Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman: Theology and holiness

Fabio Attard sdb

Lectio Magistralis

Ratisbonne, Jerusalem

Introduction

History is enriched with personalities that have left their imprint because of what they succeeded to achieve through their actions in the fields of arts and architecture. History is even richer through the contribution of those who have left behind them a heritage in the area of thinking, opening up intellectual horizons that enlighten humanity’s journey towards the unknown. For all these people we are a richer generation, being able to benefit from what they achieved and invited to build on it, pursuing it even further.

Yet, history books also reserve for us the valuable contribution of persons who were able to leave their imprint not much for the one or for the other, but rather for the way they moulded their achievements through that providential coincidence of thought and action. These people convey to us a message that at the same time can be admired both because of the depth contained in their ideas, reflections and synthesis, and even more so because of the boldness that shines forth in the way they lived it. Somehow we can say that these people entertain a dialectic movement between actions and ideas. Their actions speak volumes. While the volumes they left us narrate the real story woven in their thoughts. The traces of their story are intertwined within what might be erroneously taken as pure abstract ideas. They left us within their pages the maps of their story. They consigned to us an intelligence that was able to look around and a wisdom that had the ability to look inside. They built their story in dialogue with the environment they were immersed in. They were so deeply connected within, that they did not allow themselves to be carried away by what was surrounding them. The sources of strength were alive within them and they allowed these sources to shine forth outside themselves, in what they did, in what they shared. These sources were inner sources, the presence of which they were aware. Their hearts were the sanctuaries where these sacred sources were jealously kept alive.

All this perfectly fits the story of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman. He was a man who lived what he preached. What he left us in writing is his inner journey, his spiritual and intellectual story. There is an intimate connection between his inner life and his written ideas. Coherence and consistency can be the two words that capture the inner identity of Newman: a glimpse on the development of a journey, much deeper than what the initial impressions usually convey.

The journey of Blessed John Henry Newman is usually remembered as having two very distinct and clear periods, almost equally divided – the Anglican and the Catholic. Newman was born in London on 21st February 1801, became a Catholic on 9th of October 1845, and died in Birmingham on 11th august 1890.

Guided by the title of this lectio magistralis, I would like to present four inter-related facets of the life of the Blessed John Henry Newman. Although they are all rooted in a determined period of his life, these facets witness to various fundamental dimensions of his life and thought. The interdependence between them shows the growth that took place in Newman’s life, a progressive growth of that experience of holiness and wholeness that John Henry Newman stands for.

The first facet, the adolescent search for meaning, was not simply a search for something, running after an idea, but rather a longing for someone. In Newman’s case, it is the relationship with his Creator that he was searching for, and finally discovered. Within the ambiance of this divine friendship, his intellectual love for truth, the second dimension, found a fertile land, both in its intent, as much as in the method that was gradually forming in his mind and heart. This period of his life was to have a determining effect on the rest of his intellectual and spiritual development.

Newman’s journey within the Anglican Communion, right from the very beginning, was that of a minister guided by his love for the Church, the third aspect. His ministry expressed the total offering of his own self to the good of the Church understood in its mystical sense, as the body of Christ. His vision of the Church was mystic, and his intellectual gift was at the service of this mystical experience. As a result of this, his unwavering faithfulness to the Church, comes to fruition. For Newman, his becoming a Catholic was the natural outcome of a journey, at the same time intellectual and spiritual, a journey of deep reflection, matured within the furnace of his heart, strengthened by the force of his intellectual honesty, and transparently witnessed in his actions.

What we see is the journey of a mystic, whose love for God was made manifest in his search for truth, a truth which he followed wherever it lead him. [1].

[1] In an inverse manner, this idea is clearly manifested in his sermon "The Testimony of Conscience", in Parochial and Plain Sermons, volume V, n.17, p.247 (PPS V, 17): Lastly may be mentioned, the case of persons seeking the truth. How often are they afraid or loth to throw themselves on God’s guidance, and beg Him to teach them! how loth to promise in His sight that they will follow the truth wherever it leads them! but whether from fear of what the world will say, fear of displeasure of friends, or of ridicule of strangers, or of triumph of enemies, or from entertaining some fancy or conceit of their own, which they are loth to give up, they hang back, and think to gain the truth, not by rising and coming for it, but, as it were, by a mere careless extension and grasp of the hand, while they sit at ease, or proceed with other work that employs them. Much might be said on what is a very fertile part of the subject.

