Birmingham Oratory Research Articles

The Reverend Dr. Ian Ker: August 30, 1942–November 5, 2022

The Reverend Dr. Ian KerAugust 30, 1942–November 5, 2022 Paul Shrimpton (bio) Key Words Reverend Dr. Ian Ker, St. John Henry Newman Logos editorial board member, Fr. Ian Turnbull Ker, the leading scholar on the life and work of St. John Henry Newman, died on November 5, 2022. He was a brilliant writer and biographer, as well as a much-loved parish priest, and he published more than twenty books on Newman and his theology. His John Henry Newman: a Biography has long been regarded as the definitive account of the most recent saint of the Anglosphere; his scholarly biography of G. K. Chesterton is also widely admired. Like both men, Ker was a convert from Anglicanism. Ian Ker was born in Naini Tal, India, on August 30, 1942; he was the son of Charles Murray Ker of the Indian Civil Service and his wife Joan May Knox, a relative of Ronald Knox. In 1947 he and his parents and his two sisters left India after independence was declared. Moving to England, they settled in Wimbledon, London. Ker remembered, as a boy, entering the enormous Sacred Heart Church in Edge Hill, Wimbledon, and being impressed by the Mass being celebrated there: the then-normative Tridentine Rite was very unlike the middle-ofthe-road Church of England services his family attended. On the advice of an uncle, a Classics don at Trinity College, Cambridge, Ker attended Shrewsbury School. From there he went to [End Page 27] Click for larger view View full resolution Photograph courtesy of Gracewing publishing [End Page 28] Balliol College, Oxford, to read Classics under three of the leading scholars of the time: Gordon Williams in literature, Russell Meiggs in ancient history, and R. M. Hare in moral philosophy. After Balliol he won a scholarship to study English at Corpus Christi College, a few streets away, where he was taught by F. W. Bateson, the founder of Essays in Criticism and a disciple of F. R. Leavis. Defying his father’s dogmatic dismissal of Christianity, Ker had read C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity in his teens, and while at Oxford decided to become a Catholic. The reaction of his parents was mixed: his father was indifferent, but his mother was upset—although she eventually became a Catholic herself. Four decades later, Ker wrote a work of apologetics of his own, Mere Catholicism, which argued that mere Christianity could not be other than mere Catholicism. From Oxford, Ker moved to Trinity College, Cambridge to study for a doctorate on George Eliot; the university did not give him a PhD, although it later awarded him an honorary doctorate for his published work. He took up a post at the University of York, where he taught Latin as well as English literature, but after a few years abandoned his academic career to train for the priesthood. He stayed briefly at the Birmingham Oratory, where he got know the distinguished Newman scholar Fr. Charles Dessain, and then completed his training at the Venerable English College in Rome. Once ordained, Ker took up an endowed chair in theology and philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in St Paul, Minnesota. He loved his time in the American Midwest, which he regarded as some of the happiest years of his life, but he missed the pastoral elements of priestly life. After a brief spell as Catholic chaplain at Oxford, he moved to a similar role at Southampton University, before becoming parish priest of Burford, a small Cotswolds town twenty miles from Oxford. During his twenty-five years in Burford he was part of the theology faculty of Oxford University, and latterly a research fellow at Blackfriars Hall. Over several decades Ker managed to combine his priestly ministry with a remarkable scholarly output. Besides critical editions of [End Page 29] three of Newman’s most influential works—the Apologia Pro Vita Sua, the Grammar of Assent and the Idea of a University—he co-edited four volumes of Newman’s Letters and Diaries and worked in all the fields covered by Newman’s own “imperial intellect.” Like his subject, however, he was able to see souls behind his writing. This ensured...

A Benedictine Education, John Henry Newman: The Mission of St. Benedict & the Benedictine Schools ed. by Christopher Fisher

