NEWMAN, JOHN HENRY. – Cardinal and distinguished writer, born in London on 22 Feb. 1801, died in Birmingham on 11 Aug. 1890.
I. LIFE
Of a Protestant family (his father was an intelligent and wealthy banker, his mother descended from Huguenots who had emigrated after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes), he was educated in an aristocratic manner at the Ealing boarding school (then outside London), where he revealed himself as a thoughtful youth of acute sensitivity, fond of solitude and passionate about music. In the final months of his stay at Ealing, under the influence of Walter Mayer, an evangelical and convinced Calvinist pastor, he matured his “conversion” to a well-defined creed (Trinity, Incarnation, Predestination), which determined his religious orientation.In December 1816 he entered Trinity College, Oxford, and after four years (1820) obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts; in 1822 he was promoted with great honour to a fellowship at Oriel College.
Ordained an Anglican priest, he served for two years (1824–1826) as curate at the parish of St. Clement’s, Oxford. From 1826 to 1832, as tutor at Oriel College, he took charge of the intellectual and moral formation of numerous undergraduates. On 14 March 1828 he was appointed vicar of St. Mary’s, where he preached with extraordinary success until 1843. Exhausted by intense intellectual work, from December 1832 to July 1833 he travelled in the Mediterranean, visiting Rome, Malta, Corfu, and Sicily. Recovering from a severe illness contracted at Leonforte, during the return journey he composed the poem *Lead, Kindly Light*, in which he expressed his trust in Providence, which would guide him to fulfil a particular mission: “I have a work to do.” Upon his return to England, the Oxford Movement began, of which he became the most representative figure: a small group of young men conceived the generous plan to combat theological liberalism, that is, the particular tendency to undervalue the rights of faith in the face of the growing claims of reason, which had manifested itself in the “evidentiary school.” This became Newman’s life’s work, to which he remained committed with increasing fidelity. Guided by the logic of anti-liberal principles, which in his feverish historical research became ever clearer in themselves and in their applications, he concluded that the Anglican claim to be the via media between the dogmatic amplifications of Romanism and the religious minimizations of Lutheranism was illegitimate; accordingly, in the *Tract 90* he declared his open sympathy for Catholicism, attempting to interpret the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Anglican confession in its favour. Condemned by the Hebdomadal Board of the University of Oxford and disavowed by forty-two bishops, Newman resigned from the parish of St. Mary’s and on 9 April 1842 retired to Littlemore with some friends, where he matured his conversion to the Catholic Church, which he entered on 9 October 1845 at the hands of the Venerable Dominic of the Mother of God, Passionist.
Sent to Rome (1846) by Bp. Wiseman, together with his faithful and inseparable friend Ambrose St. John, at the College of Propaganda Fide he completed his Catholic formation and received priestly ordination from the Prefect of Propaganda, Card. Fransoni (26 May 1847). Encouraged by Pius IX to establish the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in England, he founded the houses at Maryvale (1848), Birmingham (Alcester Street), London (where he placed Fr. Faber in charge of the community), and finally that of Edgbaston (a district of Birmingham), where he remained for the rest of his life, except for the period (1854–58) when he served as rector of the new University in Dublin.
The years of his Catholic life were embittered by failures and misunderstandings. All the works he undertook (the foundation of the University of Dublin, the English translation of the Bible, the direction of the journal *The Rambler*, the founding of an Oratory in Oxford for Catholic university students) failed due to the opposition of that current which succeeded in portraying Newman as a dangerous man for English Catholicism. Though wounded by the persistent “war of pinpricks” (as evidenced by his Spiritual Diary, Italian ed. by G. Barra, Pinerolo 1950, pp. 17–46), Newman remained faithful to the Church and truly accomplished “his work,” the defence of truth through writings that won sympathy for Catholicism among Anglicans and admiration from his adversaries.