1. The adolescent in search of meaning

In his Apologia pro vita sua, [2] Newman writes about a very important event that he experienced at the age of 15:

When I was fifteen, (in the autumn of 1816,) a great change of thought took place in me. I fell under the influences of a definite Creed, and received into my intellect impressions of dogma, which, through God’s mercy, have never been effaced or obscured… I believe that it had some influence on my opinions… in isolating me from the objects which surrounded me, in confirming me in my mistrust of the reality of material phenomena, and making me rest in the thought of two and two only absolute and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator.[3]

Newman’s early writings, mainly in letterform, convey the image of a student endowed with a sharp awareness regarding all that goes on around him. The event of the first conversion confirms all those important elements that are directly related to the way Newman’s mind and heart react and interact to the reality surrounding him: to all that of which he becomes part by way of conversation, by way of reflection or by way of reading and of research.[4]

Newman clearly captures the fact that his intellect discovers itself as independent in its relation to any other reality which is not his own: there is a clear and distinct affirmation of an ‘inwardness,’ of something which is ‘other than.’ What enhances this distinctive and eminent ‘isolation’ is the fact that in taking this road, Newman, instead of enclosing himself in an egotistic sphere, enters into the transcendent space: he lets himself be embraced by it, being a space which belongs to the realm of ‘Creed… impressions of dogma.’[5]

What one can gather from Newman’s own narrative of this event, is the quick succession that takes place from the immanent, the purely human aspect of the experience, to the transcendent, the invisible reality which is at the centre. The isolation from earthly realities is only intended to confirm, favour and, also, jealously guard the transcendent experience: ‘making me rest in the thought of two only absolute and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator.’ [6]

What Newman writes in his Apologia, in 1864, is not only the event. He is ever more aware of his developed method of thinking.[7] The language used is that which Newman matured in the writing of his sermons, in the Essay on Development of Christian Doctrine, and other studies. He is writing not about an isolated moment, historically distant. He is rather re-interpreting the experience of the conversion as an event within the larger picture of his life. He has the benefit of witnessing the aftermath it caused and the influence it exerted all along on what was to follow.

For Newman, the event of the ‘conversion’ is the first milestone in his early years. Important in itself, not only because of what had actually taken place, but more so because of the imprint it was to leave in relation to later developments in his life.

1.1. Relatedness with the Invisible

If we have to point to one central dimension that this event will produce in Newman and which will prove to be fundamental for the development of his life, this dimension is the ‘relatedness with the Invisible.’ It is a dimension that creates convergence between the believer and the Creator, but also an internal convergence between the intellectual and the spiritual, the mind and the heart.

The conversion experience means that both his mind and his heart, at that age, are alive and together interact with a ‘reality’ which is distinct from ‘self’, but, at the same time, in deep relation to it. One can notice how the whole process is far from being a passive one. His mind receives impressions that have a definite, precise quality about them and since they are recognized as such, therefore they have to be treated accordingly, engaging both his intellectual ability as his affective one.

The actual conversion that takes place cannot be simply interpreted as a shifting of opinions, a sudden burst of infused knowledge, or an unexpected vision of a new reality. The recognition of a ‘creed’ presupposes an ability of understanding together with its call to be embraced. This, in turn, asks for the power of the intellect in assenting to it. Only in this manner, it is to be admitted and accepted as a permanent influence on the whole human person. Louis Bouyer comments this event in a very crystal manner:

in the mind of the adolescent a conviction, an idea prematurely implanted in the mind of the child… it would not only reawaken, it would transform, what, in the child, was merely a passive impression, into a reasoned belief that was destined to remain an enduring factor in the life of the man.[8]

This event is of crucial importance, especially when one considers the different intellectual currents that he will be asked to deal with and express his opinion on. From this moment onward, in Newman’s life, the invisible world and the visible one are there to interact, not to take the place one of the other. There is an interaction, both fundamental and asymmetrical. It can be witnessed as an underlying attitude constantly present in his writings, especially in his sermons: “for him (Newman), the invisible world is not substituted for the visible, but added to it, and hopes, hitherto vague and undefined, are now steadily focused on the expectation of the Divine Vision.” [9]

[2] Apologia pro Vita Sua (Longmans, Green & Co., London 1873) (Apol.).

