Lectures on Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Submitting to the Catholic Church

by John Henry Newman

Publisher:

Burns & Lambert

, 1850

Overview

Few people in history can so accurately outline the reservations of Anglicans toward the Catholic Church as John Henry Newman. Newman was given opportunity to share these lectures—after his conversion to Catholicism—before a Catholic audience. He reflects upon his role in the Oxford (Tractarian) Movement of 1833. During this crucial period in Anglican history, high Anglican churches were caught between the imposing English government and the strict rule of Rome. Throughout this series of lectures, Newman clearly articulates the opposition of Anglicans to certain Catholic institutions like the Catholic priesthood and Marian doctrines.

Key Features

• Extensive studies on Church history from an author burdened for the Church of Jesus Christ
• Logos edition provides integrated access to Scripture references, instantly linking to English and original text versions of the Bible

Contents

Top Highlights

“She regards this world, and all that is in it, as a mere shade, as dust and ashes, compared with the value of one single soul. She holds that, unless she can, in her own way, do good to souls, it is no use her doing any thing; she holds that it were better for sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, though it harmed no one, or steal one poor farthing without excuse.” (Page 199)

Praise for the Print Edition

The quality of his literary style is so successful that it succeeds in escaping definition. The quality of his logic is that of a long but passionate patience, which waits until he has fixed all corners of an iron trap. But the quality of his moral comment on the age remains what I have said: a protest of the rationality of religion as against the increasing irrationality of mere Victorian comfort and compromise.

—G. K. Chesterton

The philosophical and theological thought and the spirituality of Cardinal Newman, so deeply rooted in and enriched by Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Fathers, still retain their particular originality and value.

—Pope John Paul II

Newman placed the key in our hand to build historical thought into theology, or much more, he taught us to think historically in theology and so to recognize the identity of faith in all developments.

—Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)

Product Details

• Title: Lectures on Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Submitting to the Catholic Church
• Author: John Henry Newman
• Publisher: Burns and Lambert
• Publication Date: 1850
• Pages: 325

About John Henry Newman

John Henry Newman (February 21, 1801–August 11, 1890), also referred to as Cardinal Newman and Blessed John Henry Newman, was an important figure in the religious history of England in the nineteenth century. He was known nationally by the mid-1830s. Originally an evangelical Oxford academic and priest in the Church of England, Newman was a leader in the Oxford Movement. This influential grouping of Anglicans wished to return the Church of England to many Catholic beliefs and forms of worship traditional in the medieval times to restore ritual expression. In 1845 Newman left the Church of England and was received into the Roman Catholic Church where he was eventually granted the rank of cardinal by Pope Leo XIII. He was instrumental in the founding of the Catholic University of Ireland, which evolved into University College, Dublin, today, the largest university in Ireland. Newman’s beatification was officially proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI on September 19, 2010 during his visit to the United Kingdom. His canonisation is dependent on the documentation of additional miracles. Newman was also a literary figure of note: his major writings including his autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1865–1866), the Grammar of Assent (1870), and the poem The Dream of Gerontius (1865), which was set to music in 1900 by Edward Elgar as an oratorio. He wrote the popular hymns “Lead, Kindly Light” and “Praise to the Holiest in the Height” (taken from Gerontius).