Reviewed by: A Benedictine Education, John Henry Newman: The Mission of St. Benedict & the Benedictine Schoolsed. by Christopher Fisher Mary Katherine Tillman A Benedictine Education, John Henry Newman: The Mission of St. Benedict & the Benedictine SchoolsEDITED BY CHRISTOPHER FISHER, INTERPRETIVE ESSAY BY ABBOT THOMAS FRERKING, OSB Cluny Mediaedition, 2020. 260 pages. Paper: $22.95. ISBN: 9781952826191. Thanks to this new and attractive Cluny Media paperback, Newman's all-but-unknown Benedictine Essays, "The Mission of Saint Benedict" and "The Benedictine Schools," are again seeing the light of day. 1This welcome republication of Newman's Essaysis followed by Benedictine Abbot Thomas Frerking's extraordinary narrative of monastic ascendancy within Christian salvation history. Christopher Fisher composed the preface and is also the volume's editor. Additionally, Fisher is the Executive Director of the Portsmouth Institute for Faith and Culture, which offers an encounter with monastic humanism according to the charism of St. Benedict. In her introduction, "The Benedictine Charism as Poetry," Margarita A. Mooney, the founder of the Scala Foundation and advocate for integral humanism, praises Benedictine education as nurturing "the creative intuition that is the engine and fruit of poetic knowledge" (xviii). Rather immediately after Newman became a Catholic in 1845, in the small Maryvale community where he and his convert companions were contemplating their vocational future, there was talk of joining a religious congregation. Among those under consideration were the Dominicans, with a divinity school in England, and the Jesuits, whom Newman especially admired because of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, which he had practiced as an Anglican. Accordingly, when Newman was in Rome for studies and ordination as a Catholic priest (1847), he spent a good deal of time exploring the histories and charisms of the various religious communities, and even visited some of their houses. Gradually the Oratorian prospect prevailed. Fr. Placid Murray, OSB significantly observed: It would seem then that what Newman got hold of around Christmas 1846 and the following weeks in Rome, was the ideaof the Oratory, rather than any practical existing model of an Oratory which could have been transplanted from Italy to a mid-nineteenth-century English town. 2 [End Page 157] A year after his ordination, Newman brought St. Philip's Congregation of the Oratory to England. In honor of the Birmingham Oratory's first anniversary, he delivered two sermons preached three days apart, both on "The Mission of St. Philip Neri," the sixteenth-century founder of the Oratorians. 3The first sermon described St. Philip's times: "the state of things in Florence and in Rome" where he was born, raised, and educated. 4 In the second sermon, Newman spoke of St. Philip's formation of mind and the strong influences that stayed his course until his death in Rome at the age of eighty. Here Newman introduced the structuring theme he would adopt and develop more fully in the "Benedictine Essays." St. Philip grew, Newman says, into "the breadth of view of St. Dominic, the poetry of St. Benedict, the wisdom of St. Ignatius." 5And again, St. Philip "learned from Benedict what to be, and from Dominic what to do…. From Ignatius he learned how he was to do it." 6Newman saw "the cast and fashion" of St. Philip's interior life to be "Benedictine." 7 Written eight years after these sermons, the "Benedictine Essays" are structured thematically in the same way—that is, with the three saintly patriarchs—as they were in Newman's 1850 two-part sermon. However, instead of bringing to bear their threefold influence upon the successive stages of St. Philip's education, as in the sermons, the three patriarchs now represented the historic scope of Catholic education as a whole, according to Newman's view of the distinct missions of the three religious orders the patriarchs founded, the Benedictines, Dominicans, and Jesuits. The two "Benedictine Essays" originally appeared in the journal, The Atlantis: A Register of Literature and Science, which Newman, as founding president of the Catholic University of Ireland, instituted in 1858 specifically for publication of the fruits of his faculty's research. 8Appearing twice yearly in 1858 and 1859, and in 1862 and...

The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, Vol. I. Ealing, Trinity, Oriel. February 1801 to December 1826. Edited at the Birmingham Oratory with Notes and an Introduction by Ian KER of the same Oratory and Thomas GORNALL, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1978, 346 pp. 17 x 23.

The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, Vol. I. Ealing, Trinity, Oriel. February 1801 to December 1826. Edited at the Birmingham Oratory with Notes and an Introduction by Ian KER of the same Oratory and Thomas GORNALL, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1978, 346 pp. 17 x 23.

The Letters and Diaries of John H. Newman. Vol. II: Tutor of Oriel (January 1827 to December 1831), Edited at the Birmingham Oratory with Notes and an Introduction by Ian KER and Thomas GORNALL, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1979, 416 pp., 17 x 23. Vol. III: New Bearings (January 1832 to June 1833), 1979, 344 pp.

The Letters and Diaries of John H. Newman. Vol. II: Tutor of Oriel (January 1827 to December 1831), Edited at the Birmingham Oratory with Notes and an Introduction by Ian KER and Thomas GORNALL, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1979, 416 pp., 17 x 23. Vol. III: New Bearings (January 1832 to June 1833), 1979, 344 pp.

