Examine John Henry Newman’s changing attitude to Infallibility, between the end of Vatican 1 in 1870 and Gladstone’s attack in 1875.
In this essay I propose to analyse Newman’s attitude to Infallibility during the period outlined above. I will examine his letters in particular to note the range of correspondents and the approaches taken. I will attempt to see a pattern in relation to his views expressed to mere enquirers writing to him, to national and professional writers seeking information or debating points and to family and friends in connection with the doctrine of Infallibility. Over this five-year period I will deduce from mainly primary sources, his views expressed on Infallibility and his developed reasoning and then present conclusions.
Firstly a short historical background to Victorian Britain will set the context. Mid-Victorian Britain saw political reform as a main agenda. There was an established order of churches, characterised by denomination but more telling, by social class, and a defined place in society. The plight of the poor and the devastating effects of industrialisation were not uppermost in the church’s role. These views were being challenged with an increasing secularisation of society, by movements set up to reform and give more people a voice in government, and questioning the relevance of the church. The church played a role in e.g. the Christian Socialist Movement, set up as much to control and limit reform as it was to assist the poor.
This was a time of expansion by the Catholic Church, since the re-establishment of the hierarch in 1850. Popular liberal attitudes questioned the loyalty of Catholics to the state and since the 1850’s newspapers and periodicals characterised this view as ...
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...ring 1982), pp. 86–88.
Rahner, K. ‘A Critique of Hans Kung’. Homiletic and Pastoral Review 71, May 1971, pp.10 – 26.
Schatz, K. Papal Supremacy: From its Origins to the Present. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1996, pp.151-162.
Strange, Roderick. John Henry Newman: A Mind Alive. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2008.
Sugg, J. ed. A Packet of Letters: a selection of correspondence of John Henry Newman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.
Tierney, B. Origins of Papal infallibility 1150 – 1350. (‘Studies in the History of Christian Thought’).Leiden: EJ Brill, 1972.
Ward, W. William George Ward and the Catholic Revival. London: Longmans Green andCo.1893, p.274. Accessed 9 March 2014: https://archive.org/details/riwilliamgeorgeward.
Wolfe, J. Religion in Victorian Britain: Culture and Empire. Manchester: The Open University Press, 1997.
Elected in 1958 as a ‘caretaker Pope’, Pope John XXIII implemented the greatest reforms in the Church’s history. His involvement within the Church had played a significant contribution to the reforming of social, political and liturgical Christian traditions. During the early twentieth century, the Catholic Church still held the century old conservative beliefs and traditions as they continued to separate the Church from the secular world, therefore, disadvantaging the Church to a world that was modernising. In addition to this, the Church restricted modernist thoughts due to the belief that new theologies would threaten the power and authority of the Church, but ...
Many new changes came to Victorian England as a result of the age of industrialization. Where there were once small country parishes, manufacturing towns were springing up. One change resulting from industrialization was the shortage of clergy to fill the new parishes in these towns. These new parishes reflect the demographic changes of the English countryside. Rural villages grew into booming towns. Where a single parish was once sufficient, there was now a need for multiple parishes. The Church of England went about meeting these demands for new clergy in two major ways, actively recruiting men to the clergy and restructuring theological facilities and changing the requirements for ordination. These factors show us some of the upheaval and reconstruction that was going on in the Anglican Church in Victorian England. This was a direct result of the need to train a large number of clergy in a relatively short period of time.
To begin with, it must be remembered that Catholic culture and Catholic faith, while mutually supportive and symbiotic, are not the same thing. Mr. Walker Percy, in his Lost in the Cosmos, explored the difference, and pointed out that, culturally, Catholics in Cleveland are much more Protestant than Presbyterians in say, Taos, New Orleans, or the South of France. Erik, Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, points out that the effects of this dichotomy upon politics, attributing the multi-party system in Catholic countries to the Catholic adherence to absolutes; he further ascribes the two-party system to the Protestant willingness to compromise. However this may be, it does point up a constant element in Catholic thought---the pursuit of the absolute.
