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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 Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, 166.
6 Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, 168.
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
7 Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, 169.
8 Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, 169.
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
Louis Bouyer, Newman, 360.
13
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
22
Louis Bouyer, Newman, 361.
14
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.
25
Louis Bouyer, Newman, 387.