[3] See Apol. p.4.

[4] H. Tristram points out to Newman’s "natural tendency to introspection" and recalls the description of him as the boy "full of thought". According to Tristram the boy "grew into the introspective youth," see H. Tristram, ed., John Henry Newman: Autobiographical Writings, London: Sheed & Ward, 1956, p.143; see also T. Merrigan, Numquam minus solus, quam cum solus. Newman’s First Conversion: Its Significance for His Life and Thought, The Downside Review 103 (1985) 106; C.S. Dessain, Newman’s First Conversion, Newman Studien 3 (1957) 37-53.

[5] C.S. Dessain describes this event as "no mere abstract speculation he had discovered, but a saving relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. His was now a religion of persons. He understood the meaning of loving God"; and that this "central truth of revelation which Newman first began to grasp at the age of sixteen… he developed so persuasively in his Parochial Sermons," in ‘The Biblical Basis of Newman’s Ecumenical Theology’ in Coulson, J., - Allchin, A.M., eds., The Rediscovery of Newman: An Oxford Symposium. (Sheed & Ward - SPCK, London - Melbourne1967) pp.102 and 121.

[6] Apol. p.4.

[7] The expressive ability to write about this event is that of 1864. During the same period he was working on An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent. (Longmans, Green & Co., London 1873).

[8] Louis Bouyer, Newman: His Life and Spirituality. (Burns & Oates, London 1958) p.19.

[9] Id., p.15.

2. The intellectual in love with truth

The second phase corresponds with Newman’s experience at the university of Oxford, with its prospects and challenges. It is a time characterized, on one side, by the desire to find truth and follow it. On the other side, there is what he himself calls the ‘dangers of liberalism.’

During this time Newman holds a significant controversy with his brother Charles Robert Newman. We have it in a long correspondence that takes place over two different periods, in 1825 and, again, in 1830. While we cannot here enter into the contents of the letters, we could say that the correspondence with Charles shows forth what can be termed as the very first lines of thinking that Newman develops in relation to religious belief.[10]

Contemporary to this controversy, we cannot fail to notice how Newman, in his own words, was ‘beginning to prefer intellectual excellence to moral; I was drifting in the direction of the Liberalism of the day.’ [11] Newman was slowly becoming aware of his gradual movement towards a concept of person seen, more as an agent with unlimited powers, rather than as a person dependent on a ‘superior being,’ a dependency interacting with the divine.

The challenge offered by his brother and the dangers he was facing, end up being a very fruitful and providential experience for Newman: both helped him to deepen his own ideas, to develop his own arguments, and, finally, to take side.[12] Within this environment, Newman comes forth as someone who is not only an explorer of truth for its own sake, but also as its most conscientious enquirer.

In these troubled waters, Newman strengthens the notion that rational power can not be taken in absolute terms, but only in relation to the ‘Author of Nature.’ The honest inquirer, besides feeling the desirability for the truth, also feels the inability to truly attain it fully on his or her own powers; and in the humble acceptance of the latter lies the real test and beauty of the former.

This intellectual attitude is very well spelt out in some of his sermons preached at this same time. In the sermon Secret Faults,[13] Newman talks about self-knowledge as a means to discover the relationship between the person and the Almighty. The discovery of our sinful nature is by no means an unbridgeable gap between us and our Maker. On the contrary, it is the moment and the space where a specific decision needs to be taken: the personal decision of the heart. It is from this decision that the rest will follow.

