Debating the life and legacy of a ‘controversialist’ saint
Pope Francis canonized five people as saints this week, four of them women, at a mass in St. Peter’s Square on Oct. 13 attended by 50,000 people from all continents.
The four women are: Italy’s Giuseppina Vannini (1859-1911), founder of the Daughters of Saint Camillus; India’s Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan (18761926), founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family; Brazil’s Sister Dulce Lopes Pontes (1914-1992); and Switzerland’s Marguerite Bays (1815-1879), a laywoman. The first three spent their lives working for the poor.
It is the canonization of the fifth individual, England’s Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890), which has led to much discussion. Newman was a Victorian-era intellectual, Catholic convert and cardinal. A self-described “controversialist,” Newman was an early leader in the Oxford Movement, an attempt to reinstate ancient forms of faith and worship in the Church of England. After converting to Catholicism at age 44, Newman went on to found a Catholic university and a religious community, as well as a school, and he clashed with authoritarian, or “Ultramontane,” Catholics over the issue of papal infallibility.
Unlike many of Francis’s recent actions, the decision to make Newman a saint has won praise from both conservative and liberal Christians. Scratch the surface, though, and it’s easy to find deep disagreements about the life and legacy of this modern saint, who is often invoked to praise and condemn the Pope’s vision.
Newman often appears in controversies concerning the role of conscience and authority in the church. Conscience has become a contested term during Francis’s papacy, especially following his 2016 exhortation “Amoris Laetitia.” Writing about love and marriage, the Pope stated: “We need a healthy dose of self-criticism.” He admonished readers that “we are called to form consciences, not to replace them,” a view the Pope’s critics say gives individuals a licence to decide right and wrong for themselves without the counsel of the church and its teaching.
Progressives cite Newman in support of the Pope’s view of conscience. As Austen Ivereigh, a biographer of Francis, wrote on Twitter: “One cannot help but imagine that Cardinal Newman, a famous opponent of papal infallibility, would delight to be canonized on Oct. 13 by a pope who admits mistakes, calls himself a sinner, dislikes being put on a pedestal, & has restored the role of conscience.”
But Francis’s opponents have been equally quick to invoke Newman’s statements about conscience. Explaining his widely publicized decision to call for Francis’s resignation, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano told The Washington Post, “I was inspired by Blessed Cardinal Newman, who said, ‘If I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts, I shall drink — to the pope, if you please — still, to Conscience first, and to the pope afterwards.’”
In addition, conservatives have looked for inspiration in Newman’s comments on “liberalism.” Newman called liberalism “false liberty of thought,” or the attempt to find truth through reason alone independent of faith and devotion.
Newman insisted on maintaining the unique authority of the church and its doctrine.
So he is being invoked to criticize the Amazon synod for “blurring the lines” between Catholicism and nature worship by celebrating “Mother Earth,” biodiversity and Indigenous spirituality.
Newman’s own sexuality also figures into contemporary debates. “It’s not unreasonable to think (Newman) might have been homosexual,” wrote the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author who recently met with Francis to encourage greater support for LGBTQ Catholics. And in 2010, when Pope Benedict XVI beatified Newman, the decision to move Newman’s remains ignited criticism from the LGBTQ community.
Newman had been buried by his request in the same grave as his friend Ambrose St. John, whom Newman called “my earthly light.” Although the Vatican said it planned to move Newman’s remains from Rednal, England, to the Birmingham Oratory church for “public veneration,” some called the decision an attempt to cover up a same-sex relationship.
In the end, gravediggers disinterred some brass, wood and cloth and moved them to the Birmingham Oratory. But Newman’s body could not be moved; it had completely decomposed.
Newman wasn’t just any controversialist. He also believed that “to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” He was sensitive to the idea that arguments and facts rarely change anyone’s mind, something both scientific research and experience have confirmed in our increasingly tribal era.
Newman wrote: “The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination.” He explained: “Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma: no man will be a martyr for a conclusion.” His hundreds of sermons, hymns, poems and dozens of books (including two novels) attempt to reach the deeper, more imaginative sources of our most important convictions.