by Tricia O’Donnell
Newman had become a convert as a man of conscience; it was his conscience that led him out of the old ties and securities into the world of Catholicism, which was difficult and strange for him.
Pope Benedict XVI
In September 2010, a very special Beatification will take place, one that will be presided over by the Pope himself. Normally a Vatican official carries out the task in the candidate’s diocese at time of death, but on this occasion Pope Benedict has overruled protocol. A long-standing admirer of John Henry Newman and his writings, the Pontiff has included the ceremony in Birmingham, in his upcoming visit to Britain. k
The 19th century cardinal and theologian was made Venerable in 1991 by Pope John Paul II but since then has largely been off the radar. That’s likely to alter this year as his beatification draws nearer and more people learn about this remarkable man.
The eldest of six children, John Henry Newman was born on the 21st of February 1801 in London to Anglican parents. His father John Newman was a banker and his mother Jemima Fourdrinier came from a Huguenot family of engravers and paper manufacturers. His childhood was largely uneventful: he was sent to a private school when he was seven years old, where he was described as being shy and aloof. Although he admitted in later years as taking a “great delight” in reading the Bible when he was young, his religious tendencies were moderate and unformed until age fifteen when he had a conversion experience.
In 1816, John’s final year at school, the conversion that was to change his life took place. He wrote that, “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.” His predominantly Calvinist views at this time did not stop him being enthralled by the writings of St Augustine, St Paul and St John though he still firmly believed the Pope was the anti-Christ. It was also at this time that John knew God wanted him to lead a single life; he knew he had a higher calling.
At the end of 1816 he matriculated from Oxford’s Trinity College, although he remained there until graduating in 1821.
The following year he was successful after applying for a fellowship for Oriel College, also in Oxford, and it was here he became involved in the Oriel Noetics, a group with strict religious views. The debating and analytical skills he learnt there were to prepare him for the theologian he was to become in later years.
Over the next two years Newman’s Calvinist beliefs were gradually replaced by Anglicanism. When he was given a copy of Sumner’s Treatise on Apostolical Preaching, the remnants of his Calvinism disappeared and on the 13th June 1824 he was ordained into the Church of England. He then became curate of St Clement’s, Oxford where he remained for a further two years. During these years, though certain about the path he was taking, he was still quite shy; despite forming close friendships with people who were to influence his thinking and his writing, he still lacked confidence to speak out.
However, as he said himself, that all changed in 1826 when he became one of the Tutors of his College (Oriel), which gave him ‘position’. “I had written two Essays which had been well received. I began to be known. I preached my first University sermon.” When, in 1828, he became Vicar of St Mary’s, it was “like the spring weather after winter and …I came out of my shell.”
It was around this time that the friendship between John Newman, Richard Froude and John Keble started to take root. The three University men had known each for some time but as their conversations delved deeper into their religious convictions, a strong friendship grew that would result in Newman’s conversion to Catholicism. Froude in particular appears to have had the biggest sway: “He taught me to look with admiration towards the Church of Rome, and in the same degree to dislike the Reformation. He fixed deep in me the idea of devotion to the Blessed Virgin and he led me gradually to believe in the Real Presence.”
By the end of 1832, further changes had taken place in John’s spiritual life. He’d been dismissed as local secretary for the Church Missionary Society due to his radical views on Non-Conformists. Shortly after, he resigned from the Bible Society bringing to an end his association with the ‘low church’ (a term used to describe Protestant/Anglican worship, brought about by the Reformation). In December of that year John accompanied Richard Froude on a convalescence trip to Europe, visiting Rome, Naples and Sicily among other places and it was during this time he wrote much of the poetry which would appear in Lyra Apostolica.
While in Sicily he became seriously ill and as he slowly recovered he felt that once back in England, God had plans for him. Although the feelings had been there for some time, they had taken on an urgency after his illness. As May 1833 drew to a close, John set off for Palermo but his journey home was to be excruciatingly slow. According to his Apologia Pro Vita he was “aching to get home, but for want of a vessel I was kept at Palermo for three weeks.” When at last he was Marseilles bound, the boat was becalmed for a week in the Strait of Bonifacio and it was here he wrote his famous hymn Lead, Kindly Light.
Five days after arriving home on the 9th of July, John Keble preached his Assizes Sermon, entitled ‘National Apostasy’ at St Mary’s. That, said John Newman, marked the beginning of the religious movement of 1833, known as The Oxford Movement. The government’s plans in the 1832 Reform Act to reduce the number of bishops in the Church of Ireland was the catalyst for the start of the Movement which, along with John Newman, John Keble and Richard Froude, included other Oxford University High Church Anglicans . They feared for the disestablishment of the Church in England also and criticised the liberalism within it – times were changing – and not for the better, they believed. There were also issues around the origins of the Church, which they were convinced began with the Apostles; this in turn led them to question the role of the Roman Catholic Church.
Several weeks after the formation of the Movement, Newman began writing a series of Tracts for the Times, hence the men were also called the Tractarians. Controversy surrounded the writings which sought to lay down firm doctrine and principles for the Church; their author was determined to relay the message of the Movement that there would be boundaries to Church Reform. He backed the series up with sermons every Sunday afternoon at St Mary’s.