The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman. Vol. IV: The Oxford Movement. July 1833 to December 1834, Ed. at the Birmingham Oratory with Notes and an Introduction by Ian KER and Thomas GORNALL, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1980, 412 pp., 17 X 23.

The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman. Vol. IV: The Oxford Movement. July 1833 to December 1834, Ed. at the Birmingham Oratory with Notes and an Introduction by Ian KER and Thomas GORNALL, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1980, 412 pp., 17 X 23.

BIRMINGHAM ORATORY (eds.), The Letters and Diaries of John H. Newman. Vol. VI: The Via Media and Froude's 'Remains'. January 1837 to December 1838, with Notes and an Introduction by G. TRACEY, Oxford, Clarendom Press, 1984, 417 pp., 16 x 24. Peter TOON, Evangelical Theology 1833-1856. A Response to Tractarianism, Atlanta (Georgia), John Knox Press (New Fundations Theological Library), 1979,

BIRMINGHAM ORATORY (eds.), The Letters and Diaries of John H. Newman. Vol. VI: The Via Media and Froude's 'Remains'. January 1837 to December 1838, with Notes and an Introduction by G. TRACEY, Oxford, Clarendom Press, 1984, 417 pp., 16 x 24. Peter TOON, Evangelical Theology 1833-1856. A Response to Tractarianism, Atlanta (Georgia), John Knox Press (New Fundations Theological Library), 1979,

BIRMINGHAM ORATORY (eds.), The Letters and Diaries of John H. Newman. Vol. VI: The Via Media and Froude's 'Remains'. January 1837 to December 1838, with Notes and an Introduction by G. TRACEY, Oxford, Clarendom Press, 1984, 417 pp., 16 x 24. Peter TOON, Evangelical Theology 1833-1856. A Response to Tractarianism, Atlanta (Georgia), John Knox Press (New Fundations Theological Library), 1979,

BIRMINGHAM ORATORY (eds.), The Letters and Diaries of John H. Newman. Vol. VI: The Via Media and Froude's 'Remains'. January 1837 to December 1838, with Notes and an Introduction by G. TRACEY, Oxford, Clarendom Press, 1984, 417 pp., 16 x 24. Peter TOON, Evangelical Theology 1833-1856. A Response to Tractarianism, Atlanta (Georgia), John Knox Press (New Fundations Theological Library), 1979,

An Irishwoman of letters between Newman and Wagner: Geraldine Penrose Fitzgerald (1846–1939), her literary, religious and political career