Now (I repeat) unless we have some just idea of our hearts and of sin, we can have no right idea of a Moral Governor, a Saviour or a Sanctifier… for it is in proportion as we search our hearts and understand our own nature, that we understand what is meant by an Infinite Governor and Judge… God speaks to us primarily in our hearts. Self-knowledge is the key to the precepts and doctrines of Scriptures.[14]

Having established the parameters of our relationship with God, at a later stage of the sermon, he continues explaining the development of this relationship:

First of all, self-knowledge does not come as a matter of course; it implies an effort and a work. As well may we suppose, that the knowledge of the languages comes by nature, as that acquaintance with our own heart is natural. Now the very effort of steadily reflecting, is itself painful to many men; not to speak of the difficulty of reflecting correctly. To ask ourselves why we do this or that, to take account of the principles which govern us, and see whether we act for conscience' sake or from some lower inducement, is painful.[15]

The knowledge resulting from the heart, questions our whole being and doing. It also encounters and favours that yearning which is never fully satisfied. It is a type of knowledge which concerns our relationship with Him, and in as much as He is infinite, so are the possibilities of that knowledge.

Truth, therefore, concerns the heart as much as it engages the mind. It ardently asks not only for honesty as an attitude of the intellect, but it also begs for conscientiousness, as an attitude of the heart. Truth, therefore, can only be a sign of growth in its convergence with the gift of God’s presence, as reflected in his word. Truth can only be strengthened with the force that comes from prayer, since these two, God’s word and prayer, favour the way to real knowledge.

[10] See G.R. Evans, ‘Newman’s Letters to Charles’, The Downside Review 100 (1982) 92.

[11] Apol. p.14.

[12] ‘These letters were understandably neglected. Yet they contain Newman’s first systematic attempt to give an account of the grounds of Christian faith.; they are the result of a working out of his position rapidly under the pressure of the urgency of his brother’s need… They enable us to bring forward to the summer of 1825 the genesis in Newman’s mind of a number of his most characteristic assumptions and habits of thought,’ in G.R. Evans, ‘Newman’s Letters to Charles’, The Downside Review 100 (1982) 92.

[13] PPS I, 4, pp.41-56, on 12th June 1825.

[14] Id., pp.42-43.

[15] Id., pp.49-50.

3. The minister at the service of the Church

The third dimension concerns Newman’s understanding of the Church. For him the real and honest search for truth needed to be experienced not only on a personal level, but, more importantly so, within the wider mystical experience of a believing community.

The Church is for Newman that reality where the human and the divine meet. It is within the Church, through the sacrament of Baptism, that the person is admitted into the visible body of Christ. Thus, both the human and the divine realities find their fusion within the experience of the Church.

He points this out in simple and clear language in one of his sermons which bears the title The Church Visible and Invisible:

no harm can come of the distinction of the Church into Visible and Invisible, while we view it as, on the whole, but one in different aspects; as Visible, because consisting (for instance) of clergy and laity – as Invisible, because resting for its life and strength upon unseen influences and gifts from heaven.[16]

Yet, we need to contextualise Newman’s interest and deep love for the Church. If his search for truth, from an intellectual standpoint, was very much conditioned by the liberal mindset, so was, as a consequence, his understanding of the Church as the space where that same search for truth finds its rightful place.

Newman is aware that the liberal idea can ultimately undermine even the mystical dimension of the Church, as the body of Christ, by highlighting the human dimension at the expense of the divine.

The only way to overcome this challenge, is to go back to the source, to the roots. This essentially meant rediscovering the Fathers, with whom he had already established a familiar rapport.[17]

What Newman brings at this stage to the Anglican Communion is the idea that sola Scriptura on its own, is not sufficiently strong to withstand the attack of the liberal idea. He is convinced that the sola Scriptura [18] needs roots, that is the backing of the Tradition, which gives to the message both life and dynamism. While the force of rationalism, the temptation of the liberal approach, can turn to their favour the interpretation sola Scriptura, both prove themselves less successful when the weight of Tradition, that is the living out, the testimony of the Church of the sola Scriptura along the centuries, is added to it. This is what he writes in one of his letters:

