Chapter 31: Reaching Certitude of Conversion to Roman Catholicism
CHAPTER 31
REACHING CERTITUDE
OF CONVERSION TO
ROMAN CATHOLICISM
AFTER the major step in September 1843, the remaining months of the year and the following year were difficult ones in which Newman tried to settle his mind about the theological status of the Anglican Church and his obligation to remain in the Anglican Church. He had a growing conviction about the truth of his conclusions, but had some doubt about whether he might be under some error or delusion.
That Advent, Newman and some of his companions at Littlemore made a five-day silent retreat. Each day had three exercises or points for meditation on the traditional subjects of the end of man, the Fall, Sin, Death, and Judgment, and the Incarnation. During the exercises Newman was sleepy and had trouble concentrating due to his severe fast.
Referring to this retreat, Newman wrote, “I tried to give up to Him, if for His greater glory, my fellowship, my Library, the respect of friends, my health, my talent, my reason—but added ‘Lord, be merciful.’”1 He examined his conscience and wrote, “I thought of my three sins, & prayed to be able to get rid of them, indulgence of the appetite, self conceited thoughts, & wanderings in prayer.”2 He also admitted to impatience, impetuosity, rudeness, and inaccuracy in speech.3 Newman was trying very hard to discern the path before him.
As 1843 wore on, the contentious matters swirling about Newman and his writings did not calm down, not even after Newman’s resignation from St. Mary’s. And even the supposedly neutral content of The Lives of the English Saints and its tone became a controversial matter. The Lives, which he had hoped would divert attention from doctrinal differences, actually made matters worse and brought various questions to the fore.
LIVES OF THE ENGLISH SAINTS
Francis Rivington, publisher for the Lives, worried that the volumes would contain teaching offensive to the Anglican Church and a tone favorable to the Church of Rome. Newman sought out the opinion of James R. Hope and W. E. Gladstone concerning Dalgairns’s Life of Stephen Harding. When Hope criticized the tone, Newman rejoined that it was very difficult to give mere facts without commenting on them, and that it was impossible to avoid three elements in Church History: miracles, monks, and popes. He wrote: “If any sympathetic feeling is expressed on behalf of persons and events of Church History, it is a feeling in favor of miracles, or monkery, or popery, one or all.”4 Newman explained to Hope that he had reluctantly taken the editorship because none of the original promoters of the project had done so. Since then young men, who expected monetary compensation, had written, and others were writing other Lives. However, Newman ended his letter with the most important argument in favor of publishing the Lives, “If the plan is abandoned, this significant question will be, nay is already, asked ‘What then, cannot the Anglican Church bear the Lives of her Saints?’? [sic]”5 Newman was correctly inferring that the Church of England had disowned its rich Catholic past. After perusing the Lives, Rivington politely informed Newman that, as a Church of England bookseller, he would not be able to publish this work, which he thought would lead people to join the Roman Communion.6
After further correspondence with Hope, Newman decided to abandon the post of editor for the Lives because of the misgivings of Pusey and Gladstone, and the possibility that the bishops would censure the series. The publication of St. Stephen Harding, the first of the Lives, was met with both praise and criticism from the readers. Newman thought that Gladstone should realize that the apprehension and resistance against the project only verified and substantiated Newman’s conviction that the catholicity of the English Church was untenable.7
Newman spent a great deal of time corresponding with publishers regarding expenses, copyright, book cover, book wrapping, prefaces, and so forth. The architect Augustus W. Pugin made the cover design for the first volume, St. Stephen Harding, and for at least ten other Lives. James Toovey, a London publisher, advertised and distributed the Lives, the first one printed by Rivington and the next ones printed by Mozley. In February, The Family of St. Richard the Saxon, the second of the Lives, was printed. Newman asked that his initials be dropped from the preface of the Lives to follow.8 By June, the fifth volume of the series was published. The series and Newman’s influence soon reached across the ocean to the United States, as a letter from a New York clergyman shows.9 Another correspondent, Sir Francis Palgrave, a medieval historian and Deputy Keeper of the Queen’s Records, wrote to Newman, making a suggestion that the Lives point out how Medieval Christianity was supported by Sacred Scripture. In his thank-you note, Newman explained his decision to quit the series, remarking that he felt the need to disconnect from the direction of this work because it would be a mark for the bishops to rally against.
For a good part of 1844, Newman continued to be significantly involved in the publication of the Lives. In the lives of the Medieval English saints, Newman saw continuity and development with regard to doctrine and practice. In his correspondence with friends, he began to explain this development, and in the process, he began to trace the development of his own religious views, a very important step forward.
DEVELOPMENT OF NEWMAN’S
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
In December of 1843, Mrs. William Froude wrote to Newman, asking him about his beliefs concerning the Roman Catholic Church. For years she had read Newman’s writings and had been convinced by them that when the Anglican Church seceded from Rome, it had not lost its Apostolic Succession. Newman acknowledged that some of his opinions had changed since his Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church, Viewed Relatively to Romanism and Popular Protestantism, but that the central ideas of that work, such as the primary role of Scripture, had remained in place.10 The purpose of his book, he explained to Mrs. Froude, had been to try to defend the system under which he had been brought up, even though a great part of the book was Anti-Protestant.11 He wrote to her:
Time alone can turn a view into a conviction—It is most unsatisfactory to be acting on a syllogism, or a solitary, naked, external, logical process. But surely it is possible in process of time to have a proposition so wrought into the mind, both ethically and by numberless fine conspiring and ever-recurring considerations as to become part of our mind, to be inseparable from us, and to command our obedience. And then the greater the sacrifice, the more cogent the testimony shall we have to its authority, for to overcome impediments is a token of power.12
With these words, Newman was describing his change in religious views as the convergence of many simultaneous considerations acting on his mind.
