Newman and Ecclesiology

Many of the problems which he treated with wisdom - although he himself was frequently misunderstood and misinterpreted in his own time - were the subjects of the discussion and study of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, as for example the question of ecumenism, the relationship between Christianity and the world, the emphasis on the role of the laity in the Church and the relationship of the Church to non-Christian religions. Not only this Council but also the present time can be considered in a special way as Newman's hour, in which, with confidence in divine providence, he placed his great hopes and expectations.[1]

Pope St. Paul VI

Newman believed passionately that the Catholic Church “is the infallible oracle of truth” and wholeheartedly accepted all her teachings.[2] Yet for much of his Catholic career he found himself suspected of heresy in Rome. He knew from personal experience that the Church was both the bride of Christ and a human institution, vulnerable like all organisations to misinformation, misunderstanding, and injustice. Yet he counselled himself and others to practise patience. Truth was a process; what was amiss in the present would be rectified in God’s good time. As he put it, another pope, another Council would “trim the boat”.[3]

In 1877 he wrote his last great work, a reflection on the nature and function of the Church, in a preface to the re-issue of his Anglican work, Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church. He called this publication The Via Media of the Anglican Church (Vol. I). In it he identified three functions or “offices” in the Church, based on the three spiritual offices of Christ – Prophet (or teacher), Priest (or sanctifier), and King (or ruler).

Many theologians had discussed these offices, usually associating all three offices with the Pope and hierarchy. Newman, by contrast, allocated each to different groups within the Church. The ‘prophetic’ or teaching role he associated with theologians, the ‘priestly’ or sanctifying role with ordinary believers and their priests, and the ‘royal’ or ruling role he associated with the Pope and Roman Curia.

All three functions were vital for the life of the Church, whose healthy functioning depended on their harmonious cooperation. The people’s devotion gave life and warmth to the Church, theological reflection clarified truth and prevented error, and Church authority curbed superstitious excess on the one hand and rationalistic deviance from the truth on the other. But each office was prone to its own peculiar temptations, and so in real life the three offices exist in tension: popular piety could be impatient of the dry abstraction of theological correctness and of hierarchic control; theologians could complain of restriction of freedom of thought and be dismissive of “mere” piety; and Church authorities could place too high a value on conformity for its own sake and thereby stifle true devotion or legitimate theological exploration. Newman’s 1877 preface profitably explores how such tensions, while serious, do not undermine or go beyond God’s providential ordering of the Church. His view thus helps believers to understand more deeply the life and tensions of the Church, calls the offices of the Church “to find room for the claims of the other two”,[4] and overall supports ongoing faith and commitment.

A generation ago, the theologian Cardinal Avery Dulles commented on the brilliance of Newman’s analysis, which he thought had yet to be absorbed into the Church’s self-awareness. With the Church’s recent focus on the sensus fidelium and synodality – to become a place of encounter and dialogue, recognising the variety of needs and charisms that coexist within the one Church, sometimes in apparent conflict – Newman’s insights have found their moment.

[1] “Address of Paul VI to the Participants in the Cardinal Newman Academic Symposium” (7 April 1975), in L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), 17 April 1975, 368.

[2] Newman, Grammar of Assent, 153.

[3] Newman to Alfred Plummer (3 April 1871), The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, Volume XXV, ed. C. S. Dessain and T. Gornall (Clarendon Press, 1973), 310.

[4] John Henry Newman, The Via Media of the Anglican Church, Vol. I (Longmans, Green, and Co., 1911), xli.