The Faith of Cardinal Newman
John P. Philips
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He died 100 years ago this month, quietly slipping away. He was the central figure in the movement against Liberalism in religion in Great Britain—first in the Anglican sect, and then in the Catholic Church, which he joined exactly halfway through his long life. The drawing on this month's cover was done by Sister Marie-Celeste from a photograph of the Cardinal taken shortly before his death. The drawing on the left was done by George Richmond in 1844, a year before the Cardinal's conversion. |
Born in the first weeks of the nineteenth century, he was raised in an evangelistic atmosphere. His movement towards the Faith began while an undergraduate at Oxford University. He entered the Anglican ministry in 1824 and, five years later upon returning from the first of three visits he would make to Rome, he helped launch what came to be known as the Oxford Movement.
For the twelve years from 1833 until 1845 he anguished over the growing Liberalism then creeping into Anglicanism, as it was throughout the Protestant world. He became immersed in the writings of early Church Fathers, and they led him to conclude that Anglicanism was not a via media—a middle way—between Protestantism and the supposed corruptions of Rome, but that the Catholic Church and the Church of the Fathers are one and the same. He entered the True Fold in October, 1845, and was ordained a priest in Rome in 1847.
He brought the oratory of St. Philip Neri to England—first to Birmingham, then to London. And half of those in the Oxford Movement became Catholic as well—among them Father Frederick Faber and the future Henry Edward Cardinal Manning.
His prolific pen gave numerous writings to the Catholic world—sermons, letters, and four classic books that have become standards in the Catholic repertoire: The Idea of a University, The Development of Christian Doctrine, The Grammar of Assent, and his great account of his conversion, Apologia Pro Vita Sua.
Living quietly in Birmingham, and feeling that a cloud of misunderstanding concerning his views lingered overhead, he received a signal honor: in 1879, Pope Leo XIII made him his first cardinal—a rare honor for a priest.
He and Cardinal Manning had their differences—personal, and over the question of how to approach the modern world—but it was Manning who delivered a eulogy the day before Newman's funeral.
Over the past century, Liberals, Conservatives and traditional Catholics have all claimed him for their own. In marking the centenary of his death, we will here allow him to speak for himself—from his sermons, letters and books—as to what his faith really meant to him.
On 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 that 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. Since then religion is so personal a peculiarity and so private a possession, we must of necessity ignore it in the intercourse of man with man. If a man puts on a new religion every morning, what is that to you? It is as impertinent to think about a man's religion as about his sources of income or the management of his family. Religion is in no sense the bond of society. As to Religion, it as 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.—Speech accepting entrance into
College of Cardinals, May 1879
The Church will triumph over Liberalism...
It must not be supposed that I am afraid of [the spread of Liberalism in religion.] I lament it deeply, because I foresee that it may be the ruin of many souls; but I have no fear that it really can do aught of serious harm to the Word of God, to Holy Church, to our Almighty King, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, faithful and true, or to His Vicar on earth. Christianity has been too often in what seemed deadly peril, that we should fear it any new trial now.—Speech accepting entrance into
College of Cardinals, May 1879
His description of Liberal religion...
That truth and falsehood in religion are but matters of opinion; that one doctrine is as good as another; that the governor of the world does not intend that we should gain the truth; that there is no truth; that we are not more acceptable to God by believing this than by believing that; that no one is answerable for his opinions; that they are a matter of necessity or of accident; that it is enough if we sincerely hold what we profess; that our merit lies in seeking, not in possessing; that it is a duty to follow what seems to us true, without a fear lest it should not be true; that it may be a gain to succeed, and can be no harm to fail; that we may take up and lay down opinions at pleasure; that we may safely trust to ourselves in matters of Faith; and need no other guide—this is the principle of philosophies and heresies, which is very weakness.—An Essay on the
Development of Christian Doctrine
His View in Opposition to Liberalism in Religion...
That there is a truth then; that there is one truth; that religious error is in itself of an immoral nature; that its maintainers, unless involuntarily such, are guilty in maintaining it; that it is to be dreaded; that the search for truth is not the gratification of curiosity; that its attainment has nothing of the excitement of a discovery; that the mind is below truth, not above it; and is bound, not to descant upon it, but to venerate it; that truth and falsehood are set before us for the trial of our hearts; that our choice is an awful giving forth of lots on which salvation or rejection is inscribed; that "before all things it is necessary to hold the Catholic faith," that "he that would be saved must thus think," and not otherwise; that "if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if thou seekest her as silver and searchest for her as for hid treasure, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God"—this is the dogmatical principle, which has strength.—An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine
On a Conflict Between Conscience and the Church...
