THE P RTAL
February 2013 Page 14
Thoughts on Newman
Change and Continuity of a Convert
by Br Sean of The Work
In his Development of Christian Doctrine , Newman spoke of how ‘ to live is to change , and to be perfect is to have changed often ’. These memorable words are well known and often quoted , and it seems obvious that change was indeed a particular characteristic of his life , although the question of what he retained from his Anglican years is perhaps less obvious and therefore deserves some attention .
While it would it would be wrong for us to compare the situation of the Church in our day with that of Newman ’ s day it is important to ask how , as a Roman Catholic , he viewed the Church of England . The Roman Catholic Church in England was itself going though great change at the time of Newman ’ s conversion .
The disaster of the famine in Ireland from 1845- 1852 had radically changed the demographics of the Catholic Church in England , and it was not until 1850 that Pius IX re-established the English hierarchy . Newman ’ s pleas for prudence to Faber and his fellow Oratorians that they should not flaunt their habits ‘ like peacocks ’ in the streets of London , demonstrate how anti-Catholic feeling was still very much part of Victorian society .
formed in the Anglican Tradition
When Newman became a Roman Catholic in 1845 he had been formed both theologically and religiously in the Anglican Tradition . It would be absurd to assume that he simply disregarded this tradition . Some twenty years after his conversion he acknowledged this : ‘ the Church of England has been the instrument of Providence in conferring great benefits on me [...] as I have received so much good from the Anglican Establishment itself , can I have the heart or rather the want of charity , considering that it does for so many others what it has done for me , to wish to see it overthrown ? I have no such wish .’
where he always truly belonged
While Newman freely accepted that when he was to be received into the Roman Catholic Church he should formally recant any Anti-Catholic sentiments he had held as an Anglican , he wrote later in his Apologia that ‘ on my conversion , I was not conscious of any change in me of thought or feeling , as regards matters of doctrine .’ For Newman the change which his conversion initiated was not his view of doctrine , but rather his position with respect to the Church of England . He continued in the Apologia : ‘ unwilling as I am to give offence to religious Anglicans , I am bound to confess that I felt a great change in my view of the Church of England . I cannot tell how soon there came on me ,— but very soon ,— an extreme astonishment that I had ever imagined it to be a portion of the Catholic Church .
For the first time , I looked at it from without , and ( as I should myself say ) saw it as it was .’ Despite the hardship he had to endure , Newman did not think of himself as a religious oddity within Roman Catholic Church , rather he was convinced that he had found the place where he always truly belonged . Newman had always reacted against the view of religion which was based on sentiment rather than truth .
preaching freely
Newman ’ s life did change as a Roman Catholic . As a priest he no longer wrote out sermons and read them , which he had as an Anglican . Rather he adopted the practice common to Catholic priests at the time , of writing only notes and preaching freely . We also know that despite his love for the ‘ majestic simplicity ’ of the 1549 Prayer Book , he had been using the Roman Breviary for some 18 years before his conversion . After the death of his dear friend Hurrell Froude in 1836 , Newman was permitted to take a volume form Froude ’ s personal library .
He was tempted to take the classic of Anglican theology – Butler ’ s Analogy , but instead he took the Roman Breviary . Newman and Froude had been introduced to the Roman Breviary by Joseph Blanco White , and while at Littlemore it was prayed daily in the simple oratory they had there .