Although he was corresponding on these matters with Mrs. Froude, his correspondence with Keble and Pusey decreased for some months. Finally, in January, Keble broke the silence and wrote to Newman, pointing out reasons for Newman to remain in the Anglican Church.13 One of the arguments Keble used was that many people, who looked to Newman as a guide, would be confused and perplexed were he to leave them. Another argument was that only an unequivocal act of heresy should lead Keble or Pusey to leave the Anglican Church.
Newman replied to his friend with certain embarrassment for his silence, thanking him and opening his state of mind to him. He confided in Keble, “I am in no distress of mind at present—that is, whatever is truth, and whatever is not, I do not feel called to do any thing but to go on where I am, and this must be peace and quietness—and whatever is before us, in this one may rejoice, and not take thought for tomorrow.”14 He continued explaining that he had a growing conviction about the mistaken situation of the English Church, and that his reading in Church History led him toward Rome.
He felt a sense of duty remaining where he was, yet he realized that at some point, those under the Mosaic Law had been led from their beliefs to the Gospel truths. He admitted that there comes a time when convictions overrule the duty to remain in one’s place, and although many people were unsettled, this “Unsetthng may be a blessing …”15 In his own defense, Newman commented on St. Paul, who must have unsettled many good and conscientious Jews. But even so, Newman confided: he did not wish to trust his own judgment and move on his own. He reasoned, “[I]f I am right, Pusey, Manning etc may be brought forward; but if Pusey, Manning etc are right, I may be brought back—that nothing, if it be possible separate us.”16 Still, Newman conveyed his fear of dying in the English Church. He commented that if he were faced with that prospect of imminent death, he would probably convert to Roman Catholicism.
Keble and Pusey resumed their correspondence with Newman. Their letters were a mix of affection and pain due to Newman’s serious doubts and some hope that he would not leave the Anglican Church. Newman felt that these friends could no longer understand him. At the same time he continued correspondence with the Froudes concerning the claim that he was unsetthng people. He explained that he was seeking real objective truth, and that when someone was brought up in “a system short of truth,” change was necessary to read the truth.17 In one letter, he outhned for his friends the stages of his change of opinion toward Rome. In 1839, Newman was struck by the role Pope Leo had played in fighting the Monophysite heresy at the fifth-century Council of Chalcedon. Between the Catholic and the extreme Monophysite party there was a large middle party, or Via Media, supported by the emperor. Newman found a parallel with the Reformation, where the Anglican Church was on the anti-Catholic side.18
Upon coming to this realization, Newman found a key to interpreting other important passages of history.19 In particular, he understood more clearly the role played by Pope Julius in the fourth century in defense of St. Athanasius’s resistance to the Arians, who denied Christ’s Divinity. Pope Julius appealed, as Pope Leo did later, to his own Episcopal authority, claiming to fill the See of St. Peter. Whereas the Arian heretics appealed to Scripture grounded on a liberal interpretation, St. Athanasius appealed to an ecclesial interpretation of Scripture. The Arians also objected to novel philosophical terms such as “consubstantial,” adopted for the Creed by the Council of Nicaea. The emperor and other civil authorities supported the heretics. In the mode of Scripture interpretation, and the civil government’s usurpation of doctrinal authority, Newman saw a parallel with the doctrinal and ecclesial abuses of the Anglican Church. In yet another letter, Newman told the Froudes about a third event in Christian history, the Donatist controversy, which had opened his eyes to the English Schism.20 As with the Monophysite and Arian heresies, Newman saw in the Donatist heresy a close parallel with Anglican heresy and schism.
These historical parallels, recounted to the Froudes, had given Newman doubts about the Anglican Church, but he held that it was right to resist doubts and to put aside objections to the religious system of which one was a part. He concluded that if God wished, He could give light to a person’s mind: “If it is His will to lead us from them, if the doubt comes from Him, He will repeat the suggestion … He will make our way clear to us. Fancies, excitements, feelings go and never return—truth comes again and is importunate.”21
Throughout May and June, Newman continued his correspondence with the Froudes. He discussed the belief, professed in the Creed, that the Catholic Church is one. Next he asked the logical question: How can the Church be one, if Roman Catholics in England are considered heretics and schismatics? Newman agreed with a lawyer who had written to him, “how preposterous that a man across the Channel believes in Purgatory, Mass, the Pope’s supremacy etc must all of a sudden, if he comes to England, change his creed and worship, and become a member of a local community which denies all that he has hitherto received?”22 Then he proceeded to write about the Pope and his power over all the Church. He explained how in early Church Tradition there was a sense that each individual bishop presides over the entire Church, while at the same time the bishops preside together over the whole Church. Individual bishops have immediate jurisdiction for a diocese. “Their power is restrained. The Pope instead is not restrained”; he exercises his power over the entire Church. Newman presented testimonies in support of this belief from the first three centuries of Christianity: from St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Irenaeus, Tertullian, Pope Victor, Pope Stephen, and Pope Dionysius, which proved that in these centuries the authority of the popes was decisive on debated matters of doctrine and discipline.23
In June, Newman again wrote to the Froudes and began to espouse his principle of development of doctrine. He referred to the development of papal power over the first few Christian centuries as an example of doctrinal development. As an Anglican, Newman believed that there had been developments of Scripture with regard to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation, but now he believed that development was not limited to the early centuries.24 He also had come to realize, as he affirmed in his last University Sermon dedicated to this subject, that developments are not limited to explanations of the sense of the Creed, but to other doctrines arising from the Creed.25 In another letter in July, Newman elaborated further on his theory of development, which made possible his reconciliation with modern aspects of Roman Catholicism.26 He argued that the Church had the promise of divine assistance to develop special doctrines.
After this flurry of letter writing, in 1844, Newman apologized to Mrs. Froude and John Keble for dwelling so much on his thoughts in the letters. All the while, though, Newman worried about his friends and their suffering. He prayed for them, wrote to them, and went to visit them in time of grave illness. This year he was especially close to the suffering of the Pusey and the Bowden families.