Unless a man is able to say to himself, as in the Presence of God, that he must not, and dare not act upon the papal injunction, he is bound to obey it, and would commit a great sin in disobeying it.—Difficulties of Anglicans
On Proposing a View Against Church Authority...
In reading ecclesiastical history, when I was an Anglican, it used to be forcibly brought home to me, how the initial error of what afterwards became heresy was the urging forward some truth against the prohibition of authority at an unseasonable time. There is a time for everything, and many a man desires a reformation of an abuse, or the fuller development of a doctrine, or the adoption of a particular policy, but forgets to ask himself whether the right time for it is come; and knowing that there is no one who will be doing anything towards its accomplishment in his own lifetime unless he does it himself, he will not listen to the voice of authority, and spoils a good work in his own century, in order that another man, as yet unborn, may not have the opportunity of bringing it happily to perfection in the next. He may seem to the world to be nothing else than a bold champion of the truth and a martyr to free opinion, when he is just one of those persons whom the competent authority ought to silence; and, though the case may not fall within that subject matter in which it is infallible, or the formal conditions of the exercise of that gift may be wanting, it is clearly the duty of authority to act vigorously in the case. Yet his act will go down to posterity as an instance of tyrannical interference with private judgment, and of the silencing of a reformer, and of a base love of corruption and error, and it will show still less to advantage, if the ruling power happens in its proceedings to evince any defect of prudence or consideration.—Apologia Pro Vita Sua
His Belief in the Church's Infallibility...
...I profess my own absolute submission to its claim. I believe the whole revealed dogma as taught by the Apostles, as committed by the Apostles to the Church, and as declared by the Church to me. I receive it, as it is infallibly interpreted by the authority to whom it is thus committed, and implicitly as it shall be, in like manner, further interpreted by that same authority till the end of time. I submit, moreover, to the universally received traditions of the Church, in which lies the matter of those new dogmatic definitions which are from time to time made, and which in times are the clothing and illustration of the Catholic dogma as already defined. And I submit myself to those other decisions of the Holy See, theological or not, through the organs which it has itself appointed, which, waiving the question of their infallibility, on the lowest ground come to me with a claim to be accepted and obeyed.—Apologia Pro Vita Sua
On the Barque of St. Peter...
We have not chosen it to have fear about it; we have not entered it to escape out of it; no, but to go forth in it upon the flood of sin and unbelief, which would sink any other craft.—Prospects of the Catholic Missioner, 1849
The World our Enemy...
Are we tempted to neglect the worship of God for some temporal object? This is of the world, and not to be admitted. Are we ridiculed for our conscientious conduct? This again is a trial of the world, and to be withstood. Are we tempted to give too much time to our recreations; to be idling when we should be working; reading or talking when we should be busy in our temporal calling; hoping for impossibilities, or fancying ourselves in some different state of life from our own; over anxious of the good opinions of others; bent upon getting the credit of industry, honesty and prudence? All these are temptations of this world. Are we discontented with our lot, or are we over attached to it, and fretful and desponding when God recalls the good He has given? This is to be worldly minded.
Look not about for the world as some vast and gigantic evil far off—its temptations are close to you, apt and ready, suddenly offered and subtle in their address. Try to bring down the words of Scripture to common life, and to recognize the evil in which this world lies, in your own hearts.
When our Savior comes, He will destroy this world, even His own work, and much more the lusts of the world, which are of the evil one; then at length we must lose the world, even if we cannot bring ourselves to part with it now. And we shall perish with the world, if on that day its lusts are found within us. "The world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever."
—Parochial and Plain Sermons
On Reverence in Worship...
...See to it that you are clear from the sin of knowing and confessing what is your duty, and yet not doing it. If you be such, and make no effort to become better; if you do not come to Church honestly, for God's sake to make you better, and seriously strive to be better and to do your duty more thoroughly, it will profit you nothing to be ever so reverent in your manner, and ever so regular in coming to Church. God hates the worship of the mere lips. He requires the worship of the heart. A person may bow and kneel, and look religious, but he is not at all the nearer heaven, unless he tries to obey God in all things, and to do his duty.—Parochial and Plain Sermons
On the Real Presence of Our Lord...
