Something New About Mr. Blue!

I read Myles Connolly's Mr. Blue when I was in high school, and revisited it for this blog in the past several years, here and here. Now there's a new annotated edition, published by Cluny Classics. America Magazine interviewed Stephen Mirarchi, Assistant Professor of English at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, who annotated the book:

Loyola Press, under its Loyola Classics imprint, reprinted Mr. Blue in 2005. What inspired you to produce a scholarly edition of this often reproduced work?

I taught Mr. Blue for the first time in my “Christianity and Literature” class in the fall of 2014 and greatly enjoyed it. I taught it alongside G. K. Chesterton’s biography of St. Francis and noticed quite a bit of overlap, as if Connolly had consciously been drawing on Chesterton. That led me to start researching Mr. Blue and Connolly further, the idea being that I’d submit an article on the subject to an academic journal. The Loyola Classics edition went out of print in 2015. Later that year Cluny Media, through a mutual friend, approached me with the idea of reprinting classic Catholic books. Given the research I’d accumulated at that point, I proposed an annotated edition of Mr. Blue, and we started looking into it.

Myles Connolly’s book was once a standard text in many high school and college literature classes. What’s the message of this book and what makes it worth reading today?

The message of the book is threefold. First, consummation of joy comes in total self-offering to God and neighbor. Second, complete self-giving is a process that usually progresses in stages and in communion with others. Third, everything in creation participates in the glory of God. That threefold message is of utmost worth today, where joy is often figured as sophisticated hedonism, radical individualism, secular do-goodism and the like.

Similarly, Mr. Blue fights off the romanticized notions that saints are made overnight, that there’s a “one size fits all” path to holiness and that salvation is an individual affair. Finally, the book’s celebration of history, architecture, music, locale and plain old human effort is a testament to Connolly’s conviction that every created thing can be a help on the path of Christian ascent.

Read the rest of the interview there!

You can read a sample of this edition at amazon.com and here is the publisher's website.

New U.K. Oratory in Formation

From The Catholic Herald earlier this month;

A new community of the Congregation of the Oratory of St Philip Neri is to be established in Bournemouth.

The community, which will be inaugurated at the Sacred Heart church in September, will be the sixth Oratory to be set up in England.

Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth, who invited the Oratorians to Bournemouth, said they would form part of a “major evangelisation drive”.

The centre will be an “Oratory in formation” and will be made up of Fr Dominic Jacob, co-founder of the Oxford Oratory, Fr Peter Edwards and Fr David Hutton.

The first Oratory was established by Blessed John Henry Newman in Birmingham in 1848. The London Oratory followed a year later. In the early 1990s an Oratory was established in Oxford. In 2013 two Oratories “in formation” were set up, one at St Chad’s in Manchester and the other in St Wilfrid’s, York.

And the following week, The Catholic Herald posted this interview, discussing why the number of Oratories in England has doubled in the past few years.Certainly, the beatification of the founder of the English oratory movement, John Henry Newman, has something to do with it. You may also listen to Father Peter Edwards, one of the priests listed above, discuss his vocation as an Oratorian with Vatican Radio. Note that Father Edwards is a convert from Anglicanism.

The EWTN Library contains this article, originally published in Faith & Reason in 1989: "Newman and St. Philip Neri: The Quest for Sanctity" by Jonathan Robinson, C.O. An excerpt:

Dom Placid Murray in his Newman the Oratorian has edited Newman's Chapter addresses and occasional papers on the Oratorian vocation. This book establishes that the idea of the Oratory was central to Newman's life as a Catholic. His introduction, and even more Newman's own papers, show how carefully Newman decided on how he was to live his life as a Catholic priest, and how deep his commitment to the Oratory was. Father Stephen Dessain has said: "It would be hard to exaggerate the importance of the Oratory for Newman. It was his chosen vocation; to found it in England was the first commission he received from the Catholic authorities; it was the framework for the rest of his long life, and, as has so often been the case with founders, through it some of his cruellest trials came."

What was this idea of the Oratory which so influenced Newman? It was not St. Philip's idea to found a new order or congregation in the Church. He wanted groups of secular priests living together without taking vows, priests who would live with no bond but that of charity, but who would live a life comparable to that of the best religious. As the Oratory developed each house lived its own separate existence, and was situated in a town or city with a church of its own. The work of an Oratory is prayer, preaching and the administration of the sacraments. The essential thing about an Oratorian vocation is a call to the life of prayer. This is clear from the Constitutions or Traditions of the Oratory (what would be called the Rule in a religious order); it is clear from St. Philip's own teaching; and it is clear from the lives of all the great Oratorians. So an Oratory is supposed to be just that--a place where people pray. 

