Friday, October 23, 2009

Tablet, Newman and Conscience


Who writes those silly editorials for the daft Tablet, is the editrix? If it isn't her, she must be responsible for commissioning them, it must be about time there was a change at the editor's desk, it is getting ridiculous!

The Cause for the Canonisation of John Henry Newman which is normally pretty laid back, in that Oratorian way, takes issue with Ms P's latest piece of erudition, which ends.



The important issue for all Catholics is that anyone of good conscience who seeks to join their Church, be they John Henry Newman, or Tony Blair, or the vicar of an Anglican parish or his flock, should be given a generous and hospitable welcome to their new home.



Bizarre?

As The Cause points out the writer has no understanding of Newman and conscience, or for that matter of Catholicism.
The whole issue with Newman was a search for Truth and a rejection the Liberalism

6 comments:

Physiocrat said...

The important issue for all Catholics is that anyone of good conscience who seeks to join their Church, be they John Henry Newman, or Tony Blair, or the vicar of an Anglican parish or his flock, should be given a generous and hospitable welcome to their new home.

Hmm. I want to join the Catholic Church because I like the music and architecture, let us say. I don't go much on the reactionary theology and social teaching, hierarchical structure, attitudes to women, sex, etc.

Should I be welcomed? I hope not - someone owes it to me to point out that I have misunderstood what Catholicism is about and it can not provide me with a home. Not to do so is unkind to me and inviting in potential trouble.

Independent said...

Newman certainly stood for what he believed to be true. Both as an Anglican and a Catholic he had no truck with the doctrine of comprehensiveness. However he maintained a resolute opposition to those who wished to rewrite history in terms of what they believed should have happened, and did not hesitate to upset the extreme ultramontists with such publications as "On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine"(July, 1859) and his pamphlet in answer to Gladstone "Letter to the Duke of Norfolk" (1873). Newman never shouted for the side, he sought to defend what he believed to be true at any cost to himself. His biographers seem to agree that he was under a cloud until Leo XIII became Pope and made him a Cardinal.

The trouble with the "Tablet" is that it seems to confuse a teaching church with a sanctified debating society. In his advertisement for the "Rambler" of which he was editor (1859) Newman spoke of combining "devotion to the Church with discrimination and candour in the treatment of he opponents, to recognise freedom of thought with implicit faith...to encourage a manly investigation of subjects of public interest with a deep sense of the prerogatives of ecclesiasical authority ". It is a question of balance.

No ecclesiastical body can maintain its identity if it admits all and sundry whatever their beliefs.

Just another mad Catholic said...

someone should frog-march the editrix to +Niccolls office with a sign round her neck reading "Lost soul in need of correction"

Independent said...

We should realise however that by condemning liberalism Newman did not mean to condemn freedom of thought or scholarship nor the politics of people like Gladstone. Newman like Gladstone no longer believed in the Confessional State, indeed he rejected the political opinions of Pius IX and criticised the Syllabus of Errors as reflecting the "words, ways, and works , of their grandfathers". He was not some obscurantist but a very independent scholar whose conclusions often upset his co-religionists in both the religious bodies to which he belonged.

Michael Clifton said...

I am sorry Fr Ray and those comments so far on this blog. I found Mrs Pepinster's comments quite acceptable as was her whole article on the reception of possible converts to our Faith. The statement at the end simply means that they will be welcome, and it is always understood that they must accept the whole body of Catholic teaching first.

George said...

Question is 'when will the Tablet seek unity with Rome and the Catholic Church'????

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