Catholic Voices
On the evening of Thursday, July 31, I received a text message from my dear Irish friend, Angela. Leo XIV had confirmed the unanimous and enthusiastic judgment of a committee of cardinals and archbishops set up under Pope Francis, and St. John Henry Newman would soon be named the 38th Doctor of the Church. I was thrilled. I felt the same kind of joy and unity with the global church that I felt when Pope Leo was elected a few months earlier.
These rare moments are special. Getting this news about Newman made me feel connected to the whole body of Christ, living and dead, but most especially with friends and colleagues around the Anglosphere: Angela in Ireland; colleagues in Pittsburgh, South Bend, and Milwaukee; and some English friends who were no doubt rejoicing in their understated way. I also felt a connection to Newman, who I first read as an overwhelmed master’s student at Oxford 16 years ago. He has been a constant companion, guide, and friend since.
In a sense, this news was no surprise. In addition to the rumblings, increasingly loud and confident, that Pope Francis would name Newman a doctor, I had a bit of insider knowledge. I wrote one of the 17 essays submitted to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints as part of a massive positio document (a dicastery is essentially a deparment of the Vatican; this one deals with saint-making and related matters). The National Institute for Newman Studies in Pittsburgh, my former employer, was instrumental in the process, and collaborated closely with Fr. George Bowen of the London Oratory, who served as postulator (point man) for the petitioners, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.
Why is Newman being named a Doctor of the Church, and why now? “Heroic sanctity” is the hallmark of the saint, while “eminent doctrine” is the additional contribution of the doctor (teacher). The doctor is not just an example to follow, but one who has things to teach the universal Church.
In Newman’s case, one can appeal to manifold doctrines: his sophisticated philosophy of religious assent, his enduring contributions to Catholic and liberal education, his illuminating forays into church history, and a trifecta of almost prophetic ecclesiological interventions: on consulting the laity and the sensus fidelium, on the papacy and infallibility, and on the relationship between conscience and authority.
Finally, and probably most importantly for our current ecclesial moment, is Newman’s groundbreaking theory of doctrinal development. Each of these is the subject of at least one of Newman’s books, which have in turn spawned tremendous reflection, comment, and debate, from his day down to ours. While the Anglosphere has been particularly marked by Newman, his influence is now global.
While the diversity and depth of Newman’s intellectual and spiritual contributions explains his elevation to the rarefied rank of Doctor of the Church, one could boil down his influence thus: Newman correctly sensed that the intellectual climate of the modern world he lived in was profoundly different from the past, even the recent past, and consequently required a new and creative form of fidelity. The answers he gave to many of these modern challenges, doctrinal or otherwise, were taken up by Vatican II.
Though English-speakers were, naturally, particularly familiar with Newman, more decisive was the influence he had on key council experts who helped craft the documents, like the Frenchman Yves Congar and the German Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI). Newman thus became a quasi-official godfather of the Council. More recently, Pope Francis and some of his closest collaborators have appealed to Newman’s theory of doctrinal development to justify the growth they wish to promote as healthy change, grounded in solid Catholic principles.
Some conservative Catholics and traditionalists are worried. I can see why. Though I don’t share their concerns, I do think the elevation of Newman invites us Catholics—and our ecumenical brothers and sisters, particularly Anglicans and the Orthodox—to have some difficult but exciting conversations.
Let me explain. It has essentially been proven that Newman was the primary inspiration for Yves Congar, principal author of the pivotal Vatican II passage on doctrinal development (Dei Verbum 8). The American Jesuit John Courtney Murray, a key figure in the successful push for a declaration affirming religious liberty (the most striking doctrinal, as opposed to disciplinary, change at Vatican II) identified doctrinal development as the issue under the issues at the Council. Debates about change, and the conditions under which it is or isn’t justified, both caused and brought to the surface divisions between Catholics. This was true in 1965, and if anything this reality became even more apparent during Francis’ pontificate.
Most intellectually engaged and well-read Catholics like Newman and wish to claim him—especially his theory of development. This includes many opponents of Pope Francis and of Vatican II or its spirit. Traditionalists point out that not only was Newman not condemned as a Modernist during Pius X’s early 20th-century crusade against innovation in the church, but that the pope praised Newman’s system, when understood correctly, as an antidote to Modernist “evolution” of dogma.
Conservative Catholics bemoan that liberals misuse or even weaponize Newman on development (Pope Francis and the current head of the Vatican doctrinal department are often explicitly or implicitly included in this category). They also worry about a host of other issues: conscience, the role of the laity, reception of teaching, etc. Newman’s distance, at times alienation, from the ultramontanists of his day (including Pope Pius IX) once required nervous explanation. It now further endears Newman to those opposed to the majority bloc’s victory at Vatican II and/or the recent popes.
I do not share the fears of those worried that the elevation of Newman is really a Trojan horse for a papacy attempting to justify unjustifiable developments. For one thing, the campaign to name Newman a Doctor of the Church is quite explicable apart from any Vatican-engineered or crypto-Modernist conspiracy. The cause was formally requested by the relevant conference of bishops, after it arose naturally, from a diverse and committed network of “friends of Newman.” These people—I know and respect a number of them—certainly do not agree among themselves about all contentious issues. Nevertheless, we are united by sincere reverence and affection for Newman and his thought.
Indeed, Newman is beloved all over the English-speaking world and now the global Church, by everyone from the most conservative Latin Mass-attending advocates of Great Books programs to the most progressive supporters of synodality and the empowerment of the laity. That’s part of the beauty of Newman—a sensitive and idiosyncratic Victorian now speaks heart to heart with Catholic priests in Nigeria, American converts, university students in Spain, and nuns in the Philippines. This elevation is a triumph of the particular—a peculiarly English Oxford don—speaking to the universal.
That all being said, the conservative-traditionalist unease about a misuse of Newman—while it can be voiced in inflammatory and uncharitable ways—should not simply be shouted down or ignored. Rather, this anxiety, when voiced in good faith, opens the opportunity for further and deeper discernment, for synodal walking together, and for speaking with parrhesia (frank, honest speech) about unresolved questions surrounding change and development. We Catholics owe that to one another.
While it is simply false to state or imply that Newman’s cause was strong-armed by some nefarious lobby, there is no doubt that the papacy has found in Newman a key source and symbol for a Roman magisterium that has been highly invested in justifying its right to develop doctrine since Vatican II. Intellectually honest Catholics, since at least the 19th century, have known that appealing to a static semper of ecclesial changelessness is not only historically false. Such a position undercuts the very growth and flowering of modern global Catholicism.
Newman’s elevation to the rarefied ranks of the Doctors of the Church invites—indeed requires—that we Catholics have important, exciting, and difficult conversations about change and the conditions under which it is justified in a church that seeks to walk in faith before the Lord and with one another.
Dr. Shaun Blanchard is lecturer in theology at Notre Dame University of Australia in Fremantle.
