A Lover of Truth
The Story of John Henry Newman
by Hallie Riedel

The aging priest paced back and forth with the magazine, brow furrowed, weighing his options. This was it. Finally, he had been publicly put on his defense. After years of public mistrust and misconceptions, he had his chance to set the record straight.

John Henry Newman was something of a celebrity in England in his heyday at Oxford University: a tutor, vicar of the University Church of St. Mary’s, and driving force behind what became known as “the Oxford Movement.” Then, in October 1845, at age forty-four, he rocked the Anglican church by his decision to become a Catholic. Many thought he had secretly been “pro-Rome” all along, planning to lead his followers into Romanism. Others doubted his sincerity and expected him to return to the Anglican church. But until January 1864, there had only been vague feelings of mistrust among the public.

Now, as he held the January 1864 issue of the widely circulated Macmillan’s Magazine, Fr. Newman had a specific accusation which needed a response: Charles Kingsley, a popular writer, stated that Newman, and the entire Catholic clergy, had no respect for truth and in fact manipulated it to their own ends. Newman gathered his personal papers around him and began the arduous work of opening his soul to the English public. His efforts resulted in weekly installments from April 21 through June 2, 1864, keeping readers breathless but nearly driving Newman to an early grave.

The publication of Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua was one turning point in a life full of turning points. It won over the English public, solidified Catholic perception of his loyalty, and added a personal note to theological writing.

Intellectual Foundations. Born on February 21, 1801, John Henry Newman was the eldest of six children. His intellectual genius blossomed at boarding school, where he earned the nickname “the flyer” for his speedy completion of the school’s curriculum. At age fifteen, Newman experienced a personal conversion from religious superstition. He called it an “inner conversion,” which influenced all his later writings.
Newman entered Oxford in 1816, where he remained for nearly thirty years. Within the ivy-covered walls, removed from the world, Newman blossomed, winning the coveted fellowship to Oriel College in 1822 and later accepting a teaching professorship. He was ordained an Anglican priest and became vicar at St. Mary’s in 1828, where he preached many of his famous Parochial and Plain Sermons.

Of one sermon, a listener wrote: “Newman had described closely some of the incidents of our Lord’s Passion; then he paused. For a few moments there was a breathless silence. Then, in a low, clear voice . . . he said, ‘Now I bid you recollect that he to whom these things were done was Almighty God.’ It was as if an electric stroke had gone through the church.” Newman drew throngs to his sermons because he preached in an intimate way that personalized faith and revealed truth to be both practical and accessible.

The Turmoil Begins. In 1833, the Anglican church was widely seen to be at a crisis point. John Keble’s July sermon, entitled “National Apostasy,” was the launching point for the Oxford Movement. The movement was comprised of Newman and several Oxford colleagues who wanted to rouse fellow Anglicans out of a growing religious liberalism and rationalism. In their desire to return their church to traditional doctrines and to restore a sense of reverence, they produced tracts that explained the gospel and exhorted people to come back to the Lord.

To support his writing projects, Newman deepened his investigation of the early church. It was during this time that he began to see the Church of England as a Via Media, or a “middle way,” a faithful bastion between the extremes of Catholicism and Protestantism. Because of his popularity as a preacher and the success of his writings, Newman wielded immense influence in the English Church. But it was not to last.

Newman’s continuing study of the Church Fathers uncovered historical heresies which he saw in his own time—heresies in which he believed his own church was involved. By the time his ninetieth tract was published in 1841, his Anglican convictions were weakening. This tract demonstrated that the Thirty-Nine Articles—pillars of the Anglican faith—were aimed at countering not false Catholic doctrines, but abuses within Catholicism. Such an outcry broke out after the publication of this tract that it was suppressed, Newman was censured and the Oxford Movement derailed. Amid cries of “traitor!” he retired from public life, resigning his position at St. Mary’s and eventually his fellowship at Oriel.

Conversion. Newman retired to Littlemore, a row of cottages near Oxford, where he and a few like-minded friends lived a rather monastic life from 1842 to 1845. He devoted most of his day to prayer and study, spending less than seven hours in sleep. Throughout these years, he agonized over his situation; but in the end, he found himself no longer able to remain an Anglican. He was being drawn to what he saw was the true heritage of the Catholic Church, unbroken despite historical abuses and weaknesses.