The Oratory, as an institution, is a testimony to the centrality of the life of prayer, and thus a witness to the reality of God. Furthermore, a life ordered around this centrality of prayer is an object lesson that the acknowledgement of God is required for the obtaining of that happiness and satisfaction everyone is looking for. 

The House and Church of the Oratory are supposed to be a center of prayer, of preaching, of study, and of learned work. Now, you cannot have a center without stability, without people who are always at the center to provide the appropriate services, and do the required work. Thus the idea of stability and of a life at home are central to Philip's conception.

Read the rest there.

One of Parker's Finds: The St. Augustine Gospels

I posted yesterday on Matthew Parker, Elizabeth I's first Archbishop of Canterbury and his library. Remember that his purpose in saving these works from the Dissolution of the Monasteries was to find evidence that the Church in England had always been independent of the "Roman" Catholic Church. One of the most wonderful books he saved shows the opposite of course, because The St. Augustine Gospels had been brought to England by that most Roman of Catholic missionaries, St. Augustine of Canterbury, dispatched by Pope St. Gregory the Great.

The Parker Library blog explains how this Italian, illustrated book of the Holy Gospels came to be reunited with another object connected with Pope St. Gregory the Great earlier this year:

On Friday, January 15, 2016, the St Augustine Gospels- a 6th century gospel book that is reputed to have been sent with St Augustine on his mission from Pope Gregory the Great to convert the English people- was brought from Cambridge to Canterbury Cathedral for the day to serve as inspiration to the assembled Primates at an extraordinary meeting of the Anglican leadership. The goal was for the manuscript to serve as a physical reminder of the core principles of the church; based on long tradition, the words of the Gospels themselves, and the faith that unites all believers.

The visit was in conjunction with the loan of an ivory crozier which is venerated as a relic of Augustine’s mentor, St (formerly Pope) Gregory, from the monastery of San Gregorio al Celio in Rome. These two items were displayed together in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral during the closing service of the meeting. Following the ceremony, Parker Library staff gave informative talks on the manuscript in the Cathedral library, which were attended by Cathedral staff and visitors. This was an extremely rare opportunity to see the 1,400 year old manuscript out from under glass, as it is typically only available to view in its case in the Parker Library exhibition on one day a month.

Note the parenthetical "(formerly Pope)"--Popes who are also canonized saints in the Catholic Church are referred to as "Pope Saint Insert Name Here": Pope St. Gregory the Great; Pope St. Pius V; Pope St. John Paul II. It's interesting that they are not referred to by their given names: Not Saint Gregorius Anicius; Saint Antonio Ghislieri or Saint Karol Józef Wojtyła. Their name as pope is like their name in religion; religious nuns and priests who are canonized are known by their religious names: St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, not St. Edith Stein; St. Therese of Lisieux, not St. Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin, etc. You might note that the Church of England includes Pope St. Gregory the Great on their calendar of "saints" on September 3, but he is referred to as "Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, Teacher of the Faith".

But back to the St. Augustine Gospels: they have had a special role in two papal visits, most recently in 2010:

The St Augustine Gospels—sometimes known as the Canterbury Gospels—are a sixth-century Gospel book of Italian provenance which may have been brought from Rome by St Augustine in 597 on his first mission to re-evangelize Britain. It is the oldest illustrated Latin Gospel book in existence, and has been in England longer than any other book. As a symbol of religion, history, and literacy it is one of the most evocative books in Christendom and upon it the Archbishops of Canterbury still take their oaths of office. 

During the papal visit of 1982 these Gospels were given the place of honour at the ecumenical celebration in Canterbury Cathedral – enthroned on the chair of St Augustine, the cathedra or teaching seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, between Archbishop Robert Runcie and Pope John Paul II. Today they are to be venerated by Archbishop Rowan Williams and Pope Benedict XVI following the reading of a passage from the Gospel according to St Mark.

Pardon my historical irony: the Archbishops of Canterbury take their oath of office on a book sent to England by the Pontiff of the Catholic Church, who has been proclaimed a saint of the Catholic Church as Pope St. Gregory the Great? It seems to me that the St. Augustine Gospels suggest the strong connections between the universal Catholic Church and the Catholic Church in England, not the independence that Matthew Parker wanted to prove!

