saving john henry newman’s legacy

ONCE UPON A HISTORY

Saving John Henry Newman’s Legacy

How the Apologia Pro Vita Sua Repaired an Infamous Man’s Reputation

Travis Anderson, B. A.

1

Only once in the recorded history of mankind has a person been born to

the world and led a completely perfect and sin-free life. In the Christian faith,

that man was Jesus Christ the son of God, sent to save us from our sins. No one

since that day has come close to duplicating that feat, but duplicating the feat is

not what makes a man great. Instead, it is living everyday in an attempt to

come closer to God and few are able to make that sacrifice. One man who tried

was John Henry Newman. Newman was not a man without controversy. He

went from a leading man in the Church of England to a converted Catholic in a

country where the idea of being English was tied to the idea of being

Protestant. At the end of his life and even into our age, Newman is revered by

both Catholics and Protestants. However, that was not always the case, and in

the days after his conversion he was ostracized from many of his

contemporaries and was on the path to a life of seclusion outside the realm of

consciousness for his country as a whole. The people who did remember him

thought of him as a traitor. One event, or rather publication, changed all that.

Despite Newman’s stellar career as a clergyman it came down to one

publication that left a lasting legacy. That publication was the semi-

autobiographical, Apologia Pro Vita Sua; that publication saved his legacy.

Some have gone as far as to call it “the greatest religious classic of the

2

nineteenth century.”1 John Henry Newman was a great man with or without the

Apologia, but with it he was able to live out the rest of his life happier and the

world will forever know his name.

John Henry Newman was born in London on February 21, 1801 to John

and Jemima Newman. His father was a banker and the family held no solid

religious views. At age 15 Newman made his first conversion to Calvinism. In

June 1824, Newman was ordained at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford and

spent the next two years doing parochial work and writing articles for the

Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. In 1825 Newman met Richard Whately and

under his influence Newman began developing his Anglican views and was

slowly coaxed out of his shyness through their stimulating discussions.

Newman’s influence grew and he became securely planted at Oxford and with

his great skill with the pen Newman was able to align himself as a leader of the

Oxford Movement. In this role Newman authored and began publishing the

Tracts for the Times and hoped to secure some definite basis of doctrine and

discipline in the Church of England. As vicar of St. Mary’s, Newman held a lot

of sway and he used his influence to teach the “via media,” which was a

middle road between Roman Catholicism and English Protestantism. To fully

1 Louis Bouyer, Newman: His Life and Spirituality (London: Burns and Oates, 1958), 361.

3

understand what the Oxford Movement was and Newman’s place in it, the

general view of the Church in Victorian England must first be explored.

Ever since the English Reformation in the 16th century, relations

between the Protestant majority and the remaining Catholics were icy at best.

“The Englishman knew himself to be Protestant.”2

Less than a decade before

Queen Victoria took the throne and Victorianism took hold in England, the

Catholics won their first victory since the monarchy took control of the church

away from the Pope and Roman Catholic authority. On April 13, 1829 the bill

for the emancipation of Catholics was carried by the House of Lords, which

took away many of the civil disabilities that subjected British Catholics. Upon

receiving the English envoy in Rome, Pope Pius VIII told him that nothing

could equal the gratitude that he felt for the British government.3

The Victorian

era saw a decline in church involvement from the monarchy as Queen Victoria

was not nearly as involved in church politics as her predecessors had been.

Prince Albert and Victoria instead lived in the advice from Saint-Simon, “that

they should show their religion by leading moral lives, not in slavishly

attending services in church.”4

She preferred liberal and scholarly clergymen

and was “taught to distrust extremists whether high or low, demanded

2 Owen Chadwick, An Ecclesiastical History of England: The Victorian Church Part 1 (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1966), 7. 3 Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, 7.

4 Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, 166.

4

simplicity in ritual, thought of religion as a way of life based upon a few

simple truths, and had no patience with the complexities of dogmatic

theology.”5 This created an atmosphere where the supreme governor of the

established church was in no position to undermine the strong religious forces

of the day, including movements by the High Church, known as the Oxford

Movement, in which John Henry Newman first became a well known man of

the clergy.