Men may say what they will about going by Scripture not tradition - but nature is stronger than systems. The piety and services of the Primitive Christians add to their authority an influence which is practically irresistible, with those i.e. who are trained in right feelings and habits. And I think this was intended by the Author of all truth - And none but Primitive Christianity can bring this about, or other ages, if they have the high spirit, yet have not (of course,) the authority of the first age. As to Scripture being practically sufficient for making the Christian, it seems to me a mere dream - nor do I find it anywhere said so in Scripture - nor can I infer logically that what is confessedly the sole oracle of doctrine, is therefore also of practice and discipline.[19]

It is a quote from a letter written in December 1832, just before Newman embarks on the Mediterranean tour. He returns from that tour seven months later, July 1833, only to set in motion his desire to revisit the Fathers of the Church. Loosing no time at all, already in the month of August he writes:

for myself, I am poking into the Fathers with a hope of rummaging forth passages of history which may prepare the imaginations of men for a changed state of things, and also be precedents for our conduct in difficult circumstances.[20]

Blessed John Henry Newman is convinced that he needs to be familiar with the Church of the first centuries. He captures the importance these centuries contain in the development of the Church and how they provide the best route that needs to be taken in relation to the actual state of the Church of England. What will become later known as the ‘Oxford Movement’, has its humble and visionary beginnings here, at this particular point in Newman’s own spiritual and intellectual journey.

Together with this, one needs not forget the strong interaction that matures between the idea of the Church and the beneficial effect that the contact with the Fathers will have on the former.[21] The strength and value of the Oxford Movement needs to be enshrined within the patristic and ecclesiological framework.[22]

The synthesis that Newman slowly and painstakingly develops has three cardinal points: Church, Scripture and Tradition. In its essence the Church is an experience of faith as offered to us in Scripture; Tradition is the witness, the living reality of this experience.

We can find this synthesis presented in a very concentrated manner in one of his letters to his great friend Richard H. Froude:

I incline to say the Creed is the faith necessary to salvation as well as to Church communion – and to maintain that Scripture, according to the Fathers, is the authentic record and document of this faith… I am surprised more and more to see how… Scripture proves, and the Church teaches… It seems that when a heresy rose, they said at once ‘That is not according to the Church’s teaching –’ i.e. they decided it by the praejudicium (N.B. prescription) of authority – Again when they met together in Council, they brought the witness of Tradition as a matter of fact… They never said ‘It must be so and so – because St Cyprian says this – St Clement explains in his 3rd book of the Paedagogus etc –’ and with reason – for the Fathers are a witness only as one voice not in individual instances, or much less isolated passages.[23]

This third facet in Newman’s journey is very much enlightened by the knowledge that following the route of the Fathers is the right direction and that he is determined to abide by it:[24] ‘when one knows one has all the Fathers round one, let be that little mishaps and mistakes may befall, yet on the whole one feels secure and comfortable.’ [25]

Underlying this sense of being on the right road, lies an inner conviction: the search for truth is not taken on board simply as a pursuit for intellectual knowledge. In Newman there exists an attitudinal tension towards the truth that is radically founded on his relationship with the Almighty. His whole personality, intelligence and will, the mind and the heart, is a pattern of living this will of God in this present circumstance of his life.

[16] PPS III, 16, p.222.

[17] ‘The High Church Oxford Movement began in 1833, under the aegis of John Keble, John Henry Newman and Richard Hurrell Froude, in a conservative reaction against the radical forces, political and religious, which even then seemed to threaten the Church of England’s destruction,’ in S. Gilley, ‘The Ecclesiology of the Oxford Movement: a Reconsideration’ in P. Vaiss, ed., Newman: From Oxford to the People (Gracewing, 1996) pp.60-61.

[18] Id., p.64.

[19] All correspondence of John Henry Newman is published in The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman. Vols. XI-XXXI (Nelson - Clarendon Press, London – Oxford 1961-1977); Vols. I-X and Vol. XXXII (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1978-2009; the present quote is taken from Letters and Diaries vol. III, p.127 (LD III).

[20] LD IV, p.24.