DEATH OF FRIENDS
Newman’s loyalty to friends was especially evident in his care for them during their illnesses or in the death of their loved ones. For example, in early April 1844, Pusey informed Newman of the imminent death of his daughter Lucy. Lucy sent Newman a message, “Give him my respectful love, and thank him for his kindness to me.”27 Like her deceased mother, Lucy had treasured Newman’s affection and sermons. Newman comforted Pusey, writing him that his daughter Lucy had been prepared by her father to be an heir of Heaven—Pusey was presenting her to God as a “holy blameless sacrifice.” He continued, “Dear Lucy has been made His in Baptism, she had been made His in suffering, and now she asks to be made His by love.”28 On April 22, 1844, after a long illness of the lungs, young Lucy died. Newman wrote of her, “She was a saint.”29 He supported Pusey throughout, even helping him with the epitaph and funeral arrangements.
Lucy was not the only one who met death in 1844; for, unfortunately, John W. Bowden’s consumption was worsening. In June, a fever from a lung abscess prompted a visit from Newman, who went to London to see him. Newman was edified by the peacefulness of Bowden and his wife, both fully aware of Bowden’s critical condition. Newman felt that the separation brought by death was a way by which God would prepare him for an even more painful separation: he felt cut off from Oxford. “I do fancy I am getting changed. I go into Oxford, and find myself out of place. Every thing seems to say to me, this is not your home.”30 Losing Bowden, his first association with Oxford, he felt severed from all that was dear in Oxford.
Indeed, September 11, 1844, was the last time that Newman saw his dear friend. On that day Newman gave him Holy Communion, and returned to Oxford. On the fourteenth, Newman wrote a letter to Keble telling him about Bowden’s piety and resignation and how verses from Keble’s Christian Year had been on Bowden’s lips during the last few days of life. Newman recalled that, on his first day at Oxford, Bowden had met him, and since that day 27 years earlier, they had been intimate friends. John William Bowden died at his home in London on September 15. His widow, Elizabeth Bowden, asked Newman to read a service for them, and if possible, give them the Holy Eucharist.31 Newman went straightaway to London and remained with Bowden’s family until the funeral on the twenty-third.
The death of Bowden, deeply felt by Newman, marked a significant moment in Newman’s spiritual journey. Just as Newman no longer felt at home at Oriel College or Oxford, Bowden’s death was a severing of Newman’s ties with his Anglican past. Newman had not had the strength to sadden Bowden with his thoughts of becoming Roman Catholic. Writing to Keble, Newman confessed, “And now for several years past, loving him with all my heart, I have shrunk from him feeling that I had opinions that I dared not tell him, and that I must be constrained or almost hypocritical if I was with him.”32 But Bowden’s death did not end Newman’s ties with Bowden’s family, which continued throughout his life.
Others were blessed by Newman’s attentions that year. During the summer of 1843, his friend Oakeley, who was editing the series of the Lives, fell gravely ill. Newman prayed for his recovery and visited him in London. By September, Oakeley had improved. At the end of the year, he visited Robert Williams, a lawyer friend, who also lived in London and was scheduled to have surgery. Newman traveled to London expressly to keep him company the day of surgery and returned to Oxford after spending time with his friend. Newman’s attention to the sick sometimes included prolonged care. Beginning in January 1844, Newman brought Holy Communion to Miss Elizabeth Lenthall, an Oxford resident, until her death in July 1845.
Although Newman shared the pain brought about by the death of his friends and their loved ones, his sorrow in 1844 was just as great for their spiritual suffering and confusion over his position in the Anglican Church.
PREPARING FRIENDS FOR HIS
FUTURE CONVERSION
Friends and acquaintances prayed for Newman, and some wrote to tell him that they were doing so. They were aware in different measure of his movement closer to the Roman Catholic Church, and most sincerely wished that he would not take the step of renouncing the Anglican Church. Pusey’s response to Newman’s position shows that, by and large, Newman’s friends simply wished the best for him. Pusey, replying to a birthday letter from Newman, confessed that news of Newman’s divided heart had shattered him. Pusey wrote that he felt left on shore with the tide sweeping by, but he soon regained his peace, for Pusey had a strong faith in the Anglican Church’s teaching, although he did not deny that God gave others more light, expecting them to act upon it.33
Even with these brave words, in reality Pusey could not reconcile himself with the loss of Newman to the Anglican Church. He wrote: “In a word, write or speak or act as I may, I do not believe that it ever can be; it goes against my whole nature to believe it. I cannot think that we should be so utterly deserted as that it should be permitted.”34 Newman told his friend not to shut his eyes to the painful reality.35 Newman had already for five years had the conviction that the Anglican Church was not part of the Catholic Church. Newman desired to attenuate the shock and unsettlement of his friends and those who trusted in him. With this end in mind, Newman asked Henry Wilberforce and Mrs. Froude to tell others of his doubts dating back to 1839, so that all would be prepared. He did not want his friends to know, however, how close he was to his final decision.36 He wanted his friends to have time to prepare for a step that he might take in the future.
It was not only his friends’ reactions that worried Newman—especially those who for a long time had looked up to him to prepare for his move, but also his family’s reactions. So, even though in May he had told Jemima that he was not about to make any move, he admitted to her that over the years his feelings toward Rome had grown stronger.37 Then in June, he confided in her not to be surprised if he gave up his Fellowship.38 He added that he felt cheerful while trying to serve God without worldly ambitions. Yet it is obvious that he felt the pain of his friends, as witnessed by his correspondence at the time. Newman confided to Edward Badeley that over the previous years he had at times felt as if he were asleep and dreaming, and wondered whether his feelings were the result of excitement or some delusion. To Badeley, he compared the Anglican Church to a dying or dead system. He said that after living in the Anglican Church, “We cannot, we will not, believe what the real state of the case is. We cannot be persuaded to open our eyes. Every ominous fact admits of an explanation, and in it we take refuge. Consider the shock with which a child, parent, or wife hears of the inevitable blow. It is like a dream.”39
Newman expressed unbelief about his actions, but he was not in a daze; he was considering his next step, which he confided to close friends like Elizabeth Bowden. In October 1844, he told her about his plans to retire from Oxford.40 This caused her sorrow because of her love for the University. Newman regretted that he had caused her pain.41 She, however, replied that she had been defending him in conversations and preferred to know his thoughts. She told him that her pain was for having caused him pain.42 Newman considered voluntarily resigning his Fellowship at Oriel, but thought that Provost Hawkins might instead oblige him to resign.43 With these confidences Newman revealed to friends his sentiments and future plans.