Illustration: Wikipedia Commons, public domain: Folio 125r of the St. Augustine Gospels (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 286), Scenes from the Passion.

Matthew Parker, RIP--And His Library!

Matthew Parker, Elizabeth I's first Archbishop of Canterbury, and formerly one of Anne Boleyn's chaplains, died on May 17, 1575. In 1574 he gave his library, including a collection of books and manuscripts from the monasteries dissolved from 1536 to 1540, to Corpus Christi College at the University of Cambridge. According to this website:

Matthew Parker (1504-75) was a powerful figure of the English Reformation who was largely responsible for the Church of England as a national institution. Parker's talents were sought by both Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. He served as chaplain to Anne Boleyn and proved himself a capable administrator, becoming Master of Corpus Christi College (1544-53), Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, and Archbishop of Canterbury (1559-75). A benefactor to the University of Cambridge, Parker's greatest tangible legacy is his library of manuscripts and early printed books entrusted to Corpus Christi College in 1574. He was an avid book collector, salvaging medieval manuscripts dispersed at the dissolution of the monasteries; he was particularly keen to preserve materials relating to Anglo-Saxon England, motivated by his search for evidence of an ancient English-speaking Church independent of Rome. The extraordinary collection of documents that resulted from his efforts is still housed at Corpus Christi College, and consists of items spanning from the sixth-century Gospels of St. Augustine to sixteenth-century records relating to the English Reformation.

The Parker Library's holdings of Old English texts account for a substantial proportion of all extant manuscripts in Anglo-Saxon, including the earliest copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (c. 890), unique copies of Old English poems and other texts, and King Alfred's translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care. The Parker Library also contains key Anglo-Norman and Middle English texts ranging from the Ancrene Wisse and the Brut Chronicle to one of the finest copies of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. Other subjects represented in the collection are theology, music, medieval travelogues and maps, apocalypses, bestiaries, royal ceremonies, historical chronicles and Bibles. The Parker Library holds a magnificent collection of English illuminated manuscripts, such as the Bury and Dover Bibles (c. 1135 and c. 1150) and the Chronica maiora by Matthew Paris (c. 1230-50). Scholars in a variety of disciplines - including historians of art, music, science, literature, politics and religion - find invaluable resources in the Library's collection.

More biographical information here, at his alma mater.

May 16, 1532: Convocation Submits and More Resigns

On May 16, 1532, the Convocation of Bishops submitted to Henry VIII, accepting his terms for the future of the Church in England:

We your most humble subjects, daily orators and bedes­men of your clergy of England, having our special trust and confidence in your most excellent wisdom, your princely goodness and fervent zeal to the promotion of God's honour and Christian religion, and also in your learning, far exceed­ing, in our judgment, the learning of all other kings and princes that we have read of, and doubting nothing but that the same shall still continue and daily increase in your majesty­-

First, do offer and promise, in verbo sacerdotii, here unto your highness, submitting ourselves most humbly to the same, that we will never from henceforth [enact], put in ure, promulge, or execute, any [new canons or constitutions provincial, or any other new ordinance, provincial or synodal], in our Convocation [or synod] in time coming, which Convocation is, always has been, and must be, assembled only by your highness' commandment of writ, unless your highness by your royal assent shall license us to [assemble our Convocation, and] to make, promulge, and execute [such constitutions and ordinances as shall be made in] the same; and thereto give your royal assent and authority.

Secondly, that whereas divers [of the] constitutions, [ordinances,] and canons, provincial [or synodal,] which have been heretofore enacted, be thought to be not only much prejudicial to your prerogative royal, but also overmuch onerous to your highness' subjects, [your clergy aforesaid is contented, if it may stand so with your highness' pleasure, that ] it be committed to the examination and judgment [of your grace, and] of thirty-two persons, whereof sixteen to be of the upper and nether house of the temporalty, and other sixteen of the clergy, all to be chosen and appointed by your [most noble grace]. So that, finally, whichsoever of the said constitutions, [ordinances, or canons, provincial or synodal,] shall be thought and determined by [your grace and by] the most part of the said thirty-two persons [not to stand with God's laws and the laws of your realm, the same] to be abrogated and [taken away by your grace and the clergy; and such of them as shall be seen by your grace, and by the most part of the said thirty-two persons, to stand with God's laws and the laws of your realm, to stand in full strength and power, your grace's most royal assent and authority] once impetrate and fully given to the same.

