The Cause of the Canonisation of John Henry Cardinal Newman

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Editorial: Newman, Blair and The Tablet

Categorised as News and published Friday, October 23rd, 2009
Littlemore Pilgrimage 2009: Reflecting upon Newman’s Divine Call
‘A Reasonable Faith’ launched in Rome: ‘Newman, a model for theologians of all times’

Tony Blair presents Pope Benedict with photographs of John Henry Newman during a private audience, June 2007

Reflecting on Benedict XVI’s creation of a new canonical structure for the reception of Anglican groups into full communion with the Church, the British Catholic weekly The Tablet has invoked Newman, but in a rather unexpected way.

Rather than focusing on Newman’s prophetic meditation on ideas which the Holy Father’s initiative has now brought to fruition, The Tablet’s Editorial of 24 October 2009 ends with the following remark:

The sentiment, of course, is admirable: converts of good conscience should be welcomed by Catholics with open arms. But Newman’s name in this context seems out of place. Having been received into the Catholic Church 164 years ago, and being gone from this world for 119 of them, it is not easy to see how his case can shed light upon the welcome given to converts in our own time. The Tablet rightly says that this is an ‘important issue for all Catholics’; but what does Newman have to do with it?

How To Read Newman

The Tablet refers to converts ‘of good conscience’. Newman is indeed the great teacher of conscience and of its fundamental importance to Catholic Faith. As has been explained on this site several times in recent months, for Newman conscience is the ‘Aboriginal Vicar of Christ’: the origin and energy of religion in the soul. According to Newman, its questions are answered and its meaning completed in obedience to the teachings of the visible Vicar of Christ, in the Church of which he is the Divinely appointed servant of the truth.

There is accordingly good reason, when reflecting upon the generosity of the Holy Father towards those in search of the truth, to align Newman, conscience and the Catholic Faith.

But is this what The Tablet means? There is, after all, a way of interpreting Newman’s teaching on conscience which overthrows the whole meaning of his doctrine. According to this interpretation, conscience is portrayed not as the principle of obedience to the teachings of the Church, but as the principle of dissent from them. It is still not unusual to see Newman’s teaching invoked to justify the opinion that one can be both a good Catholic and ‘in conscience’ adhere to errors in Faith or morals authoritatively condemned by the Church.

Nothing could have been further from Newman’s mind. He would have regarded such a doctrine as both paradoxical and intensely dangerous. And yet however many times it is refuted as an interpretation of Newman, the idea that he is the patron of ‘conscientious’ dissent shows a stubborn tendency to resurface.

It is in this context that The Tablet’s having placed Newman and conscience in the company of Tony Blair amounts to a provocative juxtaposition.

True and False Conscience

Mr Blair’s conduct as a Member of Parliament and Prime Minister is a matter of public record. There can be no question that during his Parliamentary career, before his reception into the Catholic Church, he advocated and voted for legislation which, among other things, permitted destructive experimentation and other lethal attacks upon human beings at their most vulnerable, and which significantly furthered cultural hostility towards the Sacrament of Matrimony, family life and the proper care of children in need.

Since becoming a Catholic, Mr Blair has refused every invitation to disown and repent of these things. Although they are simply incompatible with the Catholic Faith and were pursued by him, before he was a Catholic, with every appearance of conviction, Mr Blair has refused since entering the Church to say whether in these respects he has undergone a change of mind and heart. In refusing to clarify his position, he implies that he still believes that they were the right things to do.

If this implication is correct, some commentators, including Catholics, have sought to justify it by saying that Mr Blair’s silence is because his support for abortion, embryo experimentation, civil partnerships and gay adoption has always been for him, and remains now, a matter of conscience. Now this is the danger in The Tablet’s association of Newman and conscience with the case of Tony Blair. If as a Catholic Mr Blair thinks that his conscience directs him to support such positions, to invoke Newman in defence of his stance would be a travesty. For Newman, no Catholic can be in good conscience in supporting the positions Mr Blair espoused. The impossibility of conscience, enlightened by Faith, justifying adherence to evil is one of the most important of Newman’s lessons for our times.

Tony Blair and the Pope

When Mr Blair visited Pope Benedict XVI in June 2007, before his reception into the Church, he presented the Holy Father with a gift of three images of Newman, which had been provided by Newman’s Oratorian Community in Birmingham at the request of the Hierarchy in England and Wales. The authentic meaning of that gift cannot have been lost on the Holy Father, but it seems it has yet to dawn on Mr Blair himself, or perhaps on The Tablet.

Click here to read our last Editorial, responding to a Tablet Editorial on Newman’s ‘Englishness’.

To read about the recent pilgrimage to Littlemore, where Newman was recieved into the Church, click here.

To read an article from the Italian newspaper Avvenire on Newman and Conscience, click here.