At the end of the year, the situation for Newman became more distressing, especially after Charles P. Golightly publicized a false letter from Newman to Isaac Williams, stating that Newman was joining the Roman Catholic Church.44 The letter appeared on November 4 in the London Standard, Herald, and Morning Chronicle. It was no surprise that the following day The Churchman’s Newspaper ridiculed Newman, Ward, Charles Penny, and others who had embraced the “heresy and schism” of the “Popish sect.” Williams wrote to the Editor of The Times asserting that the claim was false.45 Newman also wrote to Keble and others disclaiming the truth of the rumor. To Maria Giberne he wrote, “Two things, however, seem plain: first that everyone is prepared for such an event, next that every one expects it of me. Few indeed who do not think it suitable, fewer still who do not think it likely.”46 A few days after the newspaper debacle, Newman asked the publisher of The Lives of the English Saints to place an announcement in the paper, The English Churchman, stating that Newman’s role as editor had ended with the second volume.47
Despite the falsehood of this and other rumors, and Newman’s strong reaction, the desired effect was obtained: people began to prepare for the inevitable. Golightly predicted that thirty Masters of Arts of the University and a total of one hundred members of the Anglican Church would become Roman Catholics by the end of the year.48 On the other hand, others who admired Newman wrote him respectful letters asking him to pause from the step he wished to take.49 A clergyman pleaded, “Ah! Newman do stop with us—What shall we do without you!”50
Another kind letter came from his friend, Edward Coleridge, a clergyman and Master at Eton College, who made an earnest appeal for him not to leave the Church of England unless he was absolutely obliged by conscience.51 Coleridge argued that Newman’s secession would have an effect on numerous people who relied implicitly on Newman’s steps and would actually follow him acting against their own consciences. Newman replied, “The pain that I feel at the distress I am causing others, at the great unsettlement of mind I am causing, and the ties I am rending, is keener than I can say.”52 Then Newman made a remarkable statement: that the only motive upon which he acted was a sense of duty, “imperative to my salvation.”53 Newman’s intellectual reasoning had become a moral conviction. He felt obliged in conscience to act in obedience to a higher law for the sake of his salvation.
Newman explained to his friend Manning that he had no plans for moving for a long time, but that the unexpected rumor served a good purpose: to prepare people. He reiterated his reasoning: “And, as far as I know myself, my one paramount reason for contemplating a change is my deep unvarying conviction that our Church is in schism and that my salvation depends on my joining the Church of Rome.”54 His motivation was undiluted by other reasons to which skeptics might point, for he did not have many Catholic friends or a desire for change. He had no enthusiasm to bolster him, nor heroic feelings for which to make the sacrifice, yet his conviction remained firm.55 Manning showed the remarkable letter to Gladstone, who lamented that it would be the greatest crisis that the Church had known since the Reformation. Gladstone, future Prime Minister of Great Britain, asserted that Newman’s loss would be the apostasy of one of the most intelligent men of his age who had headed the most important movement in the Church for at least two centuries.56
Not only did Newman have no external motives drawing him toward Catholicism, but he opined to both Keble and Coleridge that he had spent very little time with any Catholics.57 So it was not for tangible benefits that he sought Roman Catholicism; his primary concern was indeed his own salvation. He told Keble: “I don’t think I could die in our communion—Then the question comes upon me, is not death the test? shall one bear to live, where die one cannot?”58 In the same letter Newman challenged his friend, “What I have asked myself is ‘Are you not perhaps ashamed to hold a system which is so inconsistent, so untenable?’”
Friends, not knowing exactly how to respond, tried to reassure Newman of how much he had done for Oriel, Oxford, and the Church, and how much they personally owed to him. One of these was John Frederick Christie, a former pupil,59 and another was William E. Gladstone. Weighing in on all this drama, Jemima told her brother that the report of his conversion had caused both her and their Aunt Elizabeth pain, but she (Jemima) had felt unable to write Newman. She was sorry that her silence had caused Newman pain. Like their aunt, she prayed for Newman to do whatever was right.60 Newman reminded Jemima of his aversion to change.61 At his age he did not wish to change, but he was ready to accept it if it was God’s will for him. In the meantime, he tried to convince himself that he was not under the power of any delusion; he was buying time to see if this was the case.
At the same time, Newman was hurt by the accusation that he was dishonest. Some people, including journalists, were calling him a liar. Coleridge desired a strong defense, perhaps some type of public declaration of esteem for Newman. Characteristically, Newman thought it would be better to accept the cross. He confided in Keble that any such declaration would make him more proud, and would, in the end, only increase the unsettlement of those who sympathized with him.62
In the midst of a year filled with anxieties like this one and various significant losses, Newman continued to offer spiritual advice to various persons. One of these was Mary Holmes.