On the same day, Sir Thomas More resigned as Chancellor of England, succeeded by Thomas Audley, another layman. While More had never been involved in Henry VIII's efforts to obtain a decree of nullity for his marriage to Katherine of Aragon so he could marry Anne Boleyn, More saw the direction things were going with the Submission of Clergy, as it was evident that Henry was dividing England from the universal Church. He would be called upon to introduce bills in Parliament that would make that separation law, so he resigned all his offices.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica:

The office dates back to Edward the Confessor (1042–66), who followed the model of the Carolingian court when he appointed a chancellor. Until the 14th century the chancellor was invariably a priest and served as royal chaplain, the king’s secretary in secular matters, and keeper of the royal seal. All of the secretarial work of the royal household was handled by the chancellor and his staff of chaplains; the accounts were kept under the justiciar and treasurer, writs were drawn up and sealed, and the royal correspondence was carried out. This combination of duties, characteristic of the primitive administrative systems of the early Middle Ages, remained with the chancellorship into the early 21st century, although most of the office’s power, exemplified in the administrations of such great chancellors as Thomas Becket (d. 1170) and Thomas Cardinal Wolsey (d. 1530), ceased to exist centuries ago.

Much of the reason that the English chancellor did not develop into the head of government, as did his counterpart in the Holy Roman Empire, lies in the growth of his judicial duties. All petitions addressed to the king passed through the chancellor’s hands, and by the reign of Henry II (1154–89) the chancellor’s time was already largely taken up with judicial work. The office acquired a more definitely judicial character in the reign of Edward III (1327–77), when the chancellor’s court ceased to follow the king. The chancellor’s court was the direct precursor of the Court of Chancery, which was fused into the High Court of Justice in the Judicature Act of 1873. The Chancery Division of the latter is primarily responsible for equitable jurisdiction.

The position of the chancellor as speaker, or prolocutor, of the House of Lords dated from the time of the English Norman kings, when the ministers of the Curia Regis (“King’s Court”) sat ex officio in the commune concilium (“great council”) and Parliament. When the other officials ceased to attend Parliament, the chancellor continued to do so. He attended by virtue of his office, but since the early 18th century he has invariably been a peer. As speaker of the House of Lords, he differed considerably in his powers and duties from the speaker of the House of Commons. Although he put the question (i.e., call for a vote), he had no power to rule upon points of order. Unlike the speaker of the House of Commons, he often took part in debates.

Before Sir Thomas More's tenure as Chancellor, most of the holders of that office had been clerics (Archdeacons, Canons, Deans, Bishops, Archbishops). Like Audley, other laymen served in the office until toward the end of Edward VI's reign when Thomas Goodrich, the Bishop of Ely became Chancellor. He was removed from office when Mary I came to the throne, and then Stephen Gardiner, being freed from the Tower of London, resumed his office as Bishop of Winchester and became Lord Chancellor. When he died in 1555, Nicholas Heath, the Archbishop of York (just as Thomas Wolsey, More's immediate predecessor, had been!) was appointed; when Elizabeth succeeded, she removed him from that office, and a layman, Nicholas Bacon took the post. The office of Lord Chancellor changed drastically when Tony Blair was Prime Minister, losing its judicial responsibilities and transferring from the House of Lords to the Commons. More information about the office now here.

The Friend Who Parted and "Poped"

Father William Lockhart, I.C. died on May 15, 1892. He had been one of John Henry Newman's Oxford Movement followers and one of Newman's companions at Littlemore. Lockhart left Littlemore and became a Catholic before Newman, and became a Rosminian, joining the Institute of Charity. Father Lockhart became the first pastor at St. Etheldreda's in London, according to that historic church's website:

Father William Lockhart was a close friend and disciple of the great Anglican Divine, John Henry Newman. When he left Newman’s community at Littlemore in 1843, Newman was extremely pained. The event occasioned his famous sermon on The Parting of Friends. Within a couple of months Lockhart was received into the Catholic Church and soon afterwards entered the novitiate of the Institute of Charity (Rosminians). Newman himself and the rest of his Littlemore companions were received into the Catholic Church two years later.

Lockhart became the founder and first parish priest (1874-1892) of St Etheldreda’s, having previously been the first parish priest of Our Lady and St Joseph’s, Kingsland, London, which he served for almost twenty years.

Christopher Howse wrote in The Telegraph about Lockhart's troubles:

His first great exposure to obloquy came at the age of 24, when the head of his Oxford college, Exeter, wrote: "I am indeed shocked and grieved to hear of the step which Lockhart has taken. At the same time I am not altogether surprised at it. I never could feel confidence in him." Lockhart had not fought a duel or seduced an heiress. He had become a Catholic.

