Cardinal Manning's Farewell to Newman

 "The history of our land will hereafter record the name of John Henry Newman among the greatest of our people, as a confessor for the faith, a great teacher of men, a preacher of justice, of piety, and of compassion." Manning

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Pope Benedict went to England to beatify Newman and to see if there is some basis for further improvement in Anglican/Catholic communal relations.  On this occasion Cardinal Manning's words of remembrance for his friend and rival John Henry Newman seem appropriate.  pl 

http://www.newmanreader.org/biography/manning90.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_Newman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Edward_Manning

Comments

[William P. Fitzgerald III]

Pat Lang,

On the, I'm certain, deserved beatification of Cardinal Newman; I'm wondering how he would be designated. For instance, St. John of Oxford or Westminster or St. John Newman?

I recall, some years ago, reading an essay of his on the notion of sport and its value to society. I believe that he would have said that much of what we call "sports" and which are in the form of commercialized athletics are not sports at all. The essay was well written and probably if published in Sports Illustrated would demonstrate how debased sport, as entertainment for the masses has become.

WPFIII

[hilerie mcgahill]

The likelihood of any rapprochement between the Anglicans and the Catholics is very low. The worldwide Anglican community - which of course includes the Episcopal church of the US - has pressed ahead with the ordination of women and the consecration of women bishops. Neither the Roman communion, nor the Orthodox of Russia, Greece etc, are even contemplating elevating females to holy orders, and indeed declare female priests and bishops to be an impossibility. The Catholic church has consistently declared Anglican orders in general to be invalid. As far as Rome is concerned, the continuity of Apostolic Succession was broken in England in the sixteenth century and Anglican "priests" are simply laymen whose are unable to consecrate the host and the wine and administer a valid eucharistic sacrifice. Rome, and almost certainly Pope Benedict, will say that the bread and wine in the Anglican Communion service remains just that - bread and wine - rather than the blood and body of Christ.

Pope Benedict may have ostensibly visited England and Scotland (they are separate provinces as far as Rome is concerned) to further moves towards union between the Anglicans and Catholics (note that the Church of Scotland is not Anglican at all, but Presbyterian), but the reality is that he was really carrying the flag of the Christian faith to the UK, the homeland of those militant atheists Dawkins, Grayling and Hitchens, a country which is arguably the most secularised and least observant of all the counties of Europe. There are perhaps 5 million Catholics in England and another million in Scotland, and they outnumber the practising churchgoing Protestants. 90% of British do not go to church on Sunday or even at Christmas.

Newman had warned of the secularisation and dechristianisation of Britain in the Victorian period. Professor Ratzinger had long been in sympathy with and admired Newman's thinking. It was inevitable that he come to England to beatify secular England's greatest theologian since the Reformation.

H McGahill

[William R. Cumming]

Once agreement between Anglicans and Catholics is reached on the status of women in the church and gays in the church there will be a combination of these churches. Their common enemies make this very likely before the end of the century.

[Fred]

"...an old malevolence had passed into goodwill..."

We could all use a bit more of this sentiment.

[Ian]

Once agreement between Anglicans and Catholics is reached on the status of women in the church and gays in the church there will be a combination of these churches.

That's precisely why these two branches of the Church are unlikely to reunite any time soon. Given that Catholic bishops tend to be rather conservative and are self-selecting, we'll see female Catholic priests when pigs fly. It's unclear what is going to happen in the Anglican church around gay marriage (hot debate and schism is possible), but the fact that it is being seriously debated indicates how different the situation is from that in the Catholic church.

Which common enemies are you thinking of, anyway? It's not clear to me that Catholics and Liberal Anglicans have many enemies in common.

Further, what would Anglicans have to gain from placing themselves under the current Pope?