SPIRITUAL ADVICE TO MARY HOLMES
Mary Holmes, who had continued her frequent correspondence with Newman, found herself being urged to remain in the Anglican Church by Newman. Miss Holmes was hurt by the dry tone of some of his letters, especially since she had him on a pedestal. Newman warned that she was treating him as a sort of idol.63 To this Miss Holmes replied: “You are very patient, dear Mr. Newman, and I am very unreasonable. It is absurd for me to expect all I did from you.”64 She informed him that in six months, on October 15, the eve of her own birthday and also the feast of St. Teresa of Avila, she would be received into the Roman Catholic Church. She had already spoken with Bishop Wiseman, who urged immediate action, but following Newman’s advice, she decided to wait for six months. Holmes made the decision to be received into the Roman Catholic Church during Benediction at Vespers in a Catholic Church. She wrote Newman, “I had laboured in vain to ‘believe,’ to feel Christ’s Presence, in the Protestant sacrament; but at Benediction when the Host was lifted up, all came spontaneously—tears burst forth, tears of joy at feeling my Saviour really near me. It was so unexpected; I had no idea I should feel conscious of the Real Presence in that way.”65
Newman then had to tell her that he would no longer be able to provide her spiritual direction since she was not on a six-month trial; she had already determined to become Roman Catholic. Newman also apologized for any earlier harshness or inconsiderate behavior toward her. He made a surprising display of affection, writing, “In losing you, I lose what I can seldom expect to meet with—an affectionate heart.”66
Mary Holmes, who revered Newman and was attached to him, did not have a romantic infatuation, but a real desire for Christ and the truth. Despite Holmes’s sentimentality, she posed some real challenges to Newman’s idea of invocation of saints and the role of feelings in spiritual life. She claimed that Newman urged people to stay in the Anglican Church based on feelings, even though convictions are a safer guide to truth. She boldly wrote, “There is no warrant in Scripture or the Fathers for staying one hour separated from the Church, when once you have a conviction that the sect you have been brought up in is not the Church.”67 She went on, “I am afraid that you are in a state of doubt and perplexity yourself. You seem unwilling to forbid my invoking the Saints, and yet I feel you cannot sanction it.”68 Newman’s response was to accuse her of being unsettled—that her feelings waxed and waned since she lacked firm convictions. For these reasons, he had dissuaded her from joining the Church of Rome. Accordingly, Newman advised Holmes to refrain from invoking the saints because it would be mixing two systems.69 Newman explained to her that he thought it was correct to ask God’s allowance for the Blessed Virgin Mary to pray for one’s intentions, but he believed it wrong to pray directly to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
It was not only Miss Holmes who received this advice. So too did Frederick William Faber (often called simply William Faber), who was under Newman’s spiritual direction for nearly a year. He also pleaded with Newman for permission to invoke Mary directly.70 Faber greatly desired this, but Newman replied to Faber as he had to Holmes: one should not mix religions.71 If one did so, one would be in danger of making private judgments in matters of religion, which could lead to the sins of presumption and disobedience, particularly grievous for a clergyman. Faber appreciated Newman’s advice. He resolved to halt his inquiry into another system of religion until God cleared the way.72 In the meantime he promised he would strive to improve in virtue, directing his whole life to God. However, Faber confided to Newman a fear he had, which he didn’t realize Newman shared: “the fear of being ‘damned’, as out of the Church.”73
Meanwhile, Holmes was trying to follow Newman’s advice: to receive the Protestant sacrament, not to invoke the Saints, and to leave the Catholic household in which she lived. She had scruples, however, about receiving Holy Communion in the Anglican Church, and she subsequently became rather hysterical in her letters, for she believed Newman was displeased with her, and she feared his abandonment.74 She begged him to take her back under his guidance until October and promised to do everything he said with regard to devotions, books, friends, and residence.75
Newman was extremely patient with Holmes, who continued to write to him about her daily state of emotions. In one of his replies Newman explained his notion of spiritual direction: “Real direction implies the relation of Confessor and penitent. It is grave and sacred—it is oral not in writing—it is ratified by the seal of absolution. How different what you call by the name!”76 Newman, who apparently had a very demanding idea of spiritual direction, insisted that Holmes had never been under his obedience. He had only given her advice, and acquiesced to give her advice until October.77
Miss Holmes, following Newman’s advice, eventually moved to the countryside, away from her Roman Catholic employers, but it was only a few months later that she was received into the Roman Catholic Church. She wrote Newman about her experience in receiving the Sacraments, and apologized to him for the worries she had caused him. In her characteristically bold manner she asked Newman if he was obedient to the one appointed by Christ as the Head of the Church, and continued: “Who is Dr. Pusey, that you should bow down to him? Is he not a fallible man? Could St. Thomas of Canterbury, St. Anselm and Venerable Bede rise from their graves, can you doubt an instant which side they would take? Would they submit to Dr. Wiseman or to the Bishop (so-called) of Oxford?”78
Newman carried out all this correspondence and guidance from Littlemore, where he stayed all that year except for the trips he made to visit Bowden. Occasionally he walked into Oxford to call on Pusey or to meet with someone else, but the rest of the time he worked at Littlemore, where, besides his daily time for prayer, study, and answering correspondence, he attended to visitors.
LIFE AT LITTLEMORE
The growing library afforded Newman with the means to further his study without having to leave Littlemore. His library at Littlemore grew with volumes that friends or acquaintances sent him. Fr. Charles W. Russell sent Newman some Italian devotional books and another volume of St. Alphonsus Liguori’s sermons. Fr. Gentili sent Newman a copy of J. Marchetti’s Critique de l’Histoire Ecclésias-tique de Claude Fleury. Newman spent the large sum of money, which Bowden had bequeathed to him, to buy many books. Newman consulted his friend Edward Badeley about buying various collections of history books and classics, and about booksellers.