299 An Irishwoman of letters between Newman and Wagner: Geraldine Penrose Fitzgerald (1846–1939), her literary, religious and political career Patrick Maume* [Accepted 19 April 2018. Published 14 June 2018] This paper analyses the life and writings of a significant late Victorian Irish woman writer who has attracted little attention. Loeber and Loeber’s guide to Irish fiction lists Geraldine Penrose Fitzgerald as the author of four novels whose content suggests she may have been Irish. In fact, Penrose Fitzgerald was a member of a Cork landed family heavily involved in the Land War; as a convert to Catholicism who corresponded with John Henry Newman, and as a Wagner aficionado who wrote several books on eighteenth-century Ireland and on Mitteleuropean subjects under the pen-name ‘Frances Gerard’. This paper draws on her surviving published and unpublished correspondence; on scattered newspaper references, and on an analysis of her six novels to discuss her responses to the Land War and to late nineteenthcentury feminism. It suggests that her later move from extreme pro-landlord conservatism to republicanism may have been influenced by her (conservative) suffragism. Geraldine Penrose Fitzgerald, who was born in Cork city in 1846, belonged to a County Cork gentry family prominent on the landlord side in the conflicts of the 1880s. Her position as a ‘surplus’unmarried daughter in a family largely tolerant of her interests both enabled and constrained her, in a manner characteristic of many Victorian upper-class families. Penrose Fitzgerald was a Catholic convert and admirer of John Henry Newman, with whom she corresponded; these exchanges provide valuable though sporadic opportunities to glimpse the private attitudes and concerns (often muted in print) which shape her published writings. She published five novels as ‘Naseby’ between 1870 and 1890, and another novel and eight books on eighteenth-century Irish high society and Germanic topics (she was a Wagnerian ) as ‘Frances A. Gerard’between 1889 and 1903.1 The ‘Naseby’novels manifest * Author’s e-mail: pmaume@googlemail.com doi: https://doi.org/10.3318/PRIAC.2018.118.02 1 The origins of Penrose Fitzgerald’s pseudonyms are unclear; possibly there was a family connectiontothe1645Battleof NasebyduringtheEnglishCivilWar,and‘FrancesA.Gerard’ may derive from a partial rearrangement of her name with the ‘A’ representing her mother’s maiden name Austen, but in our current state of knowledge these are purely speculative. Introduction Abstract Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Vol. 118C, 299–326 © 2018 Royal Irish Academy Patrick Maume 300 a trajectory from depiction of the regeneration of the landed class through moral and religious reawakening (implicitly though not explicitly Catholic) to anger and near-despair over the violence of the land agitation; the ‘Frances A. Gerard’books, which were more commercially oriented, may suggest escape from a diminished present into eighteenth-century aesthetics and German romanticism, but they interrogate their subjects as well as celebrate them. Penrose Fitzgerald was a suffragist (albeit of conservative views) which possibly influenced her later conversion to Irish nationalism, yet in the 1920s she moved to England, where she died in 1939. Penrose Fitzgerald is largely forgotten except by a few historians of Irish literature and Newman scholars; both groups are largely unaware of her full career . Ralph and Magda Loeber’s standard bibliography of Irish fiction 1650–1900 lists four novels by her, but provides no biographical details beyond: ‘floruit 1870. Given the Irish settings of Geraldine Penrose Fitzgerald’s stories, she was probably Irish or of Irish extraction’.2 Newman’s letters to Penrose Fitzgerald (and extracts from her few surviving letters to him) are in his published correspondence, and two studies of Newman mention her: Meriol Trevor presents her as a charming young woman whose treatment of Newman as substitute grandfather testifies to his continuing ability to befriend the young,3 and Joyce Sugg emphasises her self-­ dramatisation and the worries she caused Newman.4 This paper combines literary analysis of her publications and dealings with Newman, with information located in contemporary newspapers. It draws on the few surviving letters from Penrose Fitzgerald to Newman at the Birmingham Oratory, and provides the first—albeit fragmentary—overview of a life touching on many religious, agrarian and political tensions of Ireland under the...

'An Aristocracy of Exalted Spirits': The Idea of the Church in Newman's Tamworth Reading Room by David P. Delio

Reviewed by: 'An Aristocracy of Exalted Spirits': The Idea of the Church in Newman's Tamworth Reading Room by David P. Delio David P. Deavel (bio) 'An Aristocracy of Exalted Spirits': The Idea of the Church in Newman's Tamworth Reading Room By David P. Delio. Leominster, Herefordshire, UK: Gracewing Publishing, 2016. Pages: xx + 359. Softcover, £ 17.99. ISBN 9780852448823 "The Tamworth Reading Room," Newman's seven letters to the London Times, written under the pseudonym "Catholicus," in response to a lecture by Sir Robert Peel at a new reading room he helped fund, has drawn comparatively little attention among scholars. A search on the International Centre for Newman Friends' online bibliography yields only four results, one of them being David Delio's doctoral dissertation on which this book is based. One can find a few more results on other databases, including Nina Burgis's 1964 M.A. dissertation, an edition of the letters along with textual and expository commentary. Scholars who have treated it in passing have focused on Newman's literary methods (Burgis), his satire (Ian Ker), his view of science (Stanley Jaki), his political thought (Terence Kenny), his view of education (Jane Rupert), or his view of faith and reason (Keith Beaumont). Most have seen the letters as having only a loose unity at best. If there is a unity, most have seen it as concentrated on the relationship between faith and secular knowledge. Delio's volume, attractively made, though rather inconsistently copy edited (many pages are free of errors; others have three to four misspellings or words elided), aims at both correcting the lack of attention to these letters, which served in many ways as early attempts to get at ideas more fully examined in the Idea and Grammar, and to provide an account of their unity as found in his developing Catholic ecclesiology. Concerning the first goal, Delio, in this first book-length treatment of the letters, provides a great deal of background material about Newman, Peel, and the political and theological histories of the decades before their fateful public collision. Chapter 1 gives alternating histories of the two figures, indicating the trajectory of their careers and what made Newman, an early fan of Peel's, decide that the Tory politician was a danger. Chapter 2 discusses more fully the British educational context of the reading room and Peel's address itself, along with a discussion of other contemporary reactions to it. Chapter 6 discusses the reception of the letters: by the press as a whole, by Peel himself (who responded in speeches both in 1841 and, obliquely, 1849), and by Newman and his Tractarian friends. Chapter 7 details the history of the letters and their ideas in Newman's future writings and indeed in his pastoral ministry in the [End Page 78] Birmingham Oratory. All of this material, along with appendices including biographical entries on the main figures, Peel's address as it was printed in the newspapers, Newman's letters, and various other letters and press reactions to the two, make the book understandable for nonspecialists and even nonacademics, though the book's audience is primarily going to be academic. I was teaching the letters at the time I read the book and found it enormously helpful in giving my students an understanding of the context and importance of the letters. Chapters 3-5 discuss the letters themselves, not only analyzing their content but recounting the history of Newman's dealings with the Times, press reaction, and indeed pushback from Peel's political supporters and crowing from his enemies—emboldened that a conservative newspaper would publish attacks on their man. In all of this discussion, Delio is fair with both Peel and Newman, drawing throughout a rather attractive picture of Peel as a politician while siding intellectually with Newman. Simultaneously, he acknowledges that Newman made mistakes in the text and sometimes disappointing, even "disingenuous" decisions, such as his refraining from naming George Craik in the 1872 edition as the author of the work he mistakenly attributed to Henry Brougham multiple times in the letters (97). Concerning the second goal, namely Delio's contention that the unity in Newman's letters comes from his...

