ROMAN REPORT
A Champion of Tradition Alberto Carosa looks at the life of Saint John Henry Newman
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t John Henry Newman’s conversion was the end result of a centuries old process dating at least as far back as 1694, the year when Saint Paul of the Cross (1694-1775), founder of the Passionists, was born in Ovada, a town in the province of Alessandria in Piedmont. In 1845 Newman was received into the Catholic Church by a Passionist Father, Blessed Domenico Barberi (17921849), also known as Domenico della Madre di Dio (Dominic of the Mother of God). He was a spiritual son of St Paul, who mandated him to establish a Passionist mission in England. So, one may well wonder, how is it possible for Newman to be at times described as a sort of liberal Catholic, in a way a forerunner of all that led to Vatican II, if he is spiritually so closely associated with these two Italian giants of the faith? Well, the answer is simple and Professor Peter Kwasniewski has set the record straight in one of his recent articles in the New Liturgical Movement blog (14 October, 2019) significantly entitled “St John Henry Newman, the Traditionalist”. A few quotes will be enough to prove the point and finally we may breathe a sigh of relief. “It is ironic, to say the least,” says the Professor, “that Cardinal Newman is so often hailed as ‘the theologian of the Second Vatican Council’ or the great proponent of reforming trends within the contemporary Church, when — at least on matters concerning fundamental theology, Christian morality, and sacred liturgy — he argued strenuously and consistently throughout his career against rationalism, emotionalism, liberalism, and tinkeritis.” The Professor continues: “In the realm of liturgy in particular, he was staunchly opposed to ritual modifications and modernizations designed to ‘meet people where they’re at’ or to (as Paul VI put it in his 3 April, 1969 Apostolic Constitution promulgating the Novus Ordo) ‘accommodate the mentality of today’.”
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St John Henry Newman: “The number of converts who owe their conversion, under grace, to Newman, at least in part, are too numerous to mention” Newman did not just proclaim himself just anti-liberal, the Professor goes on. “He was what is now called a traditionalist in matters dogmatic and liturgical, one who would have lambasted the entire conciliar project, and certainly the liturgical reform carried out in its name, as misguided and doomed to failure.” In other words, as the Professor explains, Newman was “a Catholic traditionalist avant la lettre. One can
see this in so many writings from every period of his life, and of every genre, that it takes little more than opening pages at random to be able to start a fine personal collection of polished gems of perennial, hence anti-modernist, wisdom.” In the Professor’s opinion, Newman has been selectively misquoted and misrepresented as a friend of the postconciliar progressive and modernist cause, thus “falling under a cloud
SPRING 2020