For Newman, he was in no doubt he was on the right track. “I had the consciousness that I was employed in that work which I had been dreaming about… I had a supreme confidence in our cause.” It would be, he said, a Second Reformation, better than the first as they would be returning to the seventeenth century not the sixteenth. He also admitted that he “despised every rival system of doctrine and its arguments.” While a gradual softening was occurring in his feelings towards the Church of Rome, he refused to change his ‘anti’ stance, as “my judgement was against her, when viewed as an institution.”
The Movement was gathering momentum and when Professor Edward Bouverie Pusey joined in 1835, it picked up speed. According to John, he gave it “a name, a form and a personality.” Several years later when Newman turned to Catholicism it was Dr Pusey who became head of the Movement.
Newman continued to court controversy. He became heavily involved in the study of the differences between the Anglican and the Roman Churches. His findings became lectures in St Mary’s side chapel and were later revised to become The Prophetical Office of the Church viewed relatively to Romanism and Popular Protestantism which was published in 1837. The following year he became editor of the British Critic Journal and for the next three years it was, as he said himself, “from a human point of view, the happiest time of my life”.
In 1841 the final Tract was published. Tract 90 was the culmination of Newman’s study and research of the 16th century’s Thirty Nine Articles of Religion which sought to define the theological differences between the Church of England, Protestants in Europe, such as Calvinists and Lutherans and the Roman Catholic Church. The wave of religious change began with the excommunication of Henry VIII in 1533, hence the Articles were written and re-written to reflect the changes continually taking place. Although mainly written in 1563, they were finalised in 1571, a year after Elizabeth I was excommunicated.
It was during this research that the first real seeds of doubt were sown in Newman’s mind, he was, he said “on his deathbed as regards membership with the Anglican Church”. He began to see connections between his Church’s teachings and Arianism (a theology originating in the fourth century which denied the existence of the Holy Trinity; believing that Jesus was a creature in that he was created by God). For Newman, it appeared that the writing of Tract 90 raised more questions than answers. When Oxford divines and the Anglican bishops condemned him for his views, he resigned as editor of the British Critic and considered his future.
He left Oxford and settled in the nearby small village of Littlemore, where he lived a monastic life in prayer and study. In February 1843, an Oxford newspaper published his formal retraction of all his criticism of the Church of Rome prior to 1841; later that year he resigned from his post at St Mary’s. It was a further two years before Newman was received into the Catholic Church. This delay was due, he said in his Apologia, to taking the advice of friends who advised him to wait, as his views “may be a delusion” and he might regret it if he acted upon them too soon.
Nevertheless, on the 9th October 1845, Father Dominic, an Italian Passionist priest, (now Blessed Dominic Barberi) welcomed John Henry Newman into the Roman Catholic Church. Early in 1846 he moved to Oscott, near Birmingham where he was summoned by Bishop Wiseman and in October of that year he travelled to Rome where, on the 30th of May 1847, he was ordained by Cardinal Fransoni.
After discussions with Pope Pius IX it was agreed he would found an Oratory in England, based on the works of St Philip Neri. Several years of temporary premises followed until an Oratory was established in the Birmingham suburb of Edgbaston, where it continues to flourish today.
This was to be, with the exception of four years in Ireland, John Newman’s home for the next forty years. A London Oratory also opened in 1849.
In many ways those years were no less troublesome than the previous ones. Resentment still simmered in some quarters, and when Charles Kingsley accused Fr Newman of supporting dishonesty within the Catholic Church, he was forced to defend himself and his Faith. The end result was his religious autobiography Apologia pro vita sua, which originated as a seven-week serial in nationwide newspapers. An attempt to open an Oratory in Oxford failed due to internal politics, as did a bid to edit a new translation of the Bible.
However, he continued writing relentlessly, and titles such as Parochial and Plain Sermons, The Grammar of Assent and Letter to the Duke of Norfolk were hugely popular as was his poetry. Preaching and counselling as well as his Oratory work also carried on into John’s latter years, at which time the accolades started to arrive. In the late 1870s he was the first person to be awarded an honorary fellowship at Trinity College in Oxford, where he’d spent much of his earlier life. He returned to Oxford after more than 30 years to receive the award. Then on the 12th of May 1879, Pope Leo XIII declared him a cardinal. After years of controversy, his appropriate response was, “the cloud is lifted forever”.
Portrait by Sir John Everett Millais
Cardinal John Newman’s long, illustrious life ended at age 89 on the 11th of August 1890. One hundred and twenty years later his legacy lives on in a myriad of schools, churches and buildings that bear his name; numerous world-wide Newman centres, which provide spiritual ministries at universities and colleges. The Newman Association is an organisation dedicated to “Promoting open discussion and greater understanding in today’s Church”; its members – Catholic and non-Catholic – gather regularly to discuss their Christian faith.
As for what John Newman is most likely remembered for, his epitaph pretty much says it: Ex Umbris Et Imaginibus In Veritatem (Out of the shadows and images into truth). Pope John Paul II described him as a “Pilgrim of Truth” and it’s hard to argue with that.
Newman's Gravestone
