Chapter 41: Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
CHAPTER 41
CARDINAL OF THE ROMAN
CATHOLIC CHURCH
IN addition to the Dream of Gerontius and the Apologia, the Letter to the Duke of Norfolk consolidated Newman’s national prestige. People honored Newman; one of the honors that was most moving to him came from his first college at Oxford. In 1878, Samuel William Wayte, President of Trinity College, conferred on Newman the position of Honorary Fellow of Trinity. Newman traveled to Oxford as Wayte’s guest. There he saw Short, his old Tutor, and called on Pusey. It was an emotionally charged visit, since it was the first after a very long lapse in years, filled with powerful memories of his youth, the Oxford Movement, and his later conversion to Roman Catholicism.
Toward the end of Newman’s life came an even more important event that was the crowning achievement of his human career and re-vindication of the orthodoxy of his writings as a Roman Catholic. For years, Newman had hoped to have his conduct and writings cleared by the Holy See.1 This finally happened when Pope Leo XIII, who in 1878 succeeded Pope Pius IX, decided to create Newman a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.2 In the summer of 1878, Henry, the fourteenth Duke of Norfolk, had asked his cousin, Cardinal Edward Henry Howard, to obtain a complete rehabilitation of Newman’s good name in England and ask the Pope to create him cardinal. Henry had studied as a boy at the Oratory School, and when he reached an adult age. he worked to advance the Catholic cause in his country. The Duke also asked Manning, then a cardinal, to present the petition to the Pope. Leo XIII, who knew about Newman and the Oxford Movement from the time he had been nuncio in Belgium, agreed to the petition, but wished to know Newman’s opinion beforehand. In December of 1878, a friend of Newman working at the French Embassy in Rome was able to greet the Pope whose secretary Msgr. Macchi asked the Pope for an Apostolic blessing for Newman. Pope Leo XIII took a picture of Our Lady of Lourdes from his breviary and wrote a dedication to Newman with his own hand.3
Upon notification by Bishop Ullathorne of the Pope’s wishes, Newman wrote a letter to Ullathorne thanking the Pope and pleading to be excused from moving to Rome, for cardinals without a See were obliged to live in Rome. This letter, which could be interpreted as a rejection of the Pope’s offer, was to be accompanied by a letter from Ullathorne to Manning plainly stating that Newman accepted but wished to be excused from living in Rome. An unsympathetic Cardinal Manning misinformed the Vatican’s Secretary of State that Newman declined the honor. When the press found out of Newman’s alleged rejection of the cardinalate, Manning was obliged to convey to Pope Leo XIII Newman’s acceptance.
Newman’s friends and admirers asked Newman about the rumors and pleaded with him to accept. In a letter John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, Marquis of Bute, wrote: “My object is to implore you not to decline—I know that St. Philip declined, and that you will have a tendency to do the same.”4 Bute proceeded to enumerate various reasons. The first was for the sake “of the labours and principles, which would thus be sanctioned, and of your disciples, who have admired the one and received the other, and of the general world, to whom they would thus be made more useful …”5 Newman candidly complained: “if the facts be as the Papers give them and private correspondence confirms, it would seem that, when I send to Rome a confidential letter to be interpreted necessarily by the Pope, it is intercepted, read, interpreted and that interpretation given to the world, when it gets no further than London!”6 When Newman wrote to Cardinal Howard in Rome that the impression that he had declined the Holy Father’s wishes was unfounded, Howard replied to congratulate Newman and told him: “At first a report gained some credence that in your humility for various reasons you had been disposed to decline this honour, but it immediately became known that the Holy Father very decidedly wished to confer the hat upon you, and thus all doubt ceased to exist upon the subject.”7 Pope Leo XIII quickly informed Newman that he would not need to move permanently to Rome. Due to Manning’s inexcusable action, Newman was almost denied the honor of the cardinalate, as he had been denied the episcopacy by Cullen’s and Wiseman’s actions.8 After this course of events, a wearied Newman had more reason to maintain his distant relation with Cardinal Manning.