In the twilight of his life, the shadows dissipated when Leo XIII, recognizing his “genius and learning,” created him a cardinal (1879); the entire English-speaking world, from Britain to Australia, felt the magnificence of the gesture and expressed its joyful pride. In his acceptance speech, the new prince of the Church showed the unity of his life in the constant struggle against theological liberalism and, while declaring himself with complete sincerity a “servant useless,” inwardly savoured the joy of having fulfilled the mission that Providence had assigned to him. In his final years, surrounded by universal admiration, he prepared his holy soul for the passage “ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem” (inscription composed by Newman for his tomb).
II. WORKS
Newman was a particularly prolific writer because he felt the duty to take up the pen whenever the interests of the faith were at stake. He never claimed to do anything grand or admired by the world, but wished to speak with simplicity and cordiality as a friend (in accordance with his cardinal’s motto: *Cor ad cor loquitur*) of what was required by the principle: *Holiness first*. Yet it happened that in his old age he found himself holding immense material, which he patiently organized into well-defined series of volumes (published in London between 1870 and 1879), entitling him to an honourable place in every branch of Christian culture. The principal works of the two periods are noted below.### Period of Anglicanism
*Parochial and plain sermons* (8 vols., Oxford 1834 ff.): concise and incisive, these sermons shook consciences by stirring the deepest problems of the soul; *Sermons on subject of the day* (ibid. 1843): preached between 1831 and 1843; sermons 21-24, delivered on four consecutive Sundays (28 Nov.–18 Dec. 1841), have autobiographical value: they reveal subjective principles which the author soon definitively rejected; *Sermons preached before the University of Oxford* (ibid. 1843): here he elucidates the relationship between faith and reason; many refined themes reappear in the *Grammar of Assent*; *The Arians of the fourth century* (ibid. 1833): reconstruction of an exceptionally important historical moment in the development of Christian thought; more than the facts, Newman observes the ethos of the Arians and the interior movements of heresy; *Lectures on the doctrine of justification* (ibid. 1838): refutation of the theory of justification by faith alone. In the 13th lecture he thoroughly critiques the religious subjectivism inaugurated by Luther; *An essay on the development of christian doctrine* (ibid. 1845): vindication of the Church from the charge of having corrupted Christian doctrine by adding new dogmas. The essay, one of the most original works of the 19th century, begins by sketching a psychology of the masses, into which the evangelical message was inserted as a divine leaven. The one and many-sided Christian idea, shining with light and surrounded by shadows, transmitted in writings marked by chiaroscuro and eloquent silences, is the true “gramm synapsi” of the Gospel destined to grow. Hence he developed ever new aspects of that idea, and ever wider resonances were to be expected. The slow and sure progress of the primacy of the pope and devotion to Mary are facts that, *a posteriori*, confirm what had been anticipated regarding the very nature of the Church, which has developed while preserving the same nature (*conservation of types*) and the same fundamental tendencies (*continuation of the same principles*), namely the primacy of faith, the biblical, dogmatic, theological, and sacramental principle. These immutable elements of Christianity possess an inner assimilative force (*faculty of assimilation*), which, after eliminating harmful elements, receives and makes its own others, determining from within a homogeneous growth that harmonizes with what is immutably fixed (*logical consequence*), and is foreshadowed by what is only faintly outlined in the living organism (*anticipation of the future*), while adding effective confirmation to what had already been in act (*conservation of ancient things*). Such progress brings about in the entire mystical body a perpetual vigour (*perpetual vigour*), which explains how in the history of the Church, unlike what happens in heresy, after brief and harsh winters, ever new springs always follow.