The scandal forced John Henry Newman to resign as vicar of St Mary's, the University church, for Lockhart had been under his pastoral care. Two years later, Newman too became a Catholic. If Newman suffered mistrust from some of his new coreligionists, it was nothing to Lockhart's trials. He joined a religious order called the Institute of Charity, which for the rest of his life was under a cloud.

That phrase "under a cloud" also applied to Father Newman during his Catholic career--the founder of the Institute of Charity, Antonio Rosmini, was under investigation for heresy, as this article describes. Rosmini died in 1855, just a year after he was cleared of any charges. Newman reflected on his death (in a letter to Lockhart?): "The news reached me unexpectedly and profoundly moved me, for although he belonged in a special way to your Institute, a man like him, as long as he lived, was the property of the whole Church. I fear that the tribulations he suffered have shortened his life. Yesterday morning I celebrated a Requiem for him: I hope he will not forget me as soon as he reaches heaven, in fact we may believe he has already arrived there". (I don't find any mention of a Requiem Mass in a note in Italian to J.B. Pagani on 10 July 1855 in Volume XVI of Newman's Letters and Diaries.)

Lockhart wrote Cardinal Newman: Reminiscences of fifty years since by one of his oldest living Disciples in 1891 after publishing a brief memoir in 1890, which began:

AFFECTIONATE veneration for my old Master in the Science of Truth, has made me wish to say something in honour of his memory; but I am now conscious that I have undertaken more than I can perform, except most imperfectly.

It is, I think, rather more than fifty years since I first had the privilege of knowing John Henry Newman. It was not long after I went to Oxford.

I saw him first on a certain day which I vividly remember. I was walking down High Street—it was between All Souls' and Queen's College. He was crossing, I think, to Oriel. My companion seized my arm, whispering to me, "Look, look there, that is Newman!" I looked, and there I saw him passing along in his characteristic way, walking fast, without any dignity of gait, but earnest, like one who had a purpose; yet so humble and self-forgetting in every portion of his external appearance, that you would not have thought him, at first sight, a man remarkable for anything.

It was only when you came to know him that you recognised or began to recognise what he was.

In speaking of my own reminiscences of Cardinal Newman and of his work, I shall necessarily have to speak of myself, but of myself merely as a type of the ordinary young Oxford man who came under Newman's wonderful influence.

For there was about him a spiritual power, an influence, or rather an effluence of soul, the force of moral greatness, which produced on some a feeling of awe in his presence. . . .

An Oratorio for the Oratory Founder

The feast of Saint Philip Neri, Blessed John Henry Newman's patron, is on May 26 and I hope to have this recording in time to celebrate this great saint:

Alessandro Scarlatti (1660 - 1725) composed his oratorio on the life of Saint Philip Neri in 1705. The subject had died in 1595, a time when music was undergoing a seismic upheaval with polyphony giving way to accompanied menody, and would produce the sacred equivalent of opera. St Philip Neri promoted prayer meetings, or exercises in ‘oratories’ connected to churches. Music written and performed for such services in these surroundings became known as ‘oratorios’. St Philip had several oratorios written about his life, and what was probably the first example of the form appeared in 1678, composed by Giovanni Belli. Scarlatti’s is the most impressive and important work on this subject. Set to a libretto by Pietro Ottoboni, who was created ‘cardinal protector’ by Pope Alexander VIII at the age of just 22. Cardinal Ottoboni had a remarkable skill of identifying the greatest musical talents of the time, and those who worked for him included Alessandro Scarlatti’s brother Domenico, Corelli, Pasquini and Handel.

Gramophone reviewed the CD set when it was released:

The libretto of San Filippo Neri was written by the Venetian cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (a patron also of Corelli, Handel and Vivaldi), and it presents a series of dialogues between the three theological Virtues (Faith, Hope, Charity) and St Philip Neri, the Florentine founder of the confraternity that helped to establish Roman oratorios – the prayer halls and then later the sacred music dramas nicknamed after them. The dialogues occur at various pivotal moments in St Philip’s life; the climax of Scarlatti’s score is the Saint’s breathtaking deathbed aria “Mio Gesù”, sung as he yearns to return to God’s presence (marked Largo, e sempre piano, and specified for strings without harpsichord). The oratorio was first performed at Ottoboni’s Roman residence, the Palazzo della Cancelleria, on March 26, 1705 (this is not clear from an otherwise superb essay by Scarlatti biographer Roberto Pagano, only available on the accompanying CD-Rom, along with the libretto).