English churchmen at the time felt under assault from Roman

Catholicism. The common English churchman was a Protestant in the Church

of England and therefore had a deep dislike of the pope and the Roman

Church. The English felt that the Church of Rome was dangerous in Ireland,

while in England the danger was in the dissenting churches. The unnatural

alliance between Irish radical Catholics and English radical dissenters created a

power that beleaguered the Church of England to the right as well as to the

left.6 This forced the clergy to tread in the middle road for truth. It was in this

attitude that Newman came to prominence preaching the via media, “middle

road.” Newman’s preaching and work on the Tracts for the Time divided

Oxford between the old who were not converted and the young who fell under



5

his thrall.7 The young were taken by this because of the excitement that went

along with it. Newman taught them “obedience, holiness, devotion, sacrament,

fasting, mortification, in language of a beauty rarely heard in English oratory.”8

Newman commanded a following that was rare even in English universities.

Newman described his time at Oxford during the movement as “in a human

point of view, the happiest time of my life.”9 This was because as the author of

the Tracts and as editor of the British Critic, he had the ability to make his

opinions known. He was able to help in the advancement of knowledge of all

those around him. Invariably this led to his advancement not only in stature,

but also in religious doctrine. The feeling among the high churchmen who led

the Oxford Movement was that the Church of England must appeal to the

ancient fathers of undivided Christendom. In this spirit Newman held weekday

lectures on theology and in these lectures some of the first flashes of

Newman’s displeasure with the Protestant Church started to show. He admitted

to the truth of the Roman claim that “you would hardly find ten or twenty

neighboring clergymen of the English church who agree together.”10

However,

this was why Newman was preaching. Newman called for a “second



9 John Henry Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua (London: JM Dent & Sons Ltd., 1912), 88.

10 John Henry Newman, Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church, 20-21, 394-396. quoted in Owen

Chadwick, An Ecclesiastical History of England: The Victorian Church Part 1 (New York: Oxford University Press,

1966), 170.

6

Reformation” that would establish some solid bond and unity amongst the

whole of Church of England.

As the movement grew, Newman became the head of the Oxford

Movement. Newman was a brilliant writer and had highly intelligent theories,

but he was never the right man to be the leader. Newman often times depended

too greatly on his friend’s approval and did not have the self-confidence to take

blows against his works. In Newman’s last couple of years the movement hit a

snag when words started to go against Newman. Newman could not handle the

negatives. In February of 1841, Newman published what would be the final

Tracts for the Times with Tract XC. Newman did not expect the Tract to attract

much notice.11

Tract XC detailed an examination of the 39 articles of religion

and was received critically and denounced by the university. With the

denouncing Newman’s mind became unsettled. He had felt strongly on these

issues, but the critics had partly broken his spirit. He weathered the storm as

best he could, but in the end it was decided that the Tracts would cease to be

published and this cut off the largest public piece in the Oxford Movement

under Newman. In this state of mind, Newman took up academic pursuits to

study the ancient Arians which disturbed his unsettled mind even further. By

the end of 1841, Newman’s Anglican faith was on its death bed. Then early on

11

Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, 183.

7

in 1842 Newman decided to retire from Oxford and retreat to Littlemore,

where he said he “want[ed] the chance of a more severe and prayerful life.”12

With his retreat to Littlemore, Newman’s public life as a Protestant had come

to an end.

The Oxford Movement, a movement by the High Church to reinstate lost

Christian traditions to the Anglican church, grabbed headlines and put the High

Church stance along with John Henry Newman directly into the conscience of

the masses. The conservative views won over many as its leaders clashed

against liberalism. Throughout the whole of the movement the more

conventional Victorian Protestants feared that they were indirectly advocating

for a possible recovery with the Roman Catholic Church.13

The conversion of

Newman to Roman Catholicism hurt many of the goals of the Oxford

Movement. As much as Tract XC had been taken badly, it was nothing

compared to the reception that Newman was met with when his conversion

was revealed. Tract XC combined with his conversion to Catholicism seemed

to justify the fears the Protestants had about the Oxford Movement. Some even

considered Newman a kind of “Guy Fawkes at Oxford.”14

His reasons for his

conversion could not be fully explained or understood at the time and led to

12

Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, 193. 13

Thomas William Heyck, The Peoples of the British Isles: From 1688 to 1870, 3rd

ed. (Chicago, IL: Lyceum Books

Inc., 2008), 314. 14

William Barry, “John Henry Newman,” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 10 (New York: Robert Appleton

Company, 1911), http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10794a.htm (accessed November 29, 2010).

8

estrangement with his countrymen. In the midst of great animosity Newman

left for Rome and his new life.

Newman’s retirement from Oxford and conversion to the Catholic Church

effectively left the Tractarians without a leader.15

While Newman was sad to

see his friends and one-time students in a weak position, he had little choice

but to follow his heart to what he believed to be the one true church of Christ.