The Personalism of John Henry Newman by John F. Crosby

Reviewed by: The Personalism of John Henry Newman by John F. Crosby John T. Ford C.S.C. (bio) The Personalism of John Henry Newman By John F. Crosby. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2014. Pages: xxv + 227. Cloth: $59.95, ISBN 978-0-8132-2689-7; Paperback: $34.95, ISBN 978-0-8132-2917-1; E-book: $34.95, ISBN 978-0-8132-2690-3. In 1879, John Henry Newman chose as his cardinalatial motto—Cor ad cor loquitur—"Heart speaks to heart." Genealogically, this motto is a paraphrase of a saying of Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622), whose portrait was given a place of prominence in Newman's private chapel at the Birmingham Oratory. Philosophically this motto reflects Newman's distinction between notional apprehension/assent, which emphasizes the role of the intellect in human thinking, and real apprehension/assent, which involves not only the intellect but also the imagination and will in the process of decision making. Pastorally, this motto exemplifies the core of Newman's ministry—both Anglican and Roman Catholic—religion is a matter not only of intellectual understanding, but also of personal commitment. As John Crosby's book indicates, this dual dimension was evident in Newman's sermons, which not only insisted on the importance of Christian doctrine, but were also aimed at eliciting a personal commitment from his hearers. In fact, many of his Anglican listeners long remembered the powerful impact that Newman's sermons made on their minds and hearts. As Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) once reminisced, "Who could resist the charm of that spiritual apparition, gliding in the dim afternoon light through the aisles of St. Mary's rising into the pulpit, and then in the most entrancing of voices, breaking the silence with words and thoughts which were religious music—subtle sweet and mournful?" For his contemporaries, Newman's "personalism" was persuasive as well as memorable. As a newly ordained cleric of the Church of England, he almost single-handedly resurrected a moribund parish on the fringe of Oxford. As vicar of St. Mary's, his sermons were so popular that a Sunday excursion to Oxford was incomplete without hearing Newman preach. As a Roman Catholic, his writings attracted English readers around the world; his surviving letters, numbering some twenty thousand—roughly a third of his total output—were addressed to people from all walks of life. These are only a few examples of the "personalism" that characterized Newman's life and work. [End Page 75] Crosby's book examines Newman's "personalism" from a philosophical perspective. Starting with Newman's emphasis on "theocentric religion," Crosby notes a coincidentia oppositorum between objectivity—seen in Newman's espousal of "the dogmatical principle"—and subjectivity—exemplified in his personal acceptance of dogmatic teaching. Crosby then examines another coincidentia: the real and the notional, the imagination and the intellect, and discusses Newman's interpersonal encounters that are symbolized by cor ad cor loquitur. Crosby next discusses how religious truth is effectively transmitted more by personal influence than by doctrinal definitions or apologetical arguments. "Personalism" is then a necessary component of both intellectual understanding and practical reasoning. Newman was not reticent about reminding his audiences of the need for humility; similarly, today the "big bang theory" clearly emphasizes "an infinite abyss of existence." Finally, Crosby comes full circle by illustrating the "personalism" in Newman's view of the primordial knowledge of God. On the whole, this book is a masterwork. Crosby has accomplished what very few writers could do successfully; he has provided a stellar synthesis of Newman's personalist thought both in itself and in relation to many philosophers and theologians. Crosby is well versed in the corpus of Newman's writings—not only such familiar works as his Essay on Development, Idea of a University, Apologia pro Vita Sua and Grammar of Assent, but also his many essays, numerous sermons, and abundant correspondence. Crosby's interpretation of Newman's writings is dialogically interactive with such classical authors as Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Augustine, and Aquinas, as well as such modern writers as Buber, Husserl, William James, Kant, Kierkegaard, Marcel, Maritain, Rudolf Otto, Scheler, and von Hildebrand. As a result, Crosby...