As for performing the duties of a clergyman, he only gave assistance to friends who were ill or to their families, but no longer acted publicly in the role of clergyman. An exception to this was June 2, when Newman assisted Eden with Holy Communion at St. Mary’s. However, when Eden, the new Vicar of St. Mary’s, invited Newman to preach at the commemoration at Littlemore on September 25, 1843, Newman declined the invitation. Eden repeated the invitation in 1844. Newman, annoyed at Eden’s patronizing attitude, thanked him for the invitation, but declined again, offering this explanation: “My preaching days in our Church are over.”79
Since at Littlemore there were “no sacramental services,” religious vows or ecclesiastical authority, Newman strongly encouraged those who lived at Littlemore to seek sacramental Confession.80 Occasionally someone not living at Littlemore sought Newman for confession. One of these was Thomas William Allies, who in April became convinced that post-baptismal sin required sacramental Confession, and went to see Newman for that purpose. Allies, chaplain of the Bishop of London from 1840 to 1842, published a collection of sermons, which he dedicated to Newman with the words: “by one thankful for his teaching and still more thankful for his example …”81 Sacramental Confession had become a regular part of Newman’s spiritual life. Friends like Allies who admired Newman had also discovered the spiritual benefits of this sacrament.
During his time at Littlemore, Newman’s health failed, partly due to his voluntary privations from food and rest and partly due to his inner conflict. He complained to Dr. Babington, his doctor, that he had unsteadiness in his hands and frequent drowsiness. Dr. Babington advised him to eat better and to obtain sufficient rest. He warned Newman that otherwise he would fall into the state of a helpless and almost invalid person.82 Newman complained to some of “a literal pain in and about my heart,”83 which most likely was gastritis and esophageal reflux due to his emotional stress. Years later, Newman told his friend Robert I. Wilberforce that before becoming a Catholic, the separation from friends had weighed so heavily on him that it significantly deteriorated his health.84 Tired, run down, and emotionally drained in December, Newman fell sick from influenza. Events at Oxford contributed to Newman’s malaise, for the Vice-Chancellor and the Heads of Houses had growing animosity to anything that was not according to the Low Church and Evangelical views of the Anglican Church.
WILLIAM G. WARD’S
“IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH”
In June, William G. Ward, a Fellow from Balliol College and a Tractarian, published a book that created a stir equal to that of Tract 90. In his work, Ideal of a Christian Church, Ward argued that a man could hold all that the Church of Rome teaches and remain under the Articles and formularies of the Anglican Church. Newman, who had nothing to do with its publication, did not agree with Ward’s theory.85 Newman believed that the Articles were not compatible with the whole circle of Roman doctrine.86 In October, the Heads of House met to discuss what course of action to take against Ward and his book. Earlier in October, Ward had antagonized Benjamin P. Symons, the future Vice-Chancellor of Oxford. Ward had organized a party to oppose the nomination of Symons as the new Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, whose turn it was by order of rotation of colleges. Wynter, the outgoing Vice-Chancellor, endorsed Symons, one of the six doctors who had censured Pusey. Newman asked various persons beforehand to consider refraining from a fight since Symons’s victory was almost assured. Sure enough, on October 8, Convocation met and Symons obtained a majority of 700 votes.
On the following day, an editorial in The Times asserted that the only possible reason for the unprecedented break in university custom was self-defense against academic censures and deprivations. It urged the new Vice-Chancellor to abstain from making his own religious views the standard for his academic duty and warned against the power of changing majorities.87
The editorial agreed with Newman, who told Elizabeth Bowden that he did not like opposing the Heads of Houses. He would only do so for questions of faith, and this made the last agitation (against Hampden) a painful one for him. Foreseeing his departure from Oxford, Newman felt this was the last time that he would vote in Convocation.88
Following Symons’s victory, Dr. Jenkyns, Master of Balliol College, banned Ward from acting as chaplain and reading morning and evening prayers in the College chapel. On October 28, when Ward attempted to read the Epistle at the Communion Service, Jenkyns went to the lectern at the right side of the altar and read the Epistle out loud, making deliberate emphasis and pauses on condemning words that he applied to Ward.89 The next insult to Ward occurred in early 1845, when the Heads decided to put three propositions to vote in Convocation. The first two were to condemn Ward’s book and to deprive him of his B.A. and M.A. degrees. The third proposition was to establish a test for all those who in the future were suspected of unsound opinions. Whoever was tested must declare that he subscribed to the Thirty-Nine Articles in the sense in which they were originally drawn up, and interpreted by the university at the present time. Newman quickly advised Pusey to draw up a declaration against the third proposition, and urged that he get one or two prominent men to refuse the Test.90 Pusey published a letter on the following day in The English Churchman declaring that he could not take such a test. He argued that such a test would undo the intention with which the Articles were framed: to admit two parties within the Anglican Church, the High and Low Church, rather than exclude either with a stringent interpretation.91
Newman foresaw the injustice of such a test. The Articles, he explained, must be accepted in a literal and grammatical sense, which was open to various interpretations. In Tract 90, Newman argued that the Articles could be interpreted in a Catholic sense. Newman explained that the Anglican Church relied on two standards: the Articles and the Book of Common Prayer which served as the interpretative key for the Articles. The Book of Common Prayer and the Homilies, which formed part of it, contained much of the Anglican Church’s Catholic liturgy and Tradition. Without these texts, the Articles, which were partly Lutheran and Calvinistic in origin, would usurp the Anglican Church’s Catholic Creed and liturgy.92
Newman keenly realized the import of Ward’s censure. He also thought a defeat of the proposed Test would be like a virtual repeal of the censure of Tract 90.93 Newman was correct. Some of the opponents of the Tractarians wished Convocation to censure Tract 90 by means of this Test. Newman asserted, “If the Test passes, the state of things will be as miserable as can be conceived—some men ejected, others straining their conscience—and suspicion, distrust, reserve, dissimulation everywhere. It would in fact be the reign of Inquisition. The Vice-Chancellor would be able, and would not scruple, to summon a Tutor before him for his Lectures on the Articles on the information of his Pupils! It would be the reign of Golightlyism.”94
Newman believed that both the Liberal and High Church party would protest against, and defeat the Test. Despite his hopes for the outcome of Convocation, the publication of Ward’s book had manifested the doctrinal malaise of the Anglican Church.
