Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England

by John Henry Newman

Publisher:

Burns & Lambert

, 1851

Overview

Nineteenth century England was notoriously intolerant of the Catholic Church within its borders. Newman delivered these addresses to a fraternal group of Catholic priests and professors advising them how to remain faithful to their vows within an established Protestant culture. Newman's intention is to point out the logical fallacies undergirding the Protestant prejudices of Rome. He carefully dissects the Protestant misunderstanding of key tenets of Catholicism and then suggests ways for Catholics to faithfully handle these misinformed viewpoints.

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

“If you trace back your reasons for holding an opinion, you must stop some where; the process cannot go on for ever; you must come at last to something you cannot prove, else life would be spent in inquiring and reasoning, our minds would be ever tossing to and fro, and there would be nothing to guide us. No man alive, but has some First Principles or other.” (Page 267)

“prejudices are opinions formed upon grounds, which grounds the prejudiced person refuses to examine” (Page 266)

“I propose to give you some description of those views, theories, principles, or whatever they are to be called, which imbue the educated and active intellect, and lead it, as it were, instinctively and spontaneously, first to pronounce the creed and worship of Catholicism absurd, and next to pronounce its professors hypocritical.” (Page 264)

“It is a First Principle that man is a social being; a First Principle that he may defend himself; a First Principle that he is responsible; a First Principle that he is frail and imperfect; a First Principle that reason must rule passion.” (Page 268)

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 the Present Position of Catholics in England
• Author: John Henry Newman
• Publisher: Burns and Lambert
• Publication Date: 1851
• Pages: 346

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).