#johnhenrynewman

Our Morning Offering – 2 February – The Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, Candlemas CandlemasBy John Henry Newman (1801-1890)The Oratory, 1849. The Angel-lights of Christmas morn,Which shot across the sky,Away they pass at Candlemas,They sparkle and they die. Comfort of earth is brief at best,Although it be divine;Like funeral lights for Christmas gone,Old Simeon’ s tapers…

Quote/s of the Day – 31 October – “The Month of the Most Holy Rosary and of the Angels” – Goodbye October “Be constant in secret prayerswhich God, Who indeed sees in secret,rewards in the open.Hold fast to this exerciseof a most excellent way of life.that you may find hidden treasurein the day of need.” St Basil the Great (329-379)Father and Doctor of the Church “… [I] resolved to recite a…

Note on the text: I used John Henry Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua as published by Modern Library in I think 1950 (no copyright page however the introduction is dated August 1950)

Initially John Henry Newman (who later became a cardinal after he converted to Catholicism) wrote his autobiography (the title of which translates to “a defense of my own life”) to refute the charges that he had been acting as a sort of theological double agent. That while an Anglican clergyman he been covertly, intentionally or otherwise, been teaching Catholic doctrine, as if

a religion which has flourished through so many ages, among so many nations, amidst such varieties of social life, in such contradictory classes and conditions of men, and after so many revolutions, political and civil, could not subdue the reason and overcome the heart without the aid of fraud (31).

It was in fact Catholicism’s ability to maintain its identity despite all the chaos it has encountered throughout the centuries that convinced Cardinal Newman of its authenticity and convinced him to convert.

He reports that his love affair with the early church fathers started as a teenager when he read a book on the history of the early church, and it was through his later study of the early church fathers that he realized just how consistent the Catholic Church has been both in terms of what it believes and in what it condemns. The problem was that as an Anglican he had brought up to believe that while the Catholic Church might have more universal appeal, it was the Anglican Church that held beliefs that were more consistent with the beliefs of early (and therefore more original and true) church. However the more he studied the history of the early church, the more he realized that

it was difficult to make out how the Eutychians or Monophysites were heretics unless the Protestants and Anglicans were heretics also. . . . The principles and proceedings of the [Catholic] Church now were the same as the Church then; the principles and proceedings of the heretics then were those of the Protestants [and Anglicans] now (133).

He says later in fact that while studying the Arian heresy it became obvious to him that “pure Arians were the Protestants, the semi-Arians were the Anglicans and that [the Catholic Church] was now what it is [always] was” (155). Essentially, what he had come to find out was that the Anglican Church was promoting beliefs that had been deemed heretical by the same “early churches” who they were claiming to represent. Which meant that Anglicanism could not be the true form of Christianity. In fact he and his Anglican friends, many of whom also converted to Catholicism, told other Anglicans that the writings of the early church fathers would “lead [them] to become Catholics before [they] were even aware of it” (88).

This is also why he had no problem with the then radical idea of papal infallibility. In his mind it only applies articles of faith that have already been established by scripture or the Apostolic Tradition, which means that it can’t be abused in any secular sense of the word. All it can do, in essence, is expand upon a teaching that was already accepted: “the new truth which is promulgated, if it is to be called new, must be at homogenous [when] viewed relative to the old truth (250-251). And the reason why certain beliefs might be seen as “optional” initially and declared to be infallibly true later is simply because ideas take a long time to develop. Thus an idea that initially appeared to be inconsequential or perhaps in conflict with other accepted beliefs, might over time prove to be important and just an expansion of what the Catholic Church already believes. This is how the Catholic Church has managed to evolve with the times while maintaining its own identity.