[21] ‘We all know that the Oxford Movement began precisely with the discovery and the very strong affirmation of the specific nature of the Church, the Body of Christ, the Spouse of Christ, in this world but not of this world… A call to strengthen their (faithful) deep roots in the life of the Church as it has been essentially since the time of the Apostles,’ in N. Lossky, ‘The Oxford Movement and the Revival of Patristic Theology,’ in P. Vaiss, ed., From Oxford to People (Gracewing, 1996) p.79.

[22] ‘Both these elements – an appeal to the Fathers as interpreters of Scripture, and a sacramentalism of nature and the world, into which the sacraments of the Church fitted easily – were to be fundamental to the mind of the Oxford Movement,’ in O. Chadwick, The Mind of the Oxford Movement. (Adams and Charles Black, London 1960) p.18.

[23] LD V, p.126.

[24] ‘I can answer but throw myself on the general Church, and avow (as I do) that if any one will show me an opinion of mine which the primitive Church condemned I will renounce it – any which it did not insist on, I will not insist on it,’ in id., p.100.

[25] LD VI, p.13.

4. The wise and faithful servat of the Church

The fourth and last facet that I would like to comment on is Blessed John Henry Newman’s wisdom and faithfulness. Faithful wisdom was the hallmark that characterized the second part of the life of John Henry Newman.

Newman’s catholic years had more than their fare share of pain and suffering. Abandoned by his former friends and colleagues, Newman’s catholic years conceal a journey where we detect misunderstanding and mistrust of the catholic convert.[26]

In his two-volume biography, Wilfrid Ward writes:

the years… 1859 to 1864 may be called the low-water mark of Newman’s life-story. His letters and diaries show that they were years of great sadness and despondency. His vivid and excessive realisation of advancing age made him regard his career as practically over—yet almost every work he had undertaken so far, as a Catholic, had proved a failure. Whether or no qualities in his own temperament of which he was unconscious were in part responsible for those failures, his own view of the case was one which induced intense sadness and perhaps occasionally a touch of bitterness.[27]

He was aware of this, on a very intimate and personal level. But also those around him were noticing the same thing. The extent of this perception went so far as to favour certain rumours, even newspaper reports, shedding doubt on Newman’s own position within the Catholic Church – “they (these rumours) were taken as meaning that he was thinking of returning to the Anglican Church.” [28]

Unhesitant in answering to these rumours, Newman was provided with the chance to state his inner beliefs, his most profound convictions. The following quotation belongs to a letter he sends to the editor:

I have not had one moment’s wavering of trust in the Catholic Church ever since I was received into her fold. I hold, and ever have held, that her Sovereign Pontiff is the centre of unity and the Vicar of Christ; and I have ever had, and have still, an unclouded faith in her creed in all its articles; a supreme satisfaction in her worship, discipline, and teaching; and an eager longing, and a hope against hope, that the many dear friends whom I have left in Protestantism may be partakers of my happiness. This being my state of mind, to add, as I hereby go on to do, that I have no intention, and never had any intention, of leaving the Catholic Church… “The net is broken and we are delivered.” I should be a consummate fool (to use a mild term) if in my old age I left “the land flowing with milk and honey” for the city of confusion and the house of bondage. I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, JOHN H. NEWMAN.[29]

The words are strong and are meant to express the solidity of Newman’s deep convictions. Pain and suffering, abandonment and mistrust, have not in any way weakened the determination to move on in this journey; neither have they caused any wavering of trust in the Catholic Church from his part.

This same fundamental and radical choice will eventually come to light over and over again in the coming years. The writing of his Apologia pro vita sua, in 1864, will only serve to confirm the strength of the catholic believer, who after years of pain and suffering emerges from the shadows. It will be expressed in clear and unequivocal terms in his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, in 1875, where the power of his personality and the witness of his faith is well beyond the parameters of his personal day-to-day life. John Henry Newman is now a beacon to the Catholics in England. He embodies the best within the Catholic Church in England.

[26] “I have had more to try and afflict me in various ways as a Catholic than as an Anglican,” Postscript in Letter to the Duke of Norfolk on occasion of Mr. Gladstone’s expostulation of 1874. (Longmans, Green, and Co., London 1900) vol. 2, p. 348.

[27] Wilfrid Ward, The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman. Based on his Private Journals and Correspondence. 2 Volumes. (Longmans, Green, and Co., London 1912) vol. 1, p. 568.