In April 1879, Newman traveled for his fourth and last time to Rome. A few days after his arrival he had a very warm meeting with the Holy Father, who affectionately asked him about the Birmingham Oratory. On May 12, Newman delivered an address known as the Biglietto Speech, named thus for the Italian word for ticket, officially notifying him of his elevation to the cardinalate. In this memorable address, Newman described his life’s ambition and work: “For thirty, forty, fifty years I have resisted to the best of my powers the spirit of liberalism in religion … it will not, I hope, be considered out of place, if I renew the protest against it which I have made so often.”9 On May 15, at a consistory, the Pope conferred on Newman the red hat worn by cardinals. Papal authority had figured prominently in Newman’s conversion, and from the time of his conversion he had received signs of recognition and kindness from Pope Gregory XVI and Pius IX. This gracious act by Pope Leo XIII recognized Newman’s orthodoxy and service to the Church. The Pope asked Manning to tell Newman “that in elevating you to the Sacred College he intends to bestow on you a testimony to your virtues and learning: and to do an act grateful to the Catholics of England, and to England itself for which he feels an affectionate interest.”10
In June 1879, Newman returned to England as a national figure. Many groups wished to honor him, and he again visited Trinity College. His Anglican friends: Frederic Rogers, who had become Lord Blachford, William Church, William Copeland, and Lord Coleridge gave him the gift of a carriage. Newman’s joy was mingled with sorrow, for that year, on Christmas Day, Jemima, his only remaining sister, died at the age of seventy-two. And Pusey, whose conversion Newman prayed for, did not advance toward Catholicism. In 1878, hearing that Pusey was gravely ill, Newman had sent him a note through Henry P. Liddon, Pusey’s close friend and biographer. It was an invitation to die as a Roman Catholic. Pusey recovered, and for his birthday in 1880, Newman wrote to him: “You know the prayer your birthday raises in my mind. I don’t like to say it out, yet I don’t like it unsaid,”11 but Edward B. Pusey died an Anglican in 1882.
Newman continued to prepare and publish a standard edition of his works which he had begun in 1876. He finished the edition in 1881 with the publication of his translation of the Treatises of St. Athanasius. Newman’s body had aged, but his intellectual capacity remained intact. He was interested in Leo XIII’s encyclical Aeterni Patris, the question of Biblical Inspiration, and especially the growing problem of the secularism of English society.
In addition to preparing the standard edition of his works, Newman prepared materials and letters for someone to write a biography of his Anglican years. Earlier, Newman had expressed the opposite desire, since he had already written an autobiography. He changed his mind, considering that without adequate materials and his letters, a biography would be incomplete and contain errors. He wished for an Anglican to write the biography of the first period of his life and to publish his correspondence as an Anglican. Newman found in Anne Mozley, his sister-in-law, the right person and corresponded a great deal with her to assist her. One year after Newman’s death, she published his correspondence up to 1845. In a memorandum for a future biography Newman had written: “I don’t want a panegyric written of me, which would be sickening, but a real fair downright account of me according to the best ability and judgment of the writer.”12
In the last decade of his life, Newman’s activity was significantly curtailed by poor eyesight and difficulty in hearing. Fr. William Neville, a convert, ordained a priest in 1861, cared for Newman with great dedication. Newman still had visitors, but his correspondence was reduced to the minimum and he usually dictated his letters, for he could hardly write. The Cardinal celebrated Holy Mass in a small chapel set up next to his room in the Birmingham Oratory. The chapel was dedicated to St. Philip Neri and had a large painting of the saint made by Maria Giberne. It also had many photos of his deceased friends, whom he remembered daily during the Mass. Newman kept a calendar with the anniversary of significant dates in the lives of his friends, and particularly the date of their death. He offered Mass for their souls on the anniversary of their deaths.13 Newman found great comfort in the practice of prayer for the deceased. His deceased family members and friends lived on not only in his memory, but also in his prayers.