CONVERSIONS
In June 1844, when Robert C. Burton, an Anglican clergyman, wrote to Newman in June about his imminent conversion, Newman replied, “The question is not whether the Church of Rome is right, but whether it is the duty of A. or B. to join it. It is not an abstract theorem, but a practical question. It is a far less evil to remain in error, in which we were born, than to change into error.”95
Burton rejoined: “Am I to imply from this that the Church of Rome is right—is, in fact the true Church of Christ? And if so, can I be justified in remaining in the English Communion? am I not trifling with God’s grace and tempting Him to deprive [myself] of it, when He has led to [sic] me to the light, and I nevertheless turn away from it?”96
Newman had advised Burton not to act on private judgment, but to wait for greater light from God and to act in a group with others who serve as “a guarantee and a verification of each other’s judgment.”97 Newman was entering the last lap of his race as an Anglican. He was only waiting for more grace to take the step forward to Roman Catholicism. The question in many people’s minds, not only family and friends, but countless persons in England was: “When would Newman convert?” On June 24, the Italian Passionist priest, Fr. Dominic Barbieri, visited Littlemore at the invitation of John D. Dalgairns and met Newman for the first time. Newman was not yet thinking of making any moves.
Another convert was George Tickell, Oakeley’s curate. In the fall of 1844, while traveling in Belgium, Tickell joined the Roman Catholic Church. When Oakeley learned about it in the newspapers, he was very upset. Charles Bridges, a resident at Littlemore, also converted. Bridges left Littlemore early in the morning of December 25, and joined the Roman Catholic Church the following year.98 Prior to all this, Newman had tried to avert Bridges’s move to Littlemore in order to avoid a compromising situation.
In November and December 1844, Newman worked hard to finish a second part of his translation of texts by St. Athanasius. By December, he was busy working on the essay on the development of Christian doctrine. He had jotted down many ideas and wished to organize them. He wished to answer the question about what he should do: whether or not to join the Roman Catholic Church.99 He had decided that if, once he wrote the book, his conviction about the Catholic Church was not weaker, he would join it.
Over five years, Newman had grown in the conviction that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true Church. It was this belief in its infallibility and the authority granted by God to the Successor of Peter that led Newman toward Rome. Although external events served as catalysts, in the end, it was the conviction that the Church of Rome was the true Church established by Jesus Christ. With this in mind, he accepted all the other doctrines it held, such as the canon of the Sacred Scripture, and practices, such as prayer for the dead. He expressed this belief with a short phrase, “I must either believe all or none.”100
During this time, he had experienced the loss of friends and name, as well as position. What worried him most was how his change of ideas could cause others to fall into skepticism, indifference, and even religious infidelity.101 Newman, however, worried even more that he might be withholding others called by God from dying within the Roman Communion; and that some whom he kept from Roman Communion would end up in the Latitudinarian party of the Anglican Church. Although Newman had a strong conviction about the truth of the Roman Catholic Church, he still entertained the doubt that he might be under some delusion or temptation.102
________
1LD, Vol. X, Notes from Littlemore, Advent Retreat, 1843, 64-8; 65.
2Ibid., 65.
3Ibid., 67.
4LD, Vol. X, JHN to James R. Hope (Nov. 6, 1843), 12-14; 12.
5Ibid., 14.
6LD, Vol. X, Francis Rivington to JHN (Nov. 10, 1843), 22-23; 22.
7LD, Vol. X, JHN to James Robert Hope (March 14, 1844), 164-65; 164.
8LD, Vol. X, JHN to James Toovey (June 4, 1844), 256-57; 256.
9LD, Vol. X, JHN to John Henry Newman from J. W. Williams (November 4, 1844), 385-86; 386.
10LD, Vol. X, JHN to Mrs. William Froude (Dec. 9, 1843), 51-54; 52.
11Ibid., 51-52.
12Ibid., 53
13LD, Vol. X, John Keble to JHN (Jan. 22, 1844), 100-101; 100.
14LD, Vol. X, JHN to John Keble (Jan. 23, 1844), 101-103; 101.
15Ibid., 103.
16Ibid.
17LD, Vol. X, JHN to Mrs. William Froude (April 4, 1844), 189-92; 189.
18LD, Vol. X, JHN to Mrs. William Froude (April 5, 1844), 195-98; 196-97.
19Ibid., 197-98.
20LD, Vol. X, JHN to Mrs. William Froude (April 9, 1844), 200-204; 200-201.
21Ibid., 201.
22LD, Vol. X, JHN to Mrs. William Froude (May 19, 1844), 237-44); 239.
23Ibid., 242-43.
24Ibid., 264-65.
25Ibid., 266.
26LD, Vol. X, JHN to Mrs. William Froude (July 14, 1844), 297-98.
27LD, Vol. X, Edward Bouverie Pusey to JHN (April 9, 1844), 206.
28LD, Vol. X, JHN to E. B. Pusey (April 10, 1844), 206-07.
29LD, Vol. X, JHN to Matthew Holbeche Bloxam (April 23, 1844), 217-18; 218.
30LD, Vol. X, JHN to Mrs. John Mozley (August 13), 312-13; 312.
31LD, Vol. X, Elizabeth Bowden to JHN (September 15, 1844), 340.
32LD, Vol. X, JHN to John Keble (September 14, 1844), 335-37; 337.
33LD, Vol. X, Edward Bouverie Pusey to JHN (August 21, 1844), 316.
34LD, Vol. X, E. B. Pusey to JHN, footnote 324, quoted from Pusey, II, by Liddon, 406.
35LD, Vol. X, JHN to E. B. Pusey (August 28), 324-25.
36LD, Vol. X, JHN to Henry Wilberforce (June 8, 1844), 263; JHN to Mrs. William Froude (May 28, 1844), 251.
37LD, Vol. X, JHN to Mrs. John Mozley (May 21, 1844), 247.
38LD, Vol. X, JHN to Mrs. John Mozley (June 3, 1844), 255-56; 255.