Estevan Velardi and the Alessandro Stradella Consort have notched up an impressively broad discography of unjustly neglected Italian Baroque masters. This premiere recording of San Filippo Neri is typical of Velardi’s admirable zeal, worthy endeavour, natural pacing and the shapely string playing of his band. . . . The Alessandro Stradella Consort deserves credit for boldly going where no Baroque group has gone before and Velardi’s serviceable interpretation offers plenty of insights into the elder Scarlatti’s merits.

The libretto is available here.

Morrison on Imitation and Reform: Some Notes on Newman

Reading this by Peter Kwasniewski on the New Liturgical Movement website reminded me of Karl F. Morrison's great book, The Mimetic Tradition of Reform in The West:

One cannot go back in the sense of re-living or re-creating the past as past, but one can and must always be reaching into the past for inspiration, for tried and true models, for a trustworthy way of life. One looks to the past in order to bring something of its fire and spirit into the present moment and into every future generation. To think that we are uniquely stranded in our age, cut off from the beneficent and fertilizing influence of tradition, is a peculiarly modern form of pride and even, perhaps, a subtle form of vanity. We want to view ourselves as different from every former age and therefore as freed from our obligations to our predecessors — the fundamental obligation of grateful receptivity that every Christian generation owes to its inheritance. To think that we must forge ahead on a new path that is not in continuity with the past is a pernicious error, actually a denial of our creaturely dependence on all the causes that made us what we are and continue to make us what we are. . . .

It is not without significance that, throughout the history of the Church, reform movements always look back: they look to the apostolic age (as when religious orders conscientiously model their way of life after the blueprint given in the Acts of the Apostles); they look back to the origins of monasticism in the desert or the wilderness; they look back to the spirit and rule of their founders; they appeal to the Church Fathers, the Councils, the annals of the saints. It is part of the very essence of Christianity to be looking both backwards and forwards — indeed, paradoxically, to look to the future only through the past. This is what is meant by “the binding force of Tradition,” which liberates those it binds from the fads and fashions of their own particular age and its blind spots or prejudices. For a genuine Catholic, it could never be legitimate to lay aside vast portions of inherited tradition—be it artistic, intellectual, liturgical, or what have you.

Yes, it is possible to enhance the vast treasury we inherit, but we do so by augmenting it, not by suppressing, dismantling, or destroying its contents, or considering them impossibly distant and irrecoverable. There may be times when some component of our Christian life needs to be modified, but this will be done rarely, reverently, and conservatively. New things will emerge out of old things, in a manner that is gentle and organic, not violent or mechanistic or self-punishing.

Karl F. Morrison's The Mimetic Tradition of Reform in The West is still available from Princeton University Press, but only as a print-on-demand volume. The description on the press website is woefully inadequate:

Ancient writers distinguished between art and style, arguing that free imitation was a critical strategy that freed artists from servile copying of objects and blind submission to rules of style. In this study Karl F. Morrison explores the far-reaching consequences of this distinction.

You may see the Table of Contents here to glimpse how far reaching the "consequences of this distinction" are. Fortunately, I still have my hardback copy of Morrison's great work (my brother gave it to me for my birthday in 1992). It's one of those books like E.R. Curtius's European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages or Erich Auerbach's Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (both also published by Princeton!) which survey a vast range of history and organize it conceptually. Morrison's achievement is even greater because he does not limit himself to the discussion of literature, but applies the concepts of imitation and reform to religion, philosophy, history, education, and society. He mentions Auerbach's Mimesis in the "Appendix: Thinking Mimetically about History: Some Bibliographical Orientations", and notes the limitation of that effort to literature.

I certainly haven't reread the book for this post, but I did scan the pages on which Morrison discusses the career of John Henry Cardinal Newman, noting the seeds of the failure of the Catholic University of Ireland in Newman's discourses on The Idea of a University. Morrison notes that Newman's theology of the development of doctrine and his emphasis on the national (Protestant) Literature of England, and how important both were in the education of a gentlemen according to the national (Protestant) character of England created great distrust among the Irish clergy. Morrison also goes on to address Newman's conflict with the theological milieu of Catholicism during the reign of Pope Pius IX--with the Cardinal's hat from Pope Leo XIII as a rescue of his reputation--even suggesting a conflict between Newman's biglietto speech against liberalism in religion and his own theological theories of what Morrison calls "mimesis by augmentation" and discontinuity in religious doctrine. Morrison's view of Newman seemed to be a misreading when I first read the book and its does now too. If Morrison had read Newman's sermons and letters he would have understood Newman's dedication to doctrine and tradition. 