Newman no longer traveled much, but in 1886, he went to the Brompton Oratory in London for the funeral Mass of the Duchess of Norfolk, Henry’s mother. There he met Cardinal Manning, whom he had not seen for some years. In 1887, he went to London again, this time to see his physician, Dr. Ogle. Newman was aware that he was gradually declining in health even though his doctor denied it. That same year, Newman had a visit from Archbishop Ullathorne. The Archbishop later recounted that after a long and lively conversation, Newman asked him in a soft and humble manner to please give him a blessing, and then knelt down to receive it. Ullathorne could not refuse to bless him, despite the protocol that ranks a cardinal above an Archbishop. After the visit, the latter wrote, “I felt annihilated in his presence, there is a saint in the man.”14
Along with testimonials like this one by Ullathorne and descriptions of Newman by William Church, various portraits were made of Newman in his old age. In 1888, Newman sat for a second portrait by Emmeline Deanes; she had painted another one of him in 1844. Lady Coleridge (1874), Walter William Ouless (1879), and John Millais (1881) had also done portraits of Newman. One of Newman’s friends commented on Millais’s portrait of Newman as a cardinal: “It is magnificent; it gives the dignity, gentleness and strength of his face; a most powerful portrait.”15 The painter’s daughter, Miss Millais, said the Cardinal is a “beautiful old man.”16 Newman also had a number of photographs taken of him alone, or with his Oratory brothers.
In June 1888, Newman traveled to London to make out his will. He chose as his executors three members of the Birmingham Oratory: William Neville, Henry Bellasis, and Anthony Pollen, and through them left his property to the Oratory. He entrusted the copyright of all his works, and his letters and documents, exclusively to Fr. Neville.
The following year, Newman went to Wales for a short vacation. In October, he had a fall which made the Oratorians fear for his life, and he was administered the Last Sacraments. Newman recovered, but he felt closer to his final home. The last of his old friends, Frederic Rogers, died in November. On Christmas Day of that year, 1889, Newman celebrated his last Mass.
In July of the following year, he was able to give the prizes at the Oratory School and to attend the performance of Andria, a Latin play. Newman had arranged the text for the students. A few weeks later, on the night of August 9, he developed pneumonia and received the Last Sacraments. Then, on the evening of August 11, 1890, in his ninetieth year, John Henry Cardinal Newman died.
The whole country mourned Newman’s death. Every newspaper carried the news of his death and praised his accomplishments. According to the contemporary writer, Richard H. Hutton, there was “an almost unanimous outburst of admiration and reverence from all the English churches and all the English sects for the man who had certainly caused the defection of a larger number of cultivated Protestants from their Protestant faith than any other English writer or preacher since the Reformation.”17 Newman’s funeral Mass was held at the Brompton Oratory in London, and Cardinal Manning preached the homily, giving tribute to the greatness of Newman.
Newman was buried on August 19 at Rednal, a country home for the Oratorians just outside Birmingham, and according to his instructions, his remains were placed in the grave of his dear friend Ambrose St. John.18 Newman chose for himself the epitaph Ex Umbris et Imaginibus in Veritatem (From the shadows and reflections into the truth). His cardinal’s motto, Cor ad cor loquitur (The heart speaks to the heart) was embroidered on the pall. Both the epitaph and the pall made reference to seeking and speaking the truth. All his life, from a very young age, Newman had sought the truth in religious matters. Newman had embraced what he called a “doctrinal principle,” the belief that religion is based on set truths that hold a claim on people’s reason and heart.
Newman had summed up his life’s pursuit of truth when he defined relativism in religion at the ceremony where he accepted his appointment as cardinal:
Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another, and this is the teaching which is gaining substance and force daily. It is inconsistent with any recognition of any religion, as true. It teaches that all are to be tolerated, for all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not miraculous; and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy.19
From his youth, Newman had embraced the maxim, “Holiness rather than peace,”20 almost synonymous with “Truth rather than peace.” He maintained this principle to the end of his life. And he employed his intellect and energies in fighting Liberalism in religion, the idea which is with us still, that there are no fixed principles and that there is no one truth in religion. After a very long and careful examination of religious truths, together with daily prayer and frequent fasting, he became convinced that the Roman Catholic Church was the one and only Church founded by Christ and God’s chosen instrument of salvation. The pursuit of truth overcame his natural desire to remain within the comfort of his Anglican parish and Oxford College.