People say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is difficult to believe; I did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it, as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she declared this doctrine to be a part of the original revelation.—Apologia Pro Vita Sua
On Love Without Fear...
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom; till you see Him to be a consuming fire, and approach Him with reverence and godly fear, as being sinners, you are not even in sight of the strait gate... fear and love must go together; always fear, always love, till your dying day.—Parochial and Plain Sermons
On the Duty of Self-Denial...
Self-denial of some kind or other is involved, as is evident, in the very notion of renewal and holy obedience. To change our hearts is to learn to love things which we do not naturally love—to unlearn the love of this world; but this involves, of course, a thwarting of our natural wishes and tastes. To be righteous and obedient implies self-command; but to possess power we must have gained it; how can we gain it without a vigorous struggle, a persevering warfare against ourselves. The very notion of being religious implies self-denial, because by nature we do not love religion...
If we would be followers of the great Apostle, first let us with him fix our eyes upon Christ our Savior; consider the splendor and glory of His holiness, and try to love it. Let us strive and pray that the love of holiness may be created within our hearts; and then acts will follow, such as befit us and our circumstances, in due time, without our distressing ourselves to find what they should be. You need not attempt to draw any precise line between what is sinful and what is only allowable; look up to Christ, and deny yourselves everything, whatever its character, which you think He would have you relinquish. You need not calculate and measure, if you love much: you need not perplex yourselves with points of curiosity, if you have a heart to venture after Him. True, difficulties will sometimes arise, but they will be seldom. He bids you take up your cross; therefore accept the daily opportunities which occur of yielding to others, when you need not yield, and of doing unpleasant services, which you might avoid. He bids those who would be highest, live as the lowest: therefore, turn from ambitious thoughts, and (as far as you religiously may) make resolves against taking on you authority and rule. He bids you sell and give alms; therefore, hate to spend money on yourself. Shut your ears to praise, when it grows loud: set your face like a flint, when the world ridicules, and smile at its threats. Learn to master your heart, when it would burst forth into vehemence, or prolong a barren sorrow, or dissolve into unreasonable tenderness. Curb your tongue, and turn your eye, lest you fall into temptation. Avoid the dangerous air which relaxes you, and brace yourself upon the heights. Be up at prayer "a great while before day," and seek the true, your only Bridegroom, "by night on your bed." So shall self-denial become natural to you, and a change come over you, gently and imperceptibly; and, like Jacob, you will lie down in the waste, and will soon see Angels, and a way opened for you into heaven.
—Parochial and Plain Sermons
On the Incarnation...
... few Protestants have any real perception of the doctrine of God and man in one Person. They speak in a dreamy, shadowy way of Christ's divinity; but, when their meaning is sifted, you will find them very slow to commit themselves to any statement sufficient to express the Catholic dogma... then when they comment on the gospels, they will speak of Christ, not simply and consistently as God, but as a being made up of God and man, partly one and partly the other, or between both, or as a man inhabited by a special divine presence... and they are shocked, and think it a mark both of reverence and good sense to be shocked, when they hear the Man spoken of simply and plainly as God. They cannot bear to have it said, except as a figure or mode of speaking, that God had a human body, or that God suffered; they think that the "Atonement" and "sanctification through the Spirit," as they speak, is the sum and substance of the Gospel, and they are shy of any dogmatic expression which goes beyond them... the world allows that God is man; the admission costs it little, for God is everywhere; and (as it may say) is everything; but it shrinks from confessing that God is the Son of Mary... If Mary is the Mother of God, Christ is understood to be Emmanuel, God with us. And hence it was, that, when time went on, and the bad spirits and false prophets grew stronger and bolder and found a way in the Catholic body itself, then the Church, guided by God, could find no more effectual and sure way of expelling them, than that of using the word Deipara (Mother of God) against them...
—Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations
A Heartfelt Desire...
May that bright and gentle Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, overcome you with her sweetness, and revenge herself on her foes by interceding effectually for their conversion!—Letter to the Rev. E. B. Pusey, who did not follow him to Rome
Converts come to the Catholic Church...