[28] Id., p. 579.

[29] Id., pp. 580-581.

Conclusion

By way of concluding this lectio magistralis, I refer to a very important event that represents the high point of the life of Blessed John Henry Newman, while for us it is a constant reminder of his greatness.

Pope Leo XIII’s decision to raise John Henry Newman as a Cardinal of the Church is to be understood both as an acknowledgement of Newman’s wise and faithful service to the Church, as much as an invitation by the Supreme Pontiff to meditate and cherish his testimony.

The Pope’s official message for the occasion touches on this very special trait of Newman’s faithful service to the Church:

The Holy Father deeply appreciating the genius and learning which distinguish you, your piety, the zeal displayed by you in the exercise of the Holy Ministry, your devotion and filial attachment to the Holy Apostolic See, and the signal services you have for long years rendered to religion, has decided on giving you a public and solemn proof of his esteem and good-will. From the Vatican, March 15, 1879.[30]

The speech of the newly appointed cardinal, on Monday, 12th May 1879,[31] was as much an analysis of the challenges that the Church was facing as much as a confirmation of Newman’s own years of love and labour for the Church.

I rejoice to say, to one great mischief I have from the first opposed myself. For thirty, forty, fifty years I have resisted to the best of my powers the spirit of liberalism in religion… Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another, and this is the teaching which is gaining substance and force daily. It is inconsistent with any recognition of any religion, as true. It teaches that all are to be tolerated, for all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not miraculous; and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy… [32]

Newman traces out the fundamental challenge against religion calling it liberalism. His insight, then, is still a great tool for us today, where the same dangers and threats do represent themselves in the forms of relativism and of positivistic and subjective reading of religion. What Pope Benedict XVI has been constantly calling our attention to is precisely this mentality, which reaches a point where it becomes a highly effective, yet subliminal, political instrument – the dictatorship of relativism.

The second point is of a more personal and intimate nature. On this level, Newman excels in the way he captures the challenge of personal belief. From today’s perspective, we may call it the anatomy of the autonomous believer. In a post-modern society, where change is a permanent feature and the personal sphere instead of being God’s space, becomes the realm of absolute subjectivism, religious belief is relegated to the private sphere. No pretence should be allowed that might lend religion a public role or acknowledgement.

As to Religion, it is a private luxury, which a man may have if he will; but which of course he must pay for, and which he must not obtrude upon others, or indulge in to their annoyance.[33]

How far sighted the Blessed John Henry Newman proved to be when he expressed these words the day he became Cardinal. And, yet, what is unique about this man, is his ability not only to detect and analyse where the challenge lies, but more importantly so in being able to bring forth the good news of hope in the midst of all these seemingly terminal and final challenges for the mystical body of Christ – the Church.

Christianity has been too often in what seemed deadly peril, that we should fear for it any new trial now. So far is certain; on the other hand, what is uncertain, and in these great contests commonly is uncertain, and what is commonly a great surprise, when it is witnessed, is the particular mode by which, in the event, Providence rescues and saves His elect inheritance. Sometimes our enemy is turned into a friend; sometimes he is despoiled of that special virulence of evil which was so threatening; sometimes he falls to pieces of himself; sometimes he does just so much as is beneficial, and then is removed. Commonly the Church has nothing more to do than to go on in her own proper duties, in confidence and peace; to stand still and to see the salvation of God.[34]

May our search for truth be inspired by his zeal. May our love for the Church be inspired by his faithfulness. May we always imitate him in our wise reading of the challenges that lie ahead of us. And, finally, may we, like Blessed John Henry Newman, be joyful witnesses to that unwavering hope which is rooted in Jesus Christ, our Lord. AMEN.

[30] Id., vol 2, pp. 582-583.

[31] http://www.newmanreader.org/works/addresses/index.html; the printed source is Addresses to Cardinal Newman with His Replies Etc. 1879-81 (Longmans, Green, and Co., London 1912) pp. 61-70.

[32] Id., p. 64.

[33] Id., pp. 67-68.

[34] Id., pp. 69-70.