. His advice was always to remain calm and pray. As he reminded himself and his correspondents, they had become Catholic because they believed “the present Roman Catholic Church is the only Church which is like, and it is very like, the primitive Church.”He recalled the phrase from St. Augustine: securus judicat orbis terrarum! and he relied upon the power of the Holy Spirit to keep the Church from any doctrinal error at a council. As Edward Short points out in Newman and His Contemporaries, he stressed to one of “his converts” when she threatened to leave the Church if Papal Infallibility was defined at the Council, “I say with [Robert] Cardinal Bellarmine whether the Pope be infallible or not in any pronouncement, anyhow he is to be obeyed. No good can come from disobedience . . .” He would make a similar comment in his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk. Newman did not think a decree of Papal Infallibility necessary or timely: he was an Inopportunist against the Ultramontanes.

More on Newman and Papal Infallibility on Monday!