Reflection / John F. Fink

Celebrating St. John Henry Newman

The canonization of St. John Henry Newman on Oct. 13 was an exciting event for me because my admiration for this man goes way back. I’ve long thought that he was one of the greatest theologians in the history of Catholicism, certainly the greatest of the 19th century.

Back when I was editor of The Criterion, I wrote something about Cardinal Newman that attracted the attention of Benedictine Father Lambert Reilly, who was archabbot of Saint Meinrad Archabbey at the time. His compliment for what I wrote was particularly pleasing because I consider him to be one of the greatest experts on Cardinal Newman. Archabbot Lambert’s letter started a friendship I dearly prize.

But my interest in Cardinal Newman began well before I came to Indianapolis to become editor of The Criterion in 1984. While I was president of Our Sunday Visitor publishing company, the editor of the periodical with the same name, Father Vince Giese, was heavily involved in an organization that was promoting the cause for Cardinal Newman’s canonization.

Even before that, I learned about Cardinal Newman from Father John A. O’Brien, a family friend and prolific author who resided at the University of Notre Dame and whose writings were heavily influenced by Newman’s.

Cardinal Newman wrote so much that the great volume is what held up his canonization so long; everything he wrote had to be thoroughly examined. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who beatified him in 2010, made no secret of the fact that he hoped to canonize him and then name him a doctor of the Church, but things didn’t move fast enough for that to happen.

John Henry Newman was an Anglican for almost exactly the first half of his life, from 1801 to 1845, and a Catholic from 1845 to his death in 1890. He became an Anglican priest and a leader of what was known as the Oxford Movement, trying to draw the Church of England back to some of the beliefs and rituals of the Catholic Church. At the time, he thought of the Anglican Church as the via media, the “middle way” between Catholicism and Protestantism.

He spent much of 1845 writing An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. He carefully explained how to discern change that is real growth in doctrine and change that is only corruption. By the time he was nearly finished, he realized that the Catholic Church was the true Church that followed the teachings of Christ. He asked to be received into the Catholic Church on Oct. 9, 1845. Doing so meant becoming estranged from many members of his family and friends, especially those at Oxford.

He went to Rome where he was ordained a Catholic priest. Pope Pius IX awarded him the degree of doctor of divinity. He returned to England where he lived for most of the rest of his life, except for four years when he went to Ireland as founder and rector of the Catholic University of Ireland, now University College, Dublin.

In England, he wrote often to defend the Catholic Church. In 1864, he wrote his religious autobiography, Apologia Pro Vita Sua. In 1879, Pope Leo XIII elevated him to the rank of cardinal.

Perhaps Cardinal Newman has had more influence in the Catholic Church after his death than he did while he lived. He has been called the “Father of Vatican II”

because of his influence on several key areas of theology discussed at the Second Vatican Council. St. Pope Paul VI acknowledged that influence in 1975 when he said that Newman “treated with wisdom . . . the question of ecumenism, the relationship between Christianity and the world, the emphasis on the role of the laity in the Church and the relationship of the Church to non-Christian religions.”

St. John Henry Newman, pray for us.
 

(John F. Fink is editor emeritus of The Criterion.) †