The Oxford don, Anglican clergyman, and finally Roman Catholic priest of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri dedicated his life to explaining and defending religious truths, and to uncovering and correcting errors. He did so with the force of logical reasoning, deep knowledge of Scripture, and with the aid of historical facts. Sometimes he employed satire, which made him a formidable opponent. But at all times, like his patron, St. Philip Neri, he defended religious truths with patience tempered with understanding, and with a forgiving spirit bolstered by cheerfulness. And like St. Francis de Sales, from whom Newman took the motto Cor ad cor loquitur, he sought to win others by gentle persuasion to the truth.
Newman leaves a rich intellectual and spiritual legacy. His long life and extensive writings continue to inspire and teach numerous Christians. New editions of his works are published every year, as well as many scholarly and popular articles. Theology continues to be enriched by his ideas and arguments. People find in his sermons reasons to live their Christian vocation more earnestly. Many, guided by Newman, overcome prejudices toward Roman Catholicism, and still many Christians, also under his inspiration, are received into full communion with the Catholic Church.
No biography of Newman would be complete without a mention of his prayer life, which sustained him throughout the whole of his lifetime. As a Catholic priest, Newman continued to dedicate much time to daily prayer. In addition to praying the Liturgy of the Hours, he offered the Sacrifice of the Mass daily. Newman also spent time meditating on the liturgical feasts and seasons of the year. Some of the reflections and prayers that he composed were compiled (after his death) under the title Meditations and Devotions.21 We can fathom a little bit of his relationship with God by looking at the choice of words in the prayers that he composed and the subjects of his reflections. For instance, for visits to the Blessed Sacrament he composed meditations on Christian doctrine. Newman considered often the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ, as reflected in his meditations for the practice of the Stations of the Cross. In them, Newman expressed a constant awareness of man’s sinfulness and fall from grace, yet a childlike trust in God’s forgiveness, as well as our need to take part in Christ’s suffering. For the fifth station he wrote:
JESUS could bear His Cross alone, did He so will; but He permits Simon to help Him, in order to remind us that we must take part in His sufferings, and have a fellowship in His work … He saves us by His blood, but it is through and with ourselves that He saves us. Dear Lord, teach us to suffer with Thee, make it pleasant to us to suffer for Thy sake, and sanctify all our sufferings by the merits of Thy own.22
He wrote in a simple and profound way, and used a familiar style for children and for people who went to the Oratory parish in Birmingham. The Oratorian’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary was a tender one, rooted in the biblical texts. He composed beautiful Marian reflections for each day of May, traditionally dedicated to Mary. In these reflections he explained the richness of Christian Tradition, as when he comments on the litanies of the Rosary:
She is called the Tower of David because she had so signally fulfilled the office of defending her Divine Son from the assaults of His foes. It is customary with those who are not Catholics to fancy that the honours we pay to her interfere with the supreme worship which we pay to Him; that in Catholic teaching she eclipses Him. But this is the very reverse of the truth.23
Newman’s prayer was centered on a humble praise to the Blessed Trinity, and a constant petition to God for the necessary graces to live a holy life. As a Catholic, the angels and the saints, especially the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, the Apostles, St. Philip, and St. Athanasius were frequently on his mind. Also, as a Catholic, his interior life was marked by intercessory prayer, especially for the conversion of friends. This life of study and prayer had shaped his character making him forbearing and gentle with people, understanding and forgiving. His charity towards God overflowed in charity for his confrères, friends and neighbors. In addition to his prayers for them, he visited those who were sick, assisted them in their material and spiritual needs, and advised them in their work. The following prayer explains Newman’s spiritual growth and transformation: “Stay with me, and then I shall begin to shine as Thou shinest: so to shine as to be a light to others. The light, O Jesus, will be all from Thee. None of it will be mine. No merit to me. It will be Thou who shinest through me upon others.”24
In England, the Oratory of St. Philip Neri established by Newman continues to fulfill its mission and to bear new fruits. In 1990, Maurice Couve de Murville, Archbishop of Birmingham, asked the Birmingham Oratory to run the Church of St. Aloysius in Oxford, formerly under the care of the Jesuits. In 1993, the Oxford Oratory was established as an independent congregation. Thus the desire of both Archbishop Ullathorne and Newman was in the end realized: an Oratory was founded in Oxford to serve the human, intellectual, and spiritual needs of Catholics at Oxford.
