As we saw in the
previous posting on this subject, with the publication of “Tract 90,” John
Henry Newman inadvertently gave leverage to the enemies of the Oxford
Movement. By playing on the fears of “creeping
(or galloping) Romanism,” the more liberal (in the bad sense) elements in the
Church of England were able to undermine and eventually marginalize almost
completely the effort to return to orthodoxy.
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| John Henry Newman |
The fact is that prior to being accused in such a spectacular
— and unfair — way of attempting to “Romanize” the Church of England, Newman
had himself been alarmed at the trend among certain members of the
Movement. It was said quite justly that
if Newman went over to the Catholic Church, he would take the Movement with
him.
That this, in fact, proved to be the case eventually does
nothing to change the fact that Newman actually wrote Tract 90 in an effort to
persuade people‚ especially the Romanizers in the Movement — that it is
possible to be Anglican and Catholic without being Roman. The Thirty-Nine Articles were a stumbling
block to those who thought of themselves as Anglo-Catholic, as the Articles were “militantly
Protestant.”
Nor did it help any when one of the leading Romanizers in
the Movement, William Ward, kept hounding Newman by demanding, “What will you
make of the Thirty-Nine Articles?” In
response, Newman took up the cudgels in defense of the Anglo-Catholic position
and defended it brilliantly.
. . . and then had the ground cut out from under his feet
by the very people whose position he was defending! With the Heads of the University condemning
Tract 90, Newman was in a very difficult position. They were not his ecclesiastical superiors
— that was the Bishop of Oxford — but they might as well have been. They were the intellectual heart of
Anglicanism, and to oppose them was to be faced with an extraordinarily problematic
situation.
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| Richard Bagot, Bishop of Oxford |
It was at this point that Newman made a tactical
error. He approached his religious
superior, Richard Bagot, Bishop of Oxford, and received an “understanding” that
if he, Newman, stopped publishing the Tracts, then the bishops would not
condemn Tract 90 and it could continue to be published. As Newman related in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua,
Not a scrap of writing was given to me as a pledge of performance
on their side of the engagement. . . . It was an understanding. A clever man had warned me against
understandings six years before. I have
hated them ever since.
Newman’s suspicion of “understandings” was more than
justified. Despite all the assurances he
had been given, the Bishop of Oxford condemned Tract 90. Over the course of six months, other bishops
chimed in.
True, there was no official
condemnation. That only made it
worse. By refusing to charge Newman officially,
and instead going about condemning him without doing anything to which they
could be pinned down and held accountable, the hierarchy of the Church of England made certain that
Newman would not be able to present his case to them or to anyone else for
anything specific. As he said later,
It was a formal movement, and there was no one to enforce the
understanding. They went on this way,
directing charges at me, for three whole years.
I recognized it as a condemnation. . . . At first I intended to protest,
but I gave up the thought in despair.
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| William Ward |
Newman’s despair is completely understandable. The bishops would simply have looked blank
had he made any protest. After all, they
were not doing anything other than giving their personal opinions, and how
could Newman or anyone else object to that?
They had not officially condemned either Tract 90 or Newman, so he had
no reason to complain.
On the other hand, Newman was well aware that if he had
protested he would have been ignored, and if he had restarted the Tracts, he
would instantly have been condemned — based on the “understanding,” of
course. The bishops could “honestly” say
that they had not condemned Tract 90 . . . officially. If Newman said otherwise, then he must be as
dishonest as the Heads of the University had maintained. There was no way Newman could win, not when
some people were already calling him a thief as well as a liar, e.g.,
When I first read No. 90, I did not then know the author; but
I said then, and I repeat it now, not with any personal reference to the
author, that I should be sorry to trust the author of that Tract with my purse.
One is tempted to say, “Uh, huh. ‘Not with any personal reference to the
author’? You just called him a thief. If that’s not ‘personal’, what is?” And that was only a single example. It was multiplied many times over, and always
in a way that Newman could not respond.
They knew from the way that Newman had handled Hampden’s errors in fact
and logic that they could not afford to let him defend himself. When he finally did get the opportunity —
twenty years later — Newman absolutely destroyed their case in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua.
Such utter viciousness and complete lack of Christian
charity precipitated a crisis — not of faith, for Newman’s faith in Christ
remained absolutely unshaken. Nor was he
one to believe that the personal failings of the ordinary clergy or even the bishops
of the Church of England affected in any way the truths he believed the Church
of England taught.
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| Nicholas Patrick Cardinal Wiseman |
This is a position that many Catholics in our day can
sympathize with, faced as they are seemingly at every hand with spectacularly personal
evil committed by Catholic bishops and priests.
The fact that so many of the clergy committing horrifying personal sins
are also teaching doctrines that may be of questionable orthodoxy confuses
matters, but it does not alter what the Catholic Church really teaches.
No, Newman was not one to doubt his own faith or think
that personal failings of the clergy changed the truths of Christianity. He was one, however, to have his confidence
shaken in his faith that the Church of England is part of the universal Church
established by Christ.
Not that this happened immediately. It was a long process. Cardinal Wiseman was convinced that the
controversy over Tract 90 would bring Newman into the Catholic Church and wrote
immediately to Newman giving his arguments why Newman should do so.
Justifiably offended, Newman wrote back politely,
responding to Wiseman’s effusions.
Conceding none of his religious opinions, Newman effectively said his
difficulties were with the people who happened to be bishops of the Church of
England, not with the Church of England.
The seed had been planted, however. Not by Wiseman or any other Catholic or even
Newman himself. It was the stubborn
refusal to let Newman defend his position that seems to have raised doubts in
his mind. If the position of the Church
of England was as Newman said, i.e.,
Catholic but not Roman, then why all the nastiness?
If, however, the position of the Church of England was not
Catholic at all, why did the bishops not present their arguments? If they were sound, Newman would accept
them. If they were not sound, he would
refute them. The issue was the identity
of the Church of England. There was no
need to bring Rome into the question at all.
. . . unless there was some reason that the bishops could
not give an argument that would stand up.
If the authorities of the Church of England refused either to allow
Newman to present his case or present one of their own . . . what did it mean? That was what threw Newman into a turmoil. It was not a question whether the “Church of
Rome” was true, but whether the Church of England was false! By refusing to take a stand, the bishops and
others raised in Newman’s mind the possibility that there was more wrong with
the Church of England than a mere drift from orthodoxy. It was now a question as to whether the
Church of England had ever been orthodox or even legitimate in the first place!
And the bishops had only themselves to blame for raising
the question in Newman’s mind.
#30#