Saunders, William P. Straight Answers: Answers to 100 Questions about the Catholic Faith. Baltimore, MD: Cathedral Foundation, 1998. Print.
Towards the middle of the nineteenth century a “Catholic” candidate, Paul Blanshard, ran for presidency. Blanshard was a burden to the Republicans due to his religion. The view of Catholicism was an institutional and political problem. Even if the candidate was not Catholic, he was married by a Catholic priest and apparently that was a connected him to Catholic problems. A political problem because Catholicism was a world power that of Pr...
A 16th-century movement in Western Europe that aimed at reforming some doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church and resulted in the establishment of the Protestant churches. The world of the late medieval Roman Catholic Church from which the 16th-century reformers emerged was a complex one. Over the centuries, the church, particularly in the office of the papacy, had become deeply involved in the political life of Western Europe. The resulting intrigues and political manipulations, combined with the church’s increasing power and wealth, contributed to the bankrupting of the church as a spiritual force.
Through the years from the medieval ages up until now, the Roman Catholic Church has always had a major influential presence in all walks of life for European people, whether it was for taxation, the establishing of laws, the rise and fall of monarchs, and even daily social life. Furthermore, the Catholic Church held such power that they could even appoint and dispose of great kings with just the writing of the pen. However, their power started to wane once human curiosity overcome ignorance and blind obedience. For example, the Enlightenment Age brought a series of shocking blows to the Church’s power such as disproving the Church’s theory of geocentricism and presented an age of questioning and secularism. In essence, by looking at the Church’s
During the Great Jubilee year, John Paul II gave a relevant speech of apology on behalf of the entire Catholic Church for the serious sins committed by its members for over 2,000 years. Since John Paul II did that, he wished the Church to enter the new millennium with a clean slate, allowing it to speak to and discuss freely with the other religions of the world, including the cultures and nations from a place not only of permanency but also of moral and religious power, having acknowledged in specific ways the crimes, from time to time unbearable, committed by its human origins throughout history. These apologies were hardly accepted, and common apologies for sins committed against the Church and its members have not been imminent. “Catholics distinguish between the holiness of the inevitable sinful nature of men, including the men who serve the Church stated by Thomas E. Woods Jr.”
Theological Context." Reformation & Renaissance Review: Journal of The Society For Reformation Studies 7, no. 2/3: 337-346. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed March 24, 2014).
At the beginning of the sixteenth century church theologian, Martin Luther, wrote the 95 Theses questioning the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church. In this essay I will discuss: the practices of the Roman Catholic Church Martin Luther wanted to reform, what Martin’s specific criticism of the pope was, and the current practices Pope Francis I is interested in refining in the Roman Catholic Church today.
In this essay I will identify the issues which brought about this papal encyclical in 1891, specifically the social conditions of people, resulting from industrialisation and the church’s Christological role in declaring human dignity in terms of God’s plan for mankind. I will set out the historical position in Britain in this late Victorian era within the context of European radical political upheaval, as part of the need for reform and a response from the Church. These issues will be compared with the encyclical one hundred years later, to analyse the development of policy in1891 and 1991 in terms of the church’s teaching, within the context of the wider social and political movements of the late twentieth century. I will determine that whilst John Paul II used the centenary in 1991 to publish Centesimus Annus and see it as a ‘re-wording’ of the original, it ultimately failed to take forward the radical change envisaged in Rerum Novarum, with limited exceptions.
Kerr, H. (1990). Readings in christian thought (2nd ed.). H. T. Kerr (Ed.). Nashville: Abingdon Press.
Gonzalez, Justo L. 1984. The early church to the dawn of the Reformation. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
The Victorian Era in English history was a period of rapid change. One would be hard-pressed to find an aspect of English life in the 19th century that wasn’t subject to some turmoil. Industrialization was transforming the citizens into a working class population and as a result, it was creating new urban societies centered on the factories. Great Britain enjoyed a time of peace and prosperity at home and thus was extending its global reach in an era of New Imperialism. Even in the home, the long held beliefs were coming into conflict.
A Century of Theological and Religious Studies in Britain, 1902–2007 by Ernest Nicholson 2004 pages 125–126