Passion for Truth , livre ebook

TAN Books - R. Velez Juan

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

298 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

In Passion for Truth, author and scholar Fr. Juan R. Velez painstakingly uncovers the life and work of Blessed John Henry Newman. In the story of his early years, his family upbringing and university education, and through his vast correspondence with family, friends, and colleagues, Velez acquaints us with Newman, the loyal friend, profound thinker, prolific writer, and holy priest. A true Catholic gentleman, who can be admired and loved by all who love the Truth.

Sujets

Catholic Church

Philosophie et théologie

Informations

Publié par	TAN Books
Date de parution	07 octobre 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781505116267
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0600€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

P ASSION FOR T RUTH
THE LIFE OF JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
Portrait by Sir William Ross (1845)
P ASSION FOR T RUTH
THE LIFE OF JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
S ECOND E DITION
F R . J UAN R. V ÉLEZ
TAN Books Charlotte, North Carolina
Copyright © 2012 Fr. Juan R. Veléz
Second Edition
Revised 2019
All rights reserved. With the exception of short excerpts used in articles and critical reviews, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in any form whatsoever, printed or electronic, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-5051-1624-3
Cover design by Tony Pro.
Cover image: Newman with Oratorian Collar, Engraving by Henry MacLean, based on Portrait by Richmond, 1845.
Published in the United States by TAN Books PO Box 410487 Charlotte, NC 28241 www.TANBooks.com
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
DEDICATION
With filial affection and gratitude to my parents, Maria R. Giraldo de Vélez and the late Dr. Rodrigo Vélez-Londoño, And with the same sentiments to my spiritual father and bishop, Bishop Javier Echeverría-Rodríguez, Prelate of Opus Dei.
CONTENTS
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Note to the Second Edition
Chronology
Abbreviations
Chapter
  1. Newman’s England
  2. John Henry’s Childhood
  3. 1816: First Conversion
  4. 1817 to 1822: Undergraduate at Trinity College
  5. 1822 to 1845: Fellow at Oriel College
  6. Newman’s Religious Development
  7. Curate of St. Clement’s
  8. Death of Newman’s Father
  9. Character of the Young Oxford Don
10. 1825: Holy Orders in the Anglican Church
11. Family and Friends
12. Early Religious Controversies
13. New Anglican Friends
14. Tutor at Oriel
15. Newman’s First Book: The Arians of the Fourth Century
16. Travel in the Mediterranean
17. Illness in Sicily
18. Origins of the Oxford Movement
19. 1833: The Start of the Oxford Movement
20. The First Year of the Oxford Movement
21. A Leader at Oxford
22. Seeking a Middle Ground or Via Media
23. Defending Anglo-Catholic Theology
24. Understanding the Holy Eucharist
25. 1839: First Anglican Difficulties
26. Newman’s Doubts about His Position in the English Church
27. The Crisis Over Tract 90
28. Debate on How to Make Men Moral
29. Storm and Calm Over Tract 90
30. Newman’s Resignation from St. Mary’s University Church
31. Reaching Certitude of Conversion to Roman Catholicism
32. 1845: Last Preparations for Conversion
33. Newman’s Essay on Development and His Final Conversion
34. First Years as a Roman Catholic
35. Public Defense of Catholics in England
36. Founder of the Catholic University of Ireland
37. Advocate of an Educated Catholic Laity
38. Apologia Pro Vita Sua
39. Newman, the Philosopher
40. Papal Infallibility and Letter to the Duke of Norfolk
41. Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
About the Author
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
  1. England, Wales and Ireland (ca. 1876)
  2. Family Group sketch by Maria Giberne (ca. 1830)
  3. Oxford (1901)
  4. Trinity College
  5. Trinity College Chapel
  6. Oriel Quad, Oriel College
  7. Mediterranean (1899), Newman’s journey during 1832-1833
  8. St. Mary, the Virgin, Oxford
  9. The pulpit of St. Mary the Virgin
10. Littlemore College (ca. 1950’s)
11. Fr. Newman (ca. 1866)
12. St. Mary and St. Nicholas, Littlemore (ca. 1920’s)
13. Living Room at Littlemore
14. Newman’s Desk at Littlemore
15. Photograph of Cardinal Newman by Louis Barraud (1885)
16. Newman’s writing desk, Birmingham Oratory
17. Cardinal Newman Library, Birmingham Oratory
18. Cardinal’s Private Chapel, Birmingham Oratory
19. Newman’s Tomb at Rednal, Birmingham
FOREWORD
I T is the hope of many that very soon we will be able to appreciate the irony of John Henry Newman’s retort to the poor woman who made the mistake of calling him a saint: “Saints are not literary men,” he wrote, “they do not love the classics, they do not write ‘Tales.’” Literary men do indeed make saints and great leaders too, witness Augustine and Thomas More, but there is so much more to Newman than his own humble estimate. When Pope Benedict raised him to the altars in September, 2010, he extolled Blessed John Henry Newman’s extraordinary intellectual contributions, but the focus of his praise was Newman’s “lifelong devotion to the priestly ministry” as a “pastor of souls.” It is fitting that in the latest “Newman moment”—and there are certainly more to come—the Victorian sage, the master of English prose, and the greatest of modern Catholic thinkers is associated with corporal works of mercy directed at the poor of the Birmingham slums.