39LD, Vol. X, JHN to Edward Badeley (September 9, 1844), 331-32; 332.
40LD, Vol. X, JHN to Elizabeth Bowden (October 15, 1844), 365-67; 366-67.
41LD, Vol. X, JHN to Elizabeth Bowden (October 21, 1844), 370-71.
42LD, Vol. X, Elizabeth Bowden to JHN (October 23, 1844), 372.
43LD, Vol. X, JHN to Henry Edward Manning (November 24, 1844), 433.
44LD, Vol. X, Charles Portales Golightly to William Simcox Bricknell (November 1, 1844), 384.
45LD, Vol. X, Isaac Williams to the Editor of the Times (November 7, 1844), 390.
46LD, Vol. X, JHN to Miss Maria Rosina Giberne (November 7, 1844), 390.
47LD, Vol. X, JHN to James Toovey (November 9, 1844), 395-96; 395.
48LD, Vol. X, Charles Portales Golightly to William Simcox Bricknell (November 1, 1844), 384.
49LD, Vol. X, William Smith Dear to JHN (November 4, 1844), 385; William Robert Browell to JHN (November 11, 1844), 397-98; William Elliott to JHN (November 7, 1844), 392.
50LD, Vol. X, William Robert Browell to JHN (November 11, 1844), 397-98; 398.
51LD, Vol. X, footnote, 399.
52LD, Vol. X, JHN to Edward Coleridge (November 12, 1844), 398-99; 398.
53Ibid., 399.
54LD, Vol. X, JHN to Henry Edward Manning (November 16, 1844), 412-13; 412.
55Ibid.
56R. Shannon, Gladstone, 1809-1865, Vol. 1, London 1982, 143-44.
57LD, Vol. X, JHN to John Keble (November 21, 1844), 424-27; 426; JHN to Edward Coleridge (November 16, 1844), 416-17; 416.
58LD, Vol. X, JHN to John Keble (November 21, 1844), 427.
59LD, Vol. X, John Frederic Christie to JHN (November 17, 1844), 419-20; JHN to William Ewart Gladstone (November 18, 1844), 420-421.
60LD, Vol. X, Mrs. John Mozley to JHN (November 20, 1844), 424.
61LD, Vol. X, JHN to Mrs. John Mozley (November 24, 1844), 433-35; 435.
62LD, Vol. X, JHN to John Keble (November 21, 1844), 424-27.
63LD, Vol. X, JHN to Miss Mary Holmes (March 14, 1844), 165-66; 165.
64LD, Vol. X, Miss Mary Holmes to JHN (March 16, 1844), 167.
65LD, Vol. X, Miss Mary Holmes to JHN (April 20, 1844), 216.
66LD, Vol. X, JHN to Miss Mary Holmes (April 22, 1844), 217.
67LD, Vol. X, Miss Mary Holmes to JHN (June 13, 1844), 272-73; 273.
68Ibid., 273.
69LD, Vol. X, JHN to Miss Mary Holmes (June 10, 1844), 267.
70LD, Vol. X, Frederick William Faber to JHN (November 28, 1844), 438-39.
71LD, Vol. X, JHN to Frederick William Faber (December 1, 1844), 442-44; 443.
72LD, Vol. X, Frederick William Faber to JHN (December 12, 1844), 454-55.
73Ibid., 454.
74LD, Vol. X, Miss Mary Holmes to JHN (June 20, 1844), 279-80.
75LD, Vol. X, Miss Mary Holmes to JHN (June 22, 1844), 281-82; 282.
76LD, Vol. X, JHN to Miss Mary Holmes (June 23, 1844), 283-84; 283.
77LD, Vol. X, JHN to Miss Mary Holmes (June 25, 1844), 286-87; 287.
78LD, Vol. X, Miss Mary Holmes to JHN (November 30, 1844), 441-42; 442.
79LD, Vol. X, JHN to Charles Page Eden (September 14, 1844), 333.
80LD, Vol. X, JHN to William Dodsworth (March 18, 1844), 170-71.
81Sermons on the Epistle to the Romans and others, Thomas W. Allies, 1844, cited in LD, Vol. X, footnote, 73.
82LD. Vol. X, George Gisborne Babington to JHN (September 26, 1844), 351.
83LD, Vol. X, JHN to Mrs. John Mozley (November 24, 1844), 433-35; 434.
84LD, Vol. XVI, JHN to Robert Isaac Wilberforce (September 1, 1854), 242.
85LD, Vol. X, JHN to John Keble (December 16, 1844), 462-63; 462.
86LD, Vol. X, JHN to John Keble (December 29, 1844), 474-76; 475.
87LD, Vol. X, Editorial in The Times (October 9, 1844), 360-61.
88LD, Vol. X, JHN to Elizabeth Bowden (October 15, 1844), 365-67; 366.
89LD, Vol. X, quote from William George Ward and the Oxford Movement by Wilfrid Ward, 1889, 325.
90LD, Vol. X, JHN to Edward Bouverie Pusey (December 16, 1844), 463-64; 463.
91LD, Vol. X, E. B. Pusey to the Editor of The English Churchman (December 17, 1844), 464-66; 465.
92LD, Vol. X, JHN to Elizabeth Bowden (December 27, 1844), 472-74; 473.
93LD, Vol. X, JHN to Mrs. John Mozley (December 22, 1844), 467-69.
94LD, Vol. X, JHN to Elizabeth Bowden (December 27, 1844), 272-74; 273-74.
95LD, Vol. X, JHN to Robert Clerke Burton (June 23, 1844), 284-85.
96LD, Vol. X, Robert Clerke Burton to JHN (June 29, 1844), 290.
97Ibid., 284.
98LD, Vol. X, JHN to Charles Marriot (December 23, 1844), 469-70.
99LD, Vol. X, Memorandum (December 1844), 459-60.
100Ibid., 377.
101Ibid., 262.
102Ibid., 262.