### Period of Catholicism
*Loss and gain: the story of a convert* (written in Rome at the end of 1847, published in Oxford 1848): Newman draws on personal recollections without composing an autobiography. It vividly describes the various theological tendencies in England at the time; *Discourses addressed to mixed congregations* (1848): discourses reflecting the joy of conversion; *Lectures on certain difficulties felt by Anglicans in submitting to the catholic Church* (1851): demonstrates to followers of the Oxford Movement that the concept of an established Church is in contrast with their own principles; to them nothing remains but to draw a logical conclusion: to submit to
Church of Catholicism; Lectures on Catholicism in England (1851; in the definitive edition the title is different: "Present Position of Catholics in England"): a satire of the inveterate prejudices of Anglicanism against Rome; with this book the author secured for Catholicism the right of citizenship in his country; Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Education (1852; in the definitive edition they form the first part of the volume: "The Idea of University Defined and Illustrated"): a series of ten lectures (only five of which were actually delivered) to illustrate the nature and purpose of the Catholic University of Dublin; with this work the author ranks among the foremost modern educators; Callista, a Sketch of the Third Century (1856): a novel set against the backdrop of Christian Africa in the time of St Cyprian; Sermons Preached on Various Occasions (1857; the definitive edition includes three additional discourses): noteworthy is the fifth on dispositions to faith; the tenth, "The Second Spring," delivered at Oscott on the occasion of the First Provincial Council of Westminster, is among the most celebrated; Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1865): a moving and candid narrative of his journey to full light; written to vindicate the sincerity of his conversion, it became a compelling apology for the Church, valid for all time; A Letter to the Rev. E. B. Pusey on His Recent Episcopacy (1866): an apology for Marian devotion, founded on the truths of the Divine Maternity and of Coredemption (the new Eve), presented as the two patristic cornerstones from which all subsequent parology developed. It also demonstrates that excesses in popular devotion are not attributable to theology or to the Church; Verses on Various Occasions (1868): a collection of thirty short poems composed at different times, the best known of which is The Dream of Gerontius, the hymn of the Communion of Saints, which in its Dantean grandeur fascinates and moves; An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (1870): the masterpiece of apologetics. In the first part, in polemic with theological liberalism, he demonstrates that it is not useless to give religious assent to a series of mysterious propositions, such as those contained in the Athanasian Creed, since in man, beyond notional apprehension (the purely abstract theoretical knowledge of a truth), there exists real apprehension (concrete and individual knowledge, based on direct contact with the thing perceived); therefore, giving to the propositions of the Athanasian Creed a real assent (grounded in real knowledge) is to believe (to believe), that is, to perform a religious act, rich in emotive potential; whereas offering to the same propositions a notional assent (grounded in notional knowledge) is to do theology, equally legitimate as faith, of which it is an extension in the theoretical and abstract line. In the second part he addresses the problem of the contrast between the unshaken firmness of the act of faith and the apparent fragility of the proofs on which it is based. He begins by distinguishing assent from inference: the former is unconditional adherence to a proposition irrespective of the premises from which it depends, the latter is assent to the conclusion of a syllogism. Religious truths cannot be accepted by inference; indeed, rigorous demonstration, founded on formal logic, is not possible in this order of knowledge, since faith is not a notional assent but a real assent to concrete facts that elude abstract reasoning, by which certainty is attained only in the purely theoretical order. Therefore, the religious fact cannot be established except by a complex of indications, too numerous and too subtle to be syllogized, each of which, taken separately, offers only a probability, while in their convergent totality they remove all doubt. This convergence (or synthesis of probabilities) generating certainty is the product of the illative sense, a true faculty of judgment, a kind of judgment of the concrete, comparable to Aristotle’s phronesis, which, though rooted in the proportions of human nature, is developed and sharpened by moral perfection in man; hence the evangelical word: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” points to the surest way to attain religious truth. It was inevitable that so bold and brilliant a work should elicit the most varied judgments; A Letter Addressed to His Grace the Duke of Norfolk on Occasion of Mr Gladstone’s Recent Expostulation (1875): while rejecting the positions of the integrists (Ward, Manning, Veuillot), the author loyally defends the definitions of the Vatican Council, illuminating their inner meaning with acuity, even if some reservations are not entirely accurate.