The distinguished Oratorian was greatly admired by Pope Pius XII and Pope Paul VI, but due to delays in gathering necessary documentary proofs for the diocesan process, his Cause for beatification moved slowly. Once the diocesan process was completed, the findings were sent to Rome for the apostolic process. In January 1991, the happy outcome of the latter led Blessed Pope John Paul II to declare that John Henry Newman had lived all of the Christian virtues in a heroic degree and was thus henceforth to be called by the title “Venerable.”
The results of this theological and canonical process were confirmed by divine intervention in 2001. In that year, John Sullivan, a 62-year-old Boston man, who had asked Venerable Newman for his intercession, was miraculously cured from lumbar disc disease that had produced severe pain and incapacity to walk. A study by physicians concluded that there was no medical explanation for the man’s instantaneous cure, and in 2009, the Holy See approved the cure as a miracle attributed to the intercession of Venerable Newman.
This miraculous cure opened the way for the Roman Catholic Church’s formal recognition of Newman’s sanctity. On September 19, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI, a longtime admirer of Newman, beatified John Henry Newman in the city of Birmingham. The Pope, who earlier had spoken of Newman’s “passion for the truth” and called him a “champion of the laity,” included Newman in the “tradition of gentle scholarship, deep human wisdom and profound love for the Lord” of men and women such as Saint Bede, Saint Hilda, Saint Aelred, and Blessed Duns Scotus.25 Like Pope Leo XIII’s elevation of Newman to the dignity of cardinal—and even more, this national event has undoubtedly filled the English people with joy. It is the hope of many that it will awaken in people a desire to read Newman’s life and works and that it will usher in a new spring in the re-evangelization of the English-speaking world, and in particular, of Great Britain.
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1AW, 262.
2Morales, Newman (1801-1890), 323-29.
3See LD, Vol. XXVIII, note (December 27, 1878), 435.
4LD, Vol. XXIX, Lord Bute to JHN (February 19, 1879), 33.
5Ibid.
6LD, Vol. XXIX, JHN to the Marquis of Bute (February 21, 1879), 33.
7LD, Vol. XXIX, Cardinal Howard to JHN (March 10, 1879), 59.
8Gray, Cardinal Manning, A Biography, 266-67.
9John Henry Newman, Addresses to Cardinal Newman and His Replies, “Biglietto Speech” (May 12, 1879), 64, available at: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/addresses/file2.html#biglietto.
10LD, Vol. XXIX, Cardinal Manning to JHN (March 8, 1879), 60.
11LD, Vol. XXIX, JHN to E. B. Pusey (August 22, 1880), 296-297, 297.
12LD, Vol XXVIII, Memorandum (July 24, 1876), 92.
13James Tolhurst, “A Blessed and Ever enduring Fellowship: The development of John Henry Newman’s Thought on Death and Life Beyond,” Recusant History, XXII (1994-1995): 439-40.
14William Ullathorne cited by Martin, John Henry Newman, His Life & Work, 138.
15Anne Pollen cited, ibid., 136.
16Miss Millais cited, ibid., 137.
17Richard H. Hutton, Cardinal Newman (London: Methuen and Co., 1891), 250.
18Newman had chosen this existing, yet uncommon practice of friends sharing tombs as a sign of his special bond of friendship with Ambrose St. John.
19Newman, Addresses to Cardinal Newman and His Replies, 64.
20Apo., 5.
21John Henry Newman, Meditations and Devotions, available at: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/meditations/index.html. After this it will be cited MD.
22MD, 159.
23MD, 68.
24MD, 365.
25Benedict XVI, Papal Homily at the Beatification of John Henry Newman, September 19, 2010, available at: http://www.zenit.org/article-30411?1=english.