John Henry Newman (ed. Sheridan Gilley), Loss and gain. The story of a convert. (The Works of Cardinal John Henry Newman. Birmingham Oratory Millennium edition, XI). pp. xliv + 456. Leominster–Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014. $48. 978 0 268 03613 3

John Henry Newman (ed. Sheridan Gilley), Loss and gain. The story of a convert. (The Works of Cardinal John Henry Newman. Birmingham Oratory Millennium edition, XI). pp. xliv + 456. Leominster–Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014. $48. 978 0 268 03613 3

Social Media and the Victorian Age: Personal Reflections Gained from the Archivization Project

This essay is a reflection of the time I have spent working with Cardinal Newman’s archive at the Birmingham Oratory. I have had a chance to stop and carefully read his letters and diaries and to see Newman as a communicator extraordinaire! I suspect that the Cardinal would have had great command of today’s social media and communications technology. His laity could have been a wider and larger audience on a virtual level. Might this be an opportunity for a sociological comparison of the great writers and speakers of an earlier time with those of us in today’s media-rich world? With whom else might Newman have interacted? We may never know with certainty, but it would be fun to imagine.

Notes and Comments

Notes and Comments Cyprian Davis O.S.B. Archive The Centre for Heritage Imaging and Collection Care (CHICC) at the University of Manchester's John Rylands Library, in conjunction with the National Institute for Newman Studies and the Birmingham Oratory, has undertaken the digitization of the numerous hand-written manuscripts in the Cardinal John Henry Newman Archive. Using the latest technology, CHICC is planning to digitize the entire archive and place it online. For more information, visit http://newmanarchive.wordpress.com. Exhibition A special exhibition commemorating the tricentennial of Blessed Fray Junipero Serra will be featured at San Fernando, Rey de España Mission, in Mission Hills, California, through the rest of 2013. Among the several dozen items on display are a chalice and altar stone used by the "Grey Ox," a U.S. Postal Service stamp from 1984 bearing his likeness, a copy of Francisco Palóu's Relación Histórica (1787), and an assortment of items portraying or associated with the founder of the first nine missions along the El Camino Real in California. New Journal and Series Brill has announced two publication-related projects devoted to the study of the Jesuits—the series Jesuit Studies: Modernity through the Prism of Jesuit History and the Journal of Jesuit Studies, both edited by Robert A. Maryks (Boston College). The first volume in the series will be Saints or Devils Incarnate? Studies in Jesuit History by John W. O'Malley (Georgetown University); the first issue of the journal is scheduled for publication in 2014. Conferences and Lectures On September 27-28, 2013, the 80e Congrès de la Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique (SCHEC) will meet at the Centre Missionnaire Mariannhill in Sherbrooke, Québec. The theme of the sessions will be cultural transfers in the Catholic world: the circulation of ideas, intercultural contacts, and the transformation of institutional practices. For more information, contact Maurice Demers at SCHEC2013@usherbrooke.ca. [End Page 598] On November 14-16, 2013, the international conference "San Josemaría Escrivá e il pensiero teologico" will be held at the Pontificia Università della Santa Croce in Rome. Among the papers of an historical nature are "A 50 anni del Concilio Vaticano II: il contributo di san Josemaría" by Cardinal Javier Echevarría and "L'uso degli insegnamenti dei santi nell'argomentazione teologica di san Tommaso d'Aquino" by Robert Wielockz. There also will be a session on the Diccionario de San Josemaría (ed. Monte Carmelo [Burgos, 2013]) that will describe the genesis and realization of the dictionary (by Mercedes Alonso) and will situate the dictionary in the context of a theological bibliography on the saint (by José Luis Illanes). For more information on the conference, visit http://www.pusc.it/teo/escriva2013. On December 3, 2013, Giovanni Grado Merlo will speak on "Per lo studio degli eretici medievali" at the Istituto per le scienze religiose in Bologna. For more information, contact segreteria@fscire.it. On December 4-6, 2013, the Catholic University of Leuven will sponsor the conference "The Council of Trent: Reform and Controversy in Europe and Beyond (1545-1700)." For more information, visit https://theo.kuleuven.be/en/research/research_units/ru_church/council_of_Trent or email trent@theo.kuleuven.be. On March 6-8, 2014, the Texas Catholic Historical Society (TCHS) will hold its annual meeting at the Crown Plaza River Walk Hotel in San Antonio in conjunction with the meeting of the Texas State Historical Association. The theme of the TCHS meeting is described tentatively as "Along the Rio Grande: 20th Century Traditions of Three Religious Orders." On March 6-9, 2014, the nineteenth biennial New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies will take place on the campus of New College of Florida, the honors college of the Florida state system in Sarasota, Florida. The program committee invites 250-word abstracts of proposed twenty-minute papers on topics in European and Mediterranean history, literature, art, music, and religion from the fourth to the seventeenth centuries. Interdisciplinary work is particularly appropriate to the conference's broad historical and disciplinary scope. Planned sessions are welcome; see the new guidelines at http://www.newcollegeconference.org/cfp. In memory of the...

