What Will Dr. Newman Do? John Henry Newman and Papal Infallibility, 1865-1875 by John R. Page

Abstract

86BOOK REVIEWS What Will Dr. Newman Do? John Henry Newman and Papal Infallibility, 1865-1875- By John R. Page. (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press,Michael Glazier Books. 1994. Pp. vi, 458. $24.95 paperback.) The fact of Newman's struggle with Pastor aeternus' definition of the papal exercise of the Church's infallibility is perhaps as well known as the balance of his famous Letter to the Duke ofNorfolk is appreciated. John R. Page's What Will Dr. Newman Do? contributes a definitive narrative of the precise contours of that struggle in the years immediately preceding and following Vatican Council I. One finds a painstaking and exhaustive treatment of Newman's extant letters and private memoranda on the subject together with a discussion of the letters and editorials to which he responded. Page masterfully employs Newman's diary entries to set the correspondence in context. The reader gains a vivid awareness of the complexity of Newman's efforts adequately to explain the Council's definition. Moreover, Page repeatedly underscores the apparent inconsistency of some of Newman's replies to disparate queries and challenges. Although Page does cite Avery Dulles in support of this claim (p. 421 n. 65), Page remains engaged in the primary sources and shows comparatively little interest in finding his interpretation corroborated by other Newman scholars. Nor does Page contend with theological ramifications of Newman's struggle; it would be fascinating, for example, to consider whether Newman's understanding ofPastor aeternus might assist in interpreting the teaching authority ofthe ordinary and universal magisterium today. If the meticulous chronological approach Page adopts occasionally tempts the reader to impatience, it at once lends a certain suspense (implied in the book's title), "captur[es] . . . the depth of the dilemma" (p. 12), and sheds radiant light on Newman's personality, not to mention his deep pastoral solicitude for those troubled by the Ultramontane interpretation of the conciliar definition . Page, who generally lets his lively narrative, the estimable writing ofwhich is crowned by copious quotations from Newman, take center stage, speculates especially at the end of the book that Newman experienced Vatican Council I not only as a difficult theological challenge, which he only ventured fully to answer after the publication of Gladstone's Expostulation, and as a source of unsettlement for many who sought his pastoral guidance, but even as a "shock and offense to his own faith" and a "personal struggle" (p. 407), albeit one from which he emerged gracefully. Page appropriately pays close attention to Newman's battle with the Ultramontane party and in his presentation of the Letter to the Duke ofNorfolk centers "the human drama" (p. 12) there more than on the concerns represented by the other two "chief" "audiences" Newman kept in view, "Gladstone and Protestant England" on the one hand and "Döllinger and his followers on the Continent" (p. 414) on the other. If Page dwells relatively little on theological analysis of the Letter's understanding of conscience, it is perhaps because for him the greatest interest lies in Newman, "a vital human person, struggling to keep faith alive and vibrant in an uncertain and contentious time, ever con- BOOK REVIEWS87 scious that we see now through a glass darkly, and continually pleading for a wise and gentle minimism until that time has passed away" (p. 428). Gerard H. McCarren Immaculate Conception Seminary Seton Hall University Religion in Victorian Britain. Volume V: Culture and Empire. Edited by John Wolffe. (Manchester University Press in association with the Open University . Distributed in the United States and Canada by St. Martin's Press, New York. 1997. Pp. viii, 359. $24.95.) In 1988 the Open University created a course on "Religion in Victorian Britain," accompanied by four volumes oftexts and readings with the same title. The course and books successfully reflected the state of the field at that date, but a decade of further scholarship has convinced the Religious Studies faculty that a fifth volume should be added to cover cultural and imperial contexts omitted from the original set. There are three substantial essays on the topics of gender, church music, and colonial missions, and three case studies, two on authors whose work involved mission themes...