Newman, Gladstone, and Conscience AND Obedience

Tod Worner writes for Aleteia:

The attack was swift and fierce. The leading light and liberal lion in British politics, Prime Minister (sic) W.E. Gladstone, launched a scathing broadside against Catholics in the British Empire. Fearful that a Catholic’s allegiance to the Church in Rome threatened a vile treachery, Gladstone fulminated that “no one can become [the Catholic Church’s] convert without renouncing his moral and mental freedom and placing his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another.”

It wasn’t the first time it had happened, English Catholic priest (and convert from Anglicanism) John Henry Newman surely lamented. Nor would it be the last. And so he was compelled to respond. In his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk written in 1875, Newman schooled the prime minister on the true “moral and mental freedom” of the Catholic faithful. The letter, in fact, turned into a brilliant treatise on the Catholic Conscience. And it is doubtful Gladstone even knew what hit him.

Read the rest there, which includes excerpts from the chapter on conscience in Newman's letter.

Gladstone wasn't Prime Minister in 1874 when he wrote his pamphlet four years after the declaration of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility in 1870 at the First Vatican Council: The Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance. He did know what hit  him: he responded to Newman's Letter to the Duke of Norfolk in another pamphlet, Vaticanism: an Answer to Reproofs and Replies. In that second pamphlet, Gladstone states that England has not yet realized what it lost when Newman became a Catholic--it would take time, as it had in the case of John Wesley, for historians to assess the effects of Newman's conversion on religion in England.

I'd recommend the chapter on "Newman and Gladstone" (as well as the entire book) from Edward Short's Newman and His Contemporaries to understand this entire episode and Newman's great achievement in writing his pamphlet. Short describes how Newman wanted to respond to not only Gladstone but those ultra-Ultramontanists like W. G. Ward who were saying things like the Pope "has the power of deposing any sovereign, whose government he may consider injurious to the spiritual welfare of that country" and that "the Pope's temporal power is 'the very bulwark and citadel of Catholic order, liberty, and progress'" (page 234). Newman complained how much Ward mistrusted him, even hoping that Anglicans would not come to the Catholic Church through his influence! Short also describes how carefully Newman wrote this pamphlet, quoting him: it was "the toughest job I ever had." He was not only reminding his audience of the classic Catholic idea of conscience, with all its responsibilities and rights, but also narrowing the kind of papal statements Catholics would respond to with required obedience: to matters of faith and morals, not practical matters. Whatever the pope teaches, however, the Catholic must consider it with a fully formed and developed conscience, not its counterfeit. As I wrote in the January/February 2014 issue of OSV's The Catholic Answer Magazine:

Since the teaching authority of the pope and the Church concerns matters of faith and morals, of “abstract doctrine” and “the condemnation of particular and given errors,” Newman states there is no conflict at all between it and the individual conscience: the conscience seeks truth, and the Church teaches and defends truth. The pope’s authority as Christ’s Vicar on Earth relies upon the authority of conscience, that “aboriginal Vicar of Christ.”

Blessed John Henry Newman further states that for one to oppose even “the supreme, though not infallible authority of the pope” in some matter (he uses the example of a pope prohibiting Catholics from drinking wine or beer), the individual cannot rely on the counterfeit idea of conscience: “serious thought, prayer and all available means of arriving at a right judgment” must be followed, and the burden of proof is on the individual, not on the pope.

Joseph Ratzinger, both as cardinal and as pope, had praised Newman’s “clear avowal of the papacy.” Commenting on Newman’s beatification in his comments to the Roman Curia on Dec. 20, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI summarized Newman’s understanding of conscience: “Conscience is both capacity for truth and obedience to the truth which manifests itself to anyone who seeks it with an open heart.” Because Blessed John Henry Newman followed the “kindly light” of truth, it led him to become a Catholic in 1845, and as Pope Benedict noted, that conversion cost him everything “that was dear and precious to him,” perhaps even his great opportunity to influence Christian theology in his lifetime. His life as a Catholic was obscure and filled with failed projects, but his letter to the Duke of Norfolk provided a great example of the influence he could have.

