Chapter 35: Public Defense of Catholics in England .
CHAPTER 35
PUBLIC DEFENSE OF
CATHOLICS IN ENGLAND
IN 1849, Newman advised his friend, Henry Wilberforce, who was in a spiritual crisis over Anglicanism, not to delay his decision to become Roman Catholic. During this period, Newman spoke with severity about Anglicanism, and insisted that Anglicanism and Catholicism were two different religions. In November of that same year, he published a series of conferences titled: Discourses to Mixed Congregations. In one of these he wrote of Anglicanism: “It has then no internal consistency, or individuality, or soul, to give it the capacity of propagation. Methodism represents some sort of an idea, Congregationalism an idea; the Established Religion has in it no idea beyond establishment.”1 These conferences, which readily went through a first and second edition, were directed to winning the conversion of Anglicans to Catholicism or urging those who were Catholics to a more Christian life. In the first years after his own conversion, Father Newman spoke with such force because he saw the need to publicly defend the Church, and to give spiritual advice to those who sought this advice.2
In March 1850, only a few months after Newman’s Discourses to Mixed Congregations, the Gorham case contributed to the conversion of some well-known Anglican clergy and laymen to Catholicism. The Bishop of Exeter had refused to install George C. Gorham, as vicar of a parish for his denial of baptismal regeneration. Gorham appealed to the Privy Council, which repealed the bishop’s sentence. Among those received into the Catholic Church in the wake of the Gorham case were Edward Manning, future Archbishop of Westminster, and two distinguished lawyers, James Hope and Edward L. Badeley, all Newman’s friends. Badeley had been the counsel for Henry Phillpotts, the Bishop of Exeter.
Between May and July 1850, at the request of Bishop Wiseman, Newman gave twelve conferences at the Brompton Oratory in London. In these conferences, later published as Lectures on certain difficulties felt by Anglicans in submitting to the Catholic Church, Newman made an energetic call to those who had been a part of the Oxford Movement to convert to Catholicism. He graciously admitted the spiritual gifts and graces among Anglicans, and recalled his past:
Can I forget,—I never can forget,—the day when in my youth I first bound myself to the ministry of God in that old church of St. Frideswide, the patroness of Oxford? nor how I wept most abundant, and most sweet tears, when I thought what I had then become; though I looked on ordination as no sacramental rite, nor even to baptism ascribed any supernatural virtue? Can I wipe from my memory, or wish to wipe out, those happy Sunday mornings, light or dark, year after year, when I celebrated your communion-rite, in my own church of St. Mary’s, and in the pleasantness and joy of it heard nothing of the strife of tongues which surrounded its walls?3
Newman explained that the grace which they had received in the Movement was a preparation for the step that they should take; Catholicism was the natural end of the Movement. The influential Victorian writer and critic R. H. Hutton, described the lectures:
Never did a voice seem better adapted to persuade without irritating. Singularly sweet, perfectly free from any dictatorial note, and yet rich in all the cadences proper to the expression of pathos, of wonder, and of ridicule, there was still nothing in it that anyone could properly describe as insinuating, for its simplicity, and frankness, and freedom from the half-smothered notes which express indirect purpose, was as remarkable as its sweetness, its freshness and its gentle distinctness.4
The same year Pope Pius IX conferred on Newman the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Newman was moved by this honor, which was considered a recognition for his public defense of the Roman Catholic faith. He thanked the Pope for this kind gesture, although, with noteworthy humility, he did not consider himself a theologian.