John Henry Newman’s thirst for the truth drew him to Catholicism, warts and all. He knew that he would lose the intellectual life he had come to treasure at Oxford—his new friends were younger and less brilliant than his former ones. He knew he would be mistrusted, and his theological methods criticized and rejected. Newman wryly remarked: “I am going to those whom I do not know and of whom I expect very little—I am making myself an outcast, and that at my age.” Still, his mind was made up.

Newman’s Meditations and Devotions describe a beautiful act of trust and submission to God. They also reveal his state of mind at this time: “I will trust him. . . . If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve him. . . . He does nothing in vain. . . . He may take away my friends. He may throw me in among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me. Still, he knows what he is about.”

When Newman was received into the Catholic Church in October, 1845, the immediate effects on the Church of England were serious. Gladstone, a contemporary of Newman, commented that Newman’s conversion was underestimated and that it was of “calamitous importance.” Not only did Newman convert; many friends and acquaintances followed him. More importantly, English Catholicism gained an influential new member and would never be the same.

Early Struggles. Following his entry into the church, Newman was ordained a Catholic priest and established an Oratory in Birmingham, England, in the pattern of St. Philip Neri. He continued preaching and writing, and even spent seven years as rector of the failed University of Dublin. However, because he was mistrusted by some influential English bishops, many of Newman’s endeavors—such as a new English translation of the Bible or the establishment of a Catholic church in Oxford—never got off the ground.

It would be a long time before Newman enjoyed the acceptance of his contemporaries. He was met with both suspicion and mistrust from Catholic leaders who questioned his writings and opinions, and he was also the butt of generalized attacks in several Protestant magazines. Of these attacks, he once said, “These are little and ridiculous things taken separately, but they form an atmosphere of flies—one can’t enjoy a walk without this fidget on the nerves.”

By 1863, after nearly twenty years as a Catholic, Father Newman was living a quiet life at the Birmingham Oratory, submitted to his superiors and had no intention (despite rumors to the contrary) of returning to the Church of England. But the cost was great. He was at a low point in his public and creative life when he received new stimulus from an unexpected quarter.

Roused to Action. Charles Kingsley’s challenge in Macmillan’s Magazine in January 1864 seemed to stir Newman both intellectually and spiritually. The very act of sifting through all his correspondence, identifying the progression of his thoughts that led to his conversion, seemed to lift him out of his gloom and remind him why he had embraced Catholicism in the first place. Paradoxically, his suffering strengthened his faith. By finally making his position clear to all his critics, he earned the respect of Catholics and Anglicans, both in England and beyond.

Following publication of his Apologia, Newman wrote prolifically, including “The Dream of Gerontius,” a long poem about the afterlife, and the landmark Grammar of Assent (1870), in which he described how ordinary minds think, assent, and reach certitude, in essence rejecting the idea that faith comes only from reason.

Twilight and Final Rest. On May 12, 1879, shortly after being named the first honorary fellow of Trinity College in Oxford, John Henry Newman was created Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII. He was the first simple priest in centuries to receive such an honor. Commenting upon his elevation, Newman highlighted his lifelong fight against liberalism, which he described as “the doctrine that there is no truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another.” Being named a cardinal did much to mend relations between Rome and England. It also gave legitimacy to his writings and silenced many of his critics. He died August 11, 1890, and was declared venerable by Pope John Paul II in 1991.

In his search for truth, Newman left behind a wealth of writings that grappled with and made sense of a variety of conflicting issues. He upheld individual conscience without undermining obedience and hierarchy. He explained why science does not contradict faith. He published an exhaustive philosophy of education as well as volumes of prose and poetry. But throughout his intellectual productivity, he suffered under the fact that, despite the orthodoxy of his conclusions, his concrete, personal theological method caused controversy with some local bishops and theologians. Through it all, Newman found his own Via Media between liberal rationalism and reactionary factions.

From young scholar to Oxford professor, from new convert to quiet priest put on the defensive, all the way to respected cardinal, John Henry Newman was a lover of truth, pursuing it in spite of obstacles or personal suffering, doing his best to communicate it to others. His life is summed up in the epitaph he chose for his grave: “Out of the shadows and imaginings and into the truth.”