The Holy Father, who as a young theologian, was deeply influenced by Newman’s seminal thought on conscience, the role of the laity, and the development of doctrine, has the same problem we all have in getting hold of Newman: the sheer largeness as well as the special demands of the project. In the fearless pursuit of truth, Newman’s preoccupation with “wholeness,” which he defined in contrast to theory, to the “isms” of the day, requires an intense and persistent inquiry rooted in history, doctrine, and the pressing demands of the world. Wholeness requires “consistency,” Newman’s high ideal in life and thought, but therein lies a paradox for those who insist on traditional categories. Discussing the problem of the Newman biographer, Ian Ker points out that Newman “may be called, without inconsistency, both conservative and liberal, progressive and traditional, cautious and radical, dogmatic yet practical, idealistic but realistic.”
It is as a Catholic thinker, not as a theorist, that dubious hero of his time and ours, that Newman’s grand mission comes into focus and his discourse becomes lucid. He attempts no less in his vast and varied canon than to understand what he called “the Providential system of the world,” whether approached through Church history, apologetics, or philosophy, not to mention poetry, fiction, and the device of satire, all of which tools were at his command; yet throughout he is rooted in here-and-now practical concerns—he wrote only to “calls,” he tells us—whether moving the Tractarian argument, attacking the corrosive sources of liberal secularism, or moderating the extremes of Church parties. And always he is the shrewd and penetrating guide to the duties of daily Christian life.
I think of the whole magnificent skein of Newman’s discourse spread over his long life as answering to his own argument in the Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, where he reasons that “real assent” to religious truth, which we are bound by conscience to seek, according to our gifts, comes only through “the accumulation of probabilities sufficient for certitude,” so that the pursuit of truth, or the “real” as he preferred to call it, is instinct with faith. Newman’s life, marked by holiness, is a compelling model of the steady, quiet progress of spiritual discernment beneath the stormy events of life—and who in his age was more involved in controversy than Newman?—where we “mount up the heavenly ladder step by step, where transformation is like the unfolding leaves in spring.”
Newman, himself among the greatest of autobiographers, is by needs better understood through his life story than a man of theory or system, but the depth and complexity of his life precludes the “definitive biography.” Each Newman biography adds some vital perspective, whether it is Wilfred Ward’s exposition of Newman’s basic theology, Meriol Trevor’s invaluable picture of his daily life, or Father Ker’s attention to the shape and power of Newman’s imagination, a neglected aspect of his genius. When I met Father Juan in 2005 at Mercer House, the Opus Dei residence in Princeton, we talked about, among other things, an article he had just finished, later incorporated in this biography, on Newman’s near-fatal illness in Sicily as a young man. This episode brought about a great interior realization and determined Blessed John Henry’s course in life. I was struck at the time and then again when I read the manuscript of Passion for Truth that Father Juan’s worthy pursuit as a biographer has been to search out what was essentially Catholic in the young Newman that moved him inexorably towards that most famous conversion many years later and to recognize that it was that same steady vision in the midst of turmoil, that unflinching cooperation with grace, that was soon to make Blessed John Henry Newman a passionate truth-seeker, the master architect of the Catholic Revival in England, and some day, God-willing, a Doctor of the Church.
D R . J OHN H ULSMAN Delray Beach, Florida March 31, 2011
Dr. Hulsman is Professor Emeritus of English Literature at Rider University and editor of The Rule of Our Warfare, John Henry Newman and the true Christian Life, A Reader.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
T HE life of Blessed John Henry Newman has been, for many, a compelling example of Christian holiness and for me, the inspiration for this book. I first came to appreciate Newman’s life and ideas when reading John Henry Newman (1801–1890) by Fr. José Morales. I was especially attracted by Newman’s passion for the truth and his courage to pursue this truth to the end. I soon came to admire Newman’s vision of Christian holiness. Like St. Josemaría Escrivá, another priest and an educator, Newman insisted on the laity’s call to holiness through the exercise of the virtues in everyday life.
I wish to express my gratitude to the members of Opus Dei and friends for their support during the writing of this book and to Susan Ridlen, Maria Riz Marsella and Anna Gil Exconde for their generous assistance in the preparation of some maps, to Claire O’Leary for her library assistance and to Maria Knox for her help with the “newmanbiography” website. I wish to thank Msgr. James A. Kelly, Professor John Hulsman, Professor William Park, Fr. C. John McCloskey, Carol Bu