A History of John Henry Newman’s Archival Papers

This study traces the history of Newman’s personal papers that are archived at the Birmingham Oratory. Newman was the “master archivist” who spent considerable time during the last two decades of his life in assembling his papers. Subsequently, three major catalogues of Newman’s papers were prepared: the first began in 1920, under the supervision of Richard Garnett Bellasis and Henry Lewis Bellasis; a second catalogue was compiled in the mid-1950s by Yale University Library for microfilming Newman’s papers; the third catalogue was compiled by Gerard Tracey in 1980.

John Henry Newman and the Oratory School Latin Plays

This essay describes Newman’s adaptations of plays by Plautus (c. 254–184 BC) and Terence (195/185–159 BC) for performance at the Birmingham Oratory School. Because Newman believed in the value of Latin plays for students, he expended a great deal of energy on their adaptation and production while carefully editing the plays to omit any questionable content.

Two Essays on Biblical and on Ecclesiastical Miracles. By John Henry Cardinal Newman. Introduction and Notes by Geoffrey Rowell. The Works of John Henry Cardinal Newman: Birmingham Oratory Millennium Edition, 8. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press; Leominster, England: Gracewing, 2010. XLIV + iv + 457 pages. $40.00.

Two Essays on Biblical and on Ecclesiastical Miracles. By John Henry Cardinal Newman. Introduction and Notes by Geoffrey Rowell. The Works of John Henry Cardinal Newman: Birmingham Oratory Millennium Edition, 8. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press; Leominster, England: Gracewing, 2010. XLIV + iv + 457 pages. $40.00.

Blessed John Henry Newman: A Richly Illustrated Portrait ed. by Kathleen Dietz, FSO and Mary-Birgit Dechant, FSO