V. VALUTAZIONE
The thinker N. has experienced the most varied and disconcerting fate; while he lived, his writings were eagerly awaited and brought serenity to public opinion, reassuring friends and placating adversaries, but for professional scholars they remained for many decades a sign of contradiction.As early as 1846 the American Catholic Brown protested that he discerned in N.’s writings a subtle Protestant virus, extremely dangerous for the Catholic organism into which it was being injected. From the Anglican side Mozley (1878), Fairbairn (1885) and Abbot (1897) saw in N.’s intellectual activity nothing but a sinister manoeuvre of dogmatic obscurantism, with a fideistic slant, directed against the growing advances of reason and science. In 1870 T. Harper believed he had definitively liquidated the ambiguous writer from Birmingham by showing a profound antinomy between Newman’s thought and that of scholasticism (either St Thomas or N.). More equitable judgments, pronounced by men of superior intellect and standing, such as Cardinal Wiseman and the Scottish Bishop Gillis, were neutralised by the modernist interpretation. A mask of theologian of sentiment and innocence was hastily imposed on N. by A. Sabatier (1890) and ever more firmly adapted to him by Loisy and Tyrrell, while Bremond and Dimnet, with excessive zeal, sought ideological affinities with Schleiermacher and Hegel, with James and Bergson. This widespread tendency was not entirely escaped by excellent men such as De Grandmaison and Boudin. But against this modernist appropriation there reacted effectively the Jesuit Tohel (1907), Bishop O’Dwyer (1908) and the layman W. Ward (1912), obtaining at a particularly delicate moment from Blessed Pius X the historic verdict of orthodoxy: “Profecto in tanta lucubrationum copia, quidpiam reperiri potest, quod ab usitata theologorum ratione alienum videatur, nihil potest quod de ipsius fide suspicionem afferat” (Epist. ad episc. E. T. O’Dwyer, in Acta Sanctae Sedis, 41 [1908], p. 200). Only after the First World War did the work of rehabilitation, begun in Germany by the Jesuit Przywara (1922), continue in France with Guitton (1933) and Nédoncelle (1945), in America with Cronin (1935), in England with Tristram (1945), Harold (1945) and others, in Belgium with Janssens (1937), in Holland with Fr Zeno (1943) and Walgrave (1946), in Italy with De Luca (1949).
The prolonged oscillation of human judgment around the thought of Cardinal N. is due not only to passions and partisan suspicions but also to a fundamental error of perspective. Having engaged in a thoroughgoing struggle with religious liberalism—which in the Anglican milieu of the 19th century bore predominantly rationalistic hues—N. appeared to many as an anti-intellectualist. When, however, the same movement, through its own internal evolution, drifted into modernist voluntarism, it seemed to many that he must logically have been a warm advocate of that tendency as well. Thus, each side claimed him or rejected him according to its own theological sympathies or antipathies, without realizing that it was ahistorical to push a thinker, who throughout his life sought—and succeeded—in remaining distant from every extremism, toward one shore or the other. Today, N. is viewed in a balanced perspective that cannot be shaken, even if in his multifaceted output one may discern elements that are ephemeral, inexact, or unorthodox. For in a sower of ideas like N., what matters is the general orientation of his spirit and thought. The new and substantially correct paths he marked in the history of dogma, in apologetics, in the concept of doctrinal development, in the evaluation of Protestantism, in the idea of the Church’s prophetic (theological) mission, in pedagogy, and in spirituality reveal him as a great precursor of new times.
It is therefore the immanent force of truth that has done justice to this man, and the true face of the Oxford convert now appears in his noble features as an authentic Catholic thinker. No longer the antithesis: either St. Thomas or N., but rather the synthesis: St. Thomas and N. Around the lofty, spare, and gentle old man of Birmingham, a consensus has formed—one that he foresaw and that the Church, with maternal care, has prepared and sanctioned in the judgments of three Popes (Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XII).