In 1850, after some years of preparation, the Holy See restored the Catholic hierarchy of England with the creation of thirteen dioceses corresponding to locations and names different from existing Anglican dioceses. English Protestants received the news poorly. Their misunderstanding was fueled by a pastoral letter written by Wiseman, who was made Archbishop of the new Archdiocese of Westminster and a cardinal. The Times and Punch repeatedly attacked Catholics and especially Newman and Wiseman. The Prime Minister, the Anglican bishops, and people at large also criticized the Pope. After his unfortunate pastoral letter, Wiseman made an eloquent appeal to the English people published in The Times. As on other occasions, Newman boldly stood up for the Catholic Church. He gave a series of masterful lectures later published as Lectures on the Present Position of English Catholics. With extraordinary wit and satire, he accused the Protestants of anti-Catholic bias. Newman pointed out:
[T]here is a Protestant side, and there is a Catholic side—and if you have heard but one of them, you will think nothing at all can be said on the other. If, then, a person listens only to Protestantism, and does not give fair play to the Catholic reply to it, of course he thinks Protestantism very rational and straightforward, and Catholics very absurd; because he takes for granted the Protestant facts, which are commonly fictions, and opens his mind to Protestant arguments, which are always fallacies.5
Newman gave an example of people’s unexamined and stubborn ideas which keep them from entering into the minds of strangers: “So it is especially between country and country: the Englishman thinks his beef and pudding worth all the resources of the French cuisine; and the Frenchman thought for certain, until the peace, that he had gained the battle of Trafalgar.”6
Newman dedicated the lectures to Paul Cullen, then recently appointed Archbishop of Armagh, who only a few weeks earlier had invited Newman to establish a Catholic University in Ireland. In the lectures Newman urged the laity to cultivate learning and to exercise an active presence in the Catholic Church and in English society. Bishop Ullathorne and others expressed concern at Newman’s novel ideas.7
In the fifth lecture Newman criticized Giacinto Achilli, an ex-Dominican priest, who became Protestant after the Roman Inquisition sentenced him to imprisonment on account of sexual immorality with women.8 The Evangelical Alliance had brought Achilli to lecture and agitate throughout the country. Despite the veracity of Newman’s denunciation, Achilli brought forth a libel suit which would drain Newman’s time and energies.
Newman based his statements on a detailed account by Wiseman in the Dublin Review, but Wiseman did not make a real effort to provide legal evidence for Newman’s defense, and Msgr. George Talbot, the English Chamberlain to Pius IX, who was antagonistic to Newman, procrastinated in obtaining documents from the Inquisition for Newman’s defense. In 1852, Newman sent two Oratorians to obtain legal proofs in Italy against the ex-friar, but they failed in their mission. After great expense and effort, Maria Giberne was able to obtain testimony from some women against Achilli. Despite the testimony presented, the jury and the judges demonstrated their corrupt sense of justice and anti-Catholic hatred. Newman was found guilty and fined £100. The injustice was such that even The Times spoke of the harm done to the English character and administration of justice and censured the Chief Justice, Lord Campbell.9
Newman’s friends raised over £14,000 in Europe and America to pay for the legal expenses and loyally stood by him during the Achilli trial. Of the amount raised, over £2000 were collected in Ireland and sent to Newman by Archbishop Cullen. Newman dedicated his book, The Idea of a University, discourses on university education, to all the benefactors who had raised the funds for his defense. Although the funds came from every social class, the support of Edward Badeley, James Hope, and other benefactors was an indication of the role that educated Catholics could play in the Church and in society.
In July 1852, the new Ecclesiastic Province of Westminster celebrated its first provincial synod, presided over by Wiseman. Newman and Manning were invited with other theologians; contrary to what Newman would have wished, laymen were not invited. Newman pronounced a memorable opening sermon, “The Second Spring.” In the closing remarks of his address, he told the synod Fathers:
Yes, my Fathers and Brothers, and if it be God’s blessed will, not Saints alone, not Doctors only, not Preachers only, shall be ours—but Martyrs, too, shall reconsecrate the soil to God. We know not what is before us, ere we win our own; we are engaged in a great, a joyful work, but in proportion to God’s grace is the fury of His enemies.10
The year 1852 had been an exhausting one for Newman. In addition to the Achilli trial, the Birmingham Oratory moved to Edgbaston, another location in Birmingham; he traveled a number of times to Ireland to prepare for the future university; and he experienced the premature loss of his sister Harriet, whom he had not seen since 1843, and the death of his elderly Aunt Elizabeth Newman. On the advice of his physician, Newman spent two weeks’ vacation at Abbotsford, the home of his friend, James Hope, who had inherited the property from the novelist Sir Walter Scott, one of Newman’s favorite authors. Hope had become Roman Catholic in 1851. Incidentally, upon marrying a granddaughter of Walter Scott and then inheriting Abbotsford, Hope would change his name to Hope-Scott.
________
1John Henry Newman, Discourses to Mixed Congregations, “Prospects of the Catholic Missioner” (May 31, 1849), 251, available at: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/discourses/discourse12.html.
2Morales, Newman (1801-1890), 186-87.
3Diff., I, 81-82.
4R. H. Hutton, Cardinal Newman, London, 1891, 207-208.
5John Henry Newman, Lectures on the Present Positions of Catholics in England, 5, available at: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/england/lecture1.html.
6Ibid., 6.
7Morales, Newman (1801-1890), 203.
8Ian Ker, John Henry Newman, 372-75.
9Martin, John Henry Newman, His Life & Work, 94.
10“The Second Spring,” in OS (July 13, 1852), 178.