85 sound advice (86–93). Finally, in relation to Newman’s beatification, two descriptions are of special interest. First is an explanation of the fact that when Newman’s grave was opened, no human remains were found:“In accordance with his own express wish,respected by his Oratorian brethren, the simple wooden coffin was covered with a form of ‘mould’ designed to speed up the process of decomposition: Newman wished out of humility, to disappear rapidly” (96). Second is a chronological account of the “Beatification Miracle” of Deacon Jack Sullivan (98–101) that was instrumental in Newman’s beatification. In sum, one hopes that this visually captivating volume will not be merely a coffee-table decoration, nor simply a memorabile of Newman’s beatification, but also a widely used introduction to Newman’s life and thought. Presuming that this book will have future printings,it would be helpful to append maps of Oxford,Birmingham and London that show the locations of the Newman-related sites mentioned in the narrative. In any case,this is a book that should be available in every Newman Center, this book is also the right size (and price) for the basic text for a college course on Newman, and, of course, this is a book that Newmanists will want to have in their personal library. John T. Ford c.s.c. The Catholic University of America Blessed John Henry Newman: A Richly Illustrated Portrait. Edited by Kathleen Dietz,FSO and Mary-Birgit Dechant,FSO. Leominster,Herefordshire,United Kingdom: Gracewing, 2010. Pages: 151. Paper: ISBN 978–0–85244–724–6. £12.99. This handsome paperback, appearing shortly before Newman’s beatification (19 September 2010), is not only an appropriate remembrance of that occasion, but also an attractive addition to one’s personal library. The text is minimal—six very short biographical sections: Beginnings, Trinity College, Oriel College, Littlemore, Oratory,Cardinalate—which are“richly illustrated”with dozens of paintings,pictures, and photographs from the collection of Newman-related items assembled by the “Spiritual FamilyThe Work”1 at what was once Newman’s monastic-like retreat in the village of Littlemore, near Oxford. The first illustration is a reproduction of the plaque on the London Stock Exchange, which indicates that Newman was born nearby; the final picture depicts the large cross that marked his grave at Rednal.2 In between are a variety of portraits of family and friends—including such well-known Tractarian leaders as John Keble (1792–1866), Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800–1882) and Richard Hurrell Froude (1803–1836), as well as lesser known but treasured friends such as John William 1 For information on the“Spiritual FamilyThe Work,”see:http://www.newmanfriendsinternational.org/ newman/). 2 At his own request, Newman was buried in the same grave as his fellow Oratorian and close friend, Ambrose Saint John (1815–1875); when their joint grave was opened as part of the process preceding his beatification, their bodies had completely disintegrated due to the dampness of the area; only a few remnants of Newman’s vestments and coffin were found; some of these remains were transferred to a reliquary at the altar dedicated to Newman at the Birmingham Oratory; see the report in the Friends of Cardinal Newman Newsletter (Birmingham:The Oratory, Christmas, 2008). BOOK REVIEWS NEWMAN STUDIES JOURNAL 86 Bowden (1798–1844) and Maria Giberne (1802–1885). In addition, there are photographs of personal items: Newman’s violin and an original musical composition, his teapot and shaving mirror, his academic hood, and his rosary. There are also color-photographs of his family’s homes in London and Ham,plus the houses at Rose Mount and Rose Bank, where his mother and sisters stayed while he was at Oxford; there is also a street-painting of Leonforte, where he became seriously ill during his visit to Sicily (1833). Among the 170 illustrations are many that did not appear either in Brian Martin’s well-illustrated biography3 nor in Susan Foister’s catalogue for the centennial exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.4 Highlighting this book’s illustrations are quotations by and about Newman— from multiple sources such as his Letters and Diaries, Autobiographical Writings, and Apologia pro Vita Sua...

The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, vol. 32, Supplement ed. by Birmingham Oratory

The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, vol. 32, Supplement ed. by Birmingham Oratory

Les lettres de Newman

The collection of John Henry Newman’s letters is now complete. It has taken the Birmingham Oratory almost fifty years and seven editors to complete a task that Newman himself had started as early as 1825 and that his friends and/or biographers had attempted at different times.This collection — « the finest collection (of letters) in the English language » — comprises about 20,000 letters in 32 volumes, making it necessary for the average reader to refer to selections ; two have been published in the last fifty years and the more recent one, translated under the aegis of the Association Francaise des Amis de Newman, was published for the centenary of Newman’s death that the French public may get to know the person of the cardinal in the context of the time.

Newman the Preacher1

This article illustrates the remarkable impact which Newman’s preaching had upon his hearers and his extraordinary ability to enter into the minds and hearts of both hearers and readers. But emphasis is placed above all on the underlying aim of all his preaching, summed up in the formula of Fr Henry Tristram, one time superior of the Birmingham Oratory which Newman founded: for Newman, preaching must constitute an incentive not only to ‘living better’ but also to ‘praying better’. However stern a moralist he may appear to be at times, he never indulges in mere moralising, any more than he simply expounds doctrine for its own sake. Both are, on the contrary, placed in the service of helping hearers and readers to deepen progressively a lived relationship with the God whom Newman himself discovered in the depths of his own consciousness. Thus his rediscovery, through his reading of the Church Fathers, of the central role in Christianity of the doctrines of the Incarnation, the Resurrection and the Trinity, led him to explore the implications for the Christian of the theme of the ‘indwelling’ of the Holy Spirit and to suggest that the ‘true Christian’ may ‘almost be defined’ as ‘one who has a ruling sense of God’s presence within him’. It is above all in his exploration of the intricate relationship existing between dogma, ethics and spirituality, combined with his keen psychological penetration, that Newman’s greatness as a preacher lies.