The Church Needs the Laity: The Wisdom of John Henry Newman by Michael W. Higgins

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Church Needs the Laity: The Wisdom of John Henry Newman by Michael W. Higgins Andrew J. Hoy The Church Needs the Laity: The Wisdom of John Henry Newman BY MICHAEL W. HIGGINS Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2021. xxi + 89 pages. Paperback: $14.95. ISBN: 9780809155217. Who are the laity, and what, if any, role are they to play in the present church?, asks Michael Higgins. Looking to the work and life of St. John Henry Newman through the lenses of his mentor James M. Cameron and Thomas Merton, Higgins answers these and many more questions throughout this essay by bolstering the role of the laity in the present church. His essay is squarely aimed at rallying “believers around the reclamation of the lay charism as the corrective to the sin of clericalism by drawing on the wisdom and witness of Newman” (xvii). Although Higgins exhibits a vocabulary well beyond that of a novice theologian, this work is deliberately approachable in tone and length and is clearly written for popular audiences. At times adopting a style similar to that of Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Higgins details his own formation, specifically recalling the time in his life in which he first seriously encountered Newman under the tutelage of James Cameron at the University of Toronto. Higgins repeatedly credits Cameron’s formation for his own interpretation of Newman throughout the essay, specifically recalling how his own rhetorical development shaped his career path as a Catholic public intellectual. Higgins continues, discussing the merits and necessity of the reemergence of Catholic public intellectuals in the images of Merton and Newman. In this analysis, Higgins offers his own diagnosis of the signs of the time, which are admittedly bleak. His read features an orthodox but thinking Catholic lay center caught between individualism produced by unchecked liberalism on one hand, and a hypersensitive Catholic hierarchy on the lookout for any apparent indication of divergence from magisterial teaching on the other. As a senior scholar, it is clear that Higgins does not fear naming these powers, which continue to converge on an ever discerning and orthodox laity. In his own words, “This ain’t good” (64). In looking to Newman, and subsequently Merton, Higgins sees a well-formed laity helmed by balanced contemporary Catholic intellectuals (in the images of Newman and Merton) as the only antidote to the ongoing compression of Catholic intellectual dialogue. Higgins specifically looks to two periods in Newman’s life to further elucidate his point: his work in establishing the Catholic University of Ireland (1854) and The Rambler affair (1859–1860), both of which include episodes of episcopal overreach in legitimate Catholic dialogue among the laity. [End Page 91] By drawing on these points in the life of Newman, Higgins illustrates the power of Catholic public intellectuals who see the value of lay voices in the present church. Highlighting Newman’s inclusion of the laity in the academic structures of Catholic University Ireland coupled with his unwavering focus on the formation of lay students, Higgins illustrates the point of Catholic education, namely the fostering of a well-informed laity. With the foundations of their Catholic education, this well-informed laity can (ideally) subsequently contribute to the life of the church, no more as spectators in an otherwise clerical realm, rather as active and knowledgeable participants. This lay check on clerical authority, although clearly present in the works of Newman, has yet to be fully realized, as Higgins repeatedly exhibits. He boldly points to two recent papacies wherein censures and censorship were frequent measures aimed at reigning in academics and lay people who dared dialogue and arrive at conclusions about matters magisterial. Higgins does not shy from condemning members of the episcopacy for acts of censorship, especially in matters of Catholic intellectual importance involving academic dialogue and truth-seeking. This type of Catholic intellectualism, modeled by Newman, is characterized by its persistent pursuit of the truth as well as its unceasing rediscovery of a “humble Catholicism— neither restorationist nor recidivist. Just ever-regenerating, ever-revivifying” (84). While Higgins does well to keep this essay to a readable length, and readable it is, this quasi-memoir of a man’s time...