In 1846 Newman made the spiritual trip to Rome where he was then ordained

by Cardinal Fransoni. Newman then returned to England and with the consent

of the pope set up the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. As an oratorian Newman

settled in Edgbaston and built the community there. It was there in which

Newman lived the rest of his life. As a Catholic he lived a far more secluded

life than the one he led as a leader in the High Church. However, just because

Newman lived a more secluded life it does not mean that it was a life without

controversy. In 1850 Newman further ostracized many of his old colleagues in

the Anglican Church with the publication of Lectures on certain difficulties felt

by Anglicans in submitting to the Catholic Church. The book held violent

onslaughts against the Church of England, which he called “a home for the

seceders.”16

The lectures were extreme, and in subsequent publications

Newman handled his words much more gracefully. It was not the best idea for

15

Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, 197 16

Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, 289.

9

a newly converted Newman to speak so boldly on a movement in which he had

been the figurehead for less than a decade before. In his later Catholic years

Newman took a much different line in how he approached the Oxford

Movement and his Protestant countrymen, so it can be said that he did learn

from his mistake.

Controversy in Newman’s early Catholic days did not stop with this one

instance, though. In 1851 Newman delivered his Lectures on the present

position of Catholics in which he attempted to expose ex-priest Giacinto

Achilli for sexual immorality. In his Lectures Newman was simply upholding

what Wiseman had published in the Dublin Review and did not think that

anything would come with the accusations. To his alarm, Newman was

charged with a libel suit from Achilli and had to appear in court. Newman was

tormented with apprehension from the charge and it also put his credibility

further in doubt, but if he was found guilty he would be subject to a fine and

could even serve prison time. Newman had always had very fragile health and

it was clear that he wouldn’t last very well in prison. Newman arduously

collected all of the necessary documents to vindicate his claims, but at great

costs. With the English attitude of papal aggression it would not be an easy

case for a jury to dismiss. In the end Newman came out rather lucky, and in

10

January of 1853 it was decided that he should be fined only £100. Newman’s

true penalty turned out to be the agony of expectation for nearly two years.17

In 1854 Newman then left England for Ireland at the request of Irish

Catholics to become the rector of the newly established Catholic University of

Ireland. It was here that Newman was able to step away from the controversy

that had characterized his time as a Catholic thus far. With a clear mind away

from English politics Newman was able to publish his very effective The Idea

of a University. In the end Newman was left with warm feelings towards those

he worked with in Ireland, but he knew his place was back with his

countrymen. Newman felt very close to the country in which he had lived his

whole life and in the final year of his rectorship in Ireland, he proposed to

establish an oratory, place of worship, back at Oxford. For a variety of reasons

this project was denied and this disappointed Newman greatly. He had a want

to return to the place in which he had spent “the happiest time of [his] life.”18

Newman was known as a man who cherished being accepted because of his

lack of self confidence. Oxford was the place in which he had come to

prominence before he had left in the shames of Tract XC. In the back of his

mind this must have been a motivating factor for wanting to establish an

organization for Catholics at a place he held so close to his heart. His

17

Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, 306-308. 18

John Henry Newman, Apologia, 88.

11

superiors, however, did not approve and instead in 1858 Newman retired from

the rectorship and returned to Edgbaston. It was there that Newman stayed and

prepared what could be considered the greatest writing on religion during the

19th century.

After Newman’s conversion and subsequent early controversies he slowly

started to fade out of the collective conscious of the Anglicans and had been

nearly forgotten by the more general Protestants by 1860. The Protestants who

were still talking about him after his many set backs actually insinuated their

belief that Newman would soon be rejoining the Church of England. Newman

was quick to correct these assumptions with a letter to the Globe in which he

stated that he had “not had one moment’s wavering of trust in the Catholic

Church.”19

In this atmosphere Newman needed a way that he could vindicate

his career while at the same time upholding the ideals of the Catholic Church.

It was not an atmosphere that would simply accept what he said or be all that

interested in him without an outside force creating a reason for him to take

action. In 1864 Newman got his chance when Charles Kingsley decided to

attack Newman. Kingsley was a popular author in his day and wrote in the

spirit of “Muscular Christianity.”20

In his popularity it can be seen that

Kingsley did not think that anything of consequence would come by taking a

19

Louis Bouyer, Newman, 338. 20

Louis Bouyer, Newman, 359.