...not so much to lose what they have, as to gain what they have not; and in order that, by means of what they have, more may be given to them. St. Augustine tells us that there is no false teaching without an intermixture of truth; and it is by the light of those particular truths, contained respectively in the various religions of men, and by our certitudes about them, which are possible wherever those truths are found, that we pick our way, slowly perhaps, but surely, into the One Religion which God has given, taking our certitudes with us, not to lose but to keep them more securely.—Grammar of Dissent
On the Error of Focusing only on the Brighter Side of Christianity...
[This] includes no fear of God, no fervent zeal for His honor, no deep hatred of sin, no horror at the sight of sinners, no indignation and compassion at the blasphemies of heretics; no jealous adherence to doctrinal truth, no especial sensitiveness about the particular means of gaining ends, provided the ends be good; no loyalty to the Holy Apostolic Church, of which the creed speaks; no sense of authority of religion as external to the mind.—Parochial and Plain Sermons
On Those Who Concentrate Exclusively on God's Love...
In consequence, they are led on to deny, first, the doctrine of eternal punishment, as being inconsistent with this notion of Infinite Love; next, resolving such expressions as the "wrath of God" into a figure of speech, they deny the Atonement, viewed as a real reconciliation of an offended God to His creatures.
—Parochial and Plain Sermons
On a Needed Vigilance...
We should be on our guard against those who hope by inducing us to lay aside our forms, at length to make us lay aside our Christian hope altogether.—quoted by Michael Davies
A Prayer for Humility...
I promise... with Thy grace, that I will never set myself up, never seek pre-eminence, never court any great thing of the world, never prefer myself to others. I wish to bear insults meekly, and to return good for evil. I wish to humble myself in all things, and to be silent when I am ill-used, and to be patient when sorrow or pain is prolonged, and all for the love of Thee, and Thy cross.
—Meditations and Devotions
Cardinal Newman slipped away ever so quietly on the evening of 11 August 1890. Years before he had prayed:
O Savior of men, I come to Thee though it be in order to be at once remanded from Thee; I come to Thee who art my Life and my All; I come to Thee on the thought of whom I have lived all my life long. To Thee I gave myself when first I had to take part in the world; I sought Thee for my chief good early, for early didst Thou teach me, that good elsewhere was none. Whom have I in heaven but Thee? Whom have I desired on earth, whom have I had on earth, but Thee? I will fear no ill, for Thou art with me. I have seen Thee this day face to face, and it sufficeth... That eye of Thine shall be sunshine and comfort to my weary, longing soul; that voice of Thine shall be everlasting music in my ears. Nothing can harm me, nothing shall discompose me... till the end comes...—Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations
What am I? My time is out... It is enough for me to prepare for death... And He who has been with me so marvelously all through my life, will not fail me now, I know, though I have no claim upon Him...
—Autobiographical Writings
What a day will that be when I am thoroughly cleansed from all impurity and sin... and am fit to draw near to my Incarnate God in His palace of light above! What a morning, when having done with all penal suffering, I see Thee for the first time with these very eyes of mine, I see Thy countenance and gaze upon Thy eyes and gracious lips. What a day, a long day without ending, the day of eternity... O my Lord, what a day when I shall have done once and for all with all sins, and shall stand perfect and acceptable in Thy sight, able to bear Thy presence, not shrinking from Thy eye, not shrinking from the pure scrutiny of Angels and Archangels, when I stand in the midst and they around me...
—Meditations and Devotions
Through more than half a century, Henry Edward Cardinal Manning and Newman had, as we noted, their differences. But, at the end, in his funeral oration at the London Oratory, Manning could say:
Beyond the power of all books had been the example of his humble and unworldly life; always the same, in union with God, and in manifold charity to all who sought him. He was the center of innumerable souls, drawn to him as teacher, guide and comforter... to them he was a spring of light and strength from a supernatural source. A noble and beautiful life is the most convincing and persuasive of all preaching, and we have all felt its power... The history of our land will hereafter record the name of John Henry Newman among the greatest of our people, as a confessor for the Faith, a great teacher of men, a preacher of justice, of piety and of compassion. May we all follow him in his life, and may our end be painless and peaceful like his.
Manning died two years later.
Newman was buried in accordance with the instructions he had left, at his beloved Rednal, on August 19th. The grave, like the man, is humble. On the pall was his chosen cardinalate motto: "Cor ad cor loquitur—Heart speaks to heart." And on the memorial slab are engraved the words he desired: "Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem—Out of shadows and images into the Truth."
For "amid the encircling gloom," that is where the "Kindly Light" of Our Lord has led John Henry Cardinal Newman.
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