The chapter on conscience ends with a toast that many have misinterpreted: “Certainly, if I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts (which indeed does not seem quite the thing), I drink — to the pope, if you please — still, to conscience first, and to the pope afterwards.” Pope Benedict provides us with the correct interpretation: Newman is not reverting to that counterfeit version of conscience as “the right of self-will.” In the first toast Newman is again expressing our natural ability to seek and find the truth; the second toast is “dedicated to the pope because it is his task to demand obedience to the truth.”

Rodney Stark and "Distinguished Bigots"

Rodney Stark is  Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor University, co-director of the university's Institute for Studies of Religion, and founding editor of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion. He has written over thirty (30) books including his latest: Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History.

The publisher, Templeton Press, describes the book:

As we all know and as many of our well established textbooks have argued for decades, the Inquisition was one of the most frightening and bloody chapters in Western history, Pope Pius XII was anti-Semitic and rightfully called “Hitler’s Pope,” the Dark Ages were a stunting of the progress of knowledge to be redeemed only by the secular spirit of the Enlightenment, and the religious Crusades were an early example of the rapacious Western thirst for riches and power. But what if these long held beliefs were all wrong?

In this stunning, powerful, and ultimately persuasive book, Rodney Stark, one of the most highly regarded sociologists of religion and bestselling author of The Rise of Christianity (HarperSanFrancisco 1997) argues that some of our most firmly held ideas about history, ideas that paint the Catholic Church in the least positive light are, in fact, fiction. Why have we held these wrongheaded ideas so strongly and for so long? And if our beliefs are wrong, what, in fact, is the truth?

In each chapter, Stark takes on a well-established anti-Catholic myth, gives a fascinating history of how each myth became the conventional wisdom, and presents a startling picture of the real truth. For example,

• Instead of the Spanish Inquisition being an anomaly of torture and murder of innocent people persecuted for “imaginary” crimes such as witchcraft and blasphemy, Stark argues that not only did the Spanish Inquisition spill very little blood, but it was a major force in support of moderation and justice.

• Instead of Pope Pius XII being apathetic or even helpful to the Nazi movement, such as to merit the title, “Hitler’s Pope,” Stark shows that the campaign to link Pope Pius XII to Hitler was initiated by the Soviet Union, presumably in hopes of neutralizing the Vatican in post-World War II affairs. Pope Pius XII was widely praised for his vigorous and devoted efforts to saving Jewish lives during the war.

• Instead of the Dark Ages being understood as a millennium of ignorance and backwardness inspired by the Catholic Church’s power, Stark argues that the whole notion of the “Dark Ages” was an act of pride perpetuated by anti-religious intellectuals who were determined to claim that theirs was the era of “Enlightenment.”

In the end, readers will not only have a more accurate history of the Catholic Church, they will come to understand why it became unfairly maligned for so long. Bearing False Witness is a compelling and sobering account of how egotism and ideology often work together to give us a false truth.

Carl E. Olson, editor of Catholic World Report interviewed Stark via email:

CWR: You begin the book by first noting your upbringing as an American Protestant and then discussing "distinguished bigots". What is a "distinguished bigot"? And how have such people influenced the way in which the Catholic Church is understood and perceived by many Americans today?

Dr. Rodney Stark: By distinguished bigots I mean prominent scholars and intellectuals who clearly are antagonistic to the Catholic Church and who promulgate false historical claims.

CWR: How did you go about identifying and selecting the ten anti-Catholic myths that you rebut in the book? To what degree are these myths part of a general (if sometimes vague) Protestant culture, and to what degree are they encouraged and spread by a more secular, elite culture?

Dr. Stark: For the most part I encountered these anti-Catholic myths as I wrote about various historical periods and events, and discovered that these well-known ‘facts” were false and therefore was forced to deal with them in those studies. These myths are not limited to some generalized Protestant culture—many Catholics, including well-known ones, have repeated them too. These myths have too often, and for too long, been granted truthful validity by historians in general. Of course secularists—especially ex-Catholics such as Karen Armstrong—love these myths.

The interview concludes with this great exchange:

CWR: You emphatically state that as a scholar with a Protestant background working at a Baptist university you did not write your book as "a defense of the Church" but "in defense of history." Why is that significant? And, finally, do you think most Americans actually give more credence to history than to the Church? 

Dr. Stark: I think the distinguished bigots will have a hard time accusing me of being a Catholic toady, trying to cover up the sins of the Church. The only axe (sic) I have to grind is that history ought to be honestly reported. As to your final point: I don’t think ‘most Americans’ will ever know that this book was written. I can only hope that I will influence intellectuals and textbook writers—maybe.