12

shot at Newman while reviewing J.A. Froude’s History of England, for

Macmillan’s Magazine, in January 1864 where he stated: “Truth, for its own

sake, had never been a virtue with the Roman clergy. Father Newman informs

us that it need not, and on the whole ought not to be.”21

Suddenly Newman was

thrust back into the light by a popular author and felt the need to defend

himself. For the first time Newman was presented with the chance to explain to

the public just what the Oxford Movement was all about, what role he had

played in it, and finally, and perhaps most importantly, what eventually led

him to the Roman Catholic Church. Before him Newman held an engaged

public that misunderstood these events and if not corrected would forever

believe that Newman was nothing more than a liar. With all this in mind

Newman decided to plunge into the task of explaining himself. He decided to

release his story in pamphlet form publishing on one area at a time. The

English public were completely enthralled in the controversy between

Kingsley and Newman and eagerly seized upon these pamphlets. Newman

wrote with an outstanding pen that in the end was a terrific work of art. The

first pamphlets were published on April 21st and 22nd and they explained

Kingsley’s attitude throughout the whole affair. Next, Newman recounted his

entire religious history from the beginning of his life all the way through his

21


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conversion. He finished the final pamphlet in June and a short time later

collected all of the pamphlets together and published it in book form as the

Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Latin for A Defense of One’s Life.

The Apologia was not great because of its beautiful language and

incredible insight, but rather because of the reception that it met. The English

read it with fervor and Newman’s contemporaries praised his work. It captured

the attention of England in a way that Newman had not been able to do since

his heyday at Oxford, even though he was a part of the hated Catholics. The

Apologia reached even more people than he did when he was at Oxford and

during the publication of the original pamphlets the English as never before

hung on his every word and were anxious to get the whole story for the first

time.22

The publication of the Apologia was able to explain that he had not

been a traitor to the Oxford Movement and he wasn’t a Catholic in disguise,

the whole time trying to use power in the Church of England to convert the

young and impressionable into the Roman Church. At the same time it proved

and validated his current loyalty to the Catholic Church and showed its leaders

that they did not need to distrust Newman. The Apologia was also able to

finally give Newman back the confidence that had been shaken ever since the

publication of Tract XC. For the first time as a Catholic Newman was able to

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feel truly accepted. Newman’s life was not perfect after the publication, but

having got the story off his chest and at the same time dispelling doubt about

his character he certainly made his life more enjoyable. The Apologia helped to

bridge the gap between some of his old friends in which he had been estranged

with since his conversion to Catholicism. It opened up his old life and allowed

him to fully explore his new one without a shadow hanging over him.

The time after the publication of the Apologia was a much happier time

for Newman. He could focus on his works at the oratory and write without

worry that he had to defend anything. Never again did he run into the

controversy that he did in his early years as a Catholic and at the same time he

could reconnect with his past. In 1865 shortly after the Apologia was finished

Newman once again picked up his pen, but this time he did so to write poetry.

The Dream of Gerontius shows off this new found ease in the form of a poem

that is best described as a metrical meditation on death. “It is the realization

that by means of a loving heart and a poetic imagination of the state of a just

soul after death.”23

An excerpt shows the happiness and clarity of mind at the

time. “but now I am So whole of heart, so calm, so self-possessed, With such a

23

Maurice Francis Egan, introduction to The Dream of Gerontius, by John Henry Newman (London: Longmans,

Green, and Co., 1904), 1.

15

full content, with a sense So apprehensive and discriminant, As no temptation

can intoxicate.”24

After the Apologia, Newman never again seemed to hold the doubts that

had plagued him during his life as a Protestant. After the Apologia, Newman

never again held the controversy and uneasy way that he was susceptible to in

his first few years as a Catholic. Most importantly, after the Apologia,

Newman had finally gained the respect of his contemporaries. Not all

Englishmen would ever agree with him, but he had nevertheless earned their

respect through his sincerity and erudition. All of these combined to allow

Newman to gain new accolades. Newman was elected as an honorary fellow at

his old college and was finally able to return to Oxford in triumph. Then in

1879, Pope Leo XIII offered Newman the opportunity to become a Cardinal-

Deacon in the Roman Catholic Church. Newman’s official elevation took place

on May 12, 1879. Newman was a very able man who deserved the accolades

that were placed upon him and the lasting respect that he now holds. On

August 11, 1890 Cardinal John Henry Newman’s long life came to an end. He

was laid to rest with his beloved Ambrose St John. In his old age Cardinal

Newman is recorded as saying that, “Cardinals belong to this world, and Saints

24

John Henry Newman, The Dream of Gerontius (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1904), 39.

16

to heaven.”25

This is a fitting quote for a man that is now on the path to

canonization. He was a man of great genius who should forever be revered. He

was not always perfect, but he always put his best foot forward in an attempt to

draw closer to God and this is a trait we would all be lucky to have.

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