Newman and Vatican II

 NEWMAN AND VATICAN II

How do we best understand Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman as “the Father of Vatican II?”

The July 22, 2009 L’Osservatore Romano article cited below offers a concise if somewhat dense summary of Newman’s specific doctrinal contributions to and influence on Vatican II teachings and developments.

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His Scriptural and Patristic theology was alien to a Church that was then dominated by a scholastic theology and untouched by the later Scriptural, Patristic, and Thomist revivals. It was the Second Vatican Council, of which he is often called “the Father”, that finally vindicated his theology. The late Cardinal Avery Dulles called him the most seminal Catholic theologian of the 19th century. His classic Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845), which fell under the suspicion of the two leading Roman theologians of the day, is the starting-point for modern Catholic theology of development. His On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine (1859), which was denounced to Rome by one of the English and Welsh hierarchy, predated by more than a hundred years the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity and the chapter on the laity in the Constitution on the Church. The final chapter of the latter on the Blessed Virgin Mary was the result of the Council’s decision not to have a separate document on Our Lady; its Scriptural and Patristic theology is in accord with Newman’s own Mariology in his A Letter to Pusey (1866). Newman’s interpretation of the First Vatican Council’s definition of papal infallibility in his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk (1875) was unwelcome to the extreme Ultramontanes but was vindicated in his own time in True and False Infallibility by Bishop Fessler, who had been Secretary-General of the Council, a book that received the official approval of Pope Pius IX. Newman’s famous “toast” to conscience in the same work referred to the possibility of conscientiously refusing to obey a papal order, not to the possibility of so-called conscientious dissent from papal teachings, as is often falsely alleged.

But if Newman is “the Father of the Second Vatican Council”, he will, in the event of his canonisation, surely be declared a Doctor of the Church. And if so, he will be seen, I am convinced, as the Doctor of the post-conciliar Church. For his theology, that seemed so radical, even dangerous in his own time, was always deeply historical and sensitive to the Tradition, as well as respectful of the teaching authority of the Church. He once famously wrote, “To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant”. The idea that Vatican II represented a complete break in the history of the Church, a new dawn analogous to the Reformation as viewed by Protestants, would have seemed to him not only to show an extraordinary ignorance of history and indifference to Tradition, but also a contempt for the Church’s ongoing Magisterium. Like Pope Benedict XVI, he believed in “the hermeneutic of continuity”.

…Deep in history, Newman understood very clearly that Councils move “in contrary declarations...perfecting, completing, supplying each other”. Vatican I’s definition of papal infallibility needed to be complemented, modified by a much larger teaching on the Church, so, Newman correctly predicted, there would be another Council which would do just that. But equally Vatican II needs complementing and modifying. Newman keenly appreciated that Councils have unintended consequences by virtue both of what they say and what they do not say. The tendency is for the former to be exaggerated, as happened in the wake of Vatican II, when one might have supposed that the Church had no other business except justice and peace, ecumenism, interreligious dialogue, and so on. But what Councils do not deal with, and therefore neglect, is also of great significance: thus Vatican II was deafeningly silent about what was to become the main preoccupation of the pontificate of John Paul II — evangelisation.

In the decades that preceded Vatican II, Newman was a source of encouragement and inspiration to those seeking the renewal of the Church. The return to the Patristic sources that characterised the Oxford Movement, of which Newman was the leader as well as its leading theologian, anticipated the great twentieth-century French ressourcement of Jean Danielou, Henri de Lubac, and Yves Congar, without which the renewal of the Second Vatican Council would hardly have been possible. In the post-conciliar time in which we are living, I believe that John Henry Newman is an invaluable guide to a true understanding of the Council, free from distortions and exaggerations, an understanding that is informed by a sense of history and the development of doctrine, as well as by an appreciation of the limitations of Councils and their relationship to each other.

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https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/father-of-vatican-ii-5699

—Ian Ker, “The Father of Vatican II,” EWTN.com, taken from L’Osservatore Romano, 22 July 2009, page 7

We can interpret Newman in the context of the two cultural movements that succeeded each other in Western Europe—Neoclassicism followed by Romanticism.

Romanticism was a reaction against Neoclassicism, which characterizes well the logic, order, and structure of Scholasticism and Trent. Trent has been described as a summary of medieval theology, and indeed it is.

Newman’s theology was a reaction against the sterile Scholasticism of his day—his ressourcement, while not exactly Romanticism, was inspired by the idea of freedom—that is, freedom from the theological strictures of the day—that marked not only Romanticism but also the Reformation and Vatican II, which has been described as the Catholic Reformation 500 years late.

Neoclassicism

“The dominant literary movement in England during the late seventeenth century and the eighteenth century, which sought to revive the artistic ideals of classical Greece and Rome. Neoclassicism was characterized by emotional restraint, order, logic, technical precision, balance, elegance of diction, an emphasis of form over content, clarity, dignity, and decorum. Its appeals were to the intellect rather than to the emotions, and it prized wit over imagination.”

Romanticism

“A movement in art and literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in revolt against the Neoclassicism of the previous centuries...The German poet Friedrich Schlegel, who is given credit for first using the term romantic to describe literature, defined it as ‘literature depicting emotional matter in an imaginative form.’ This is as accurate a general definition as can be accomplished, although Victor Hugo’s phrase ‘liberalism in literature’ is also apt. Imagination, emotion, and freedom are certainly the focal points of romanticism.”

https://uh.edu/engines/romanticism/introduction.html

—Kathleen Morner and Ralph Rausch, “What is Romanticism?” NTC’s Dictionary of Literary Terms (1997)

Trent in a Nutshell

“[The Council of Trent] thus represents the official adjudication of many questions about which there had been continuing ambiguity throughout the early church and the Middle Ages. The council was highly important for its sweeping decrees on self-reform and for its dogmatic definitions that clarified virtually every doctrine contested by the Protestants.”

https://www.britannica.com/event/Council-of-Trent

—The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Council of Trent,” Britannica.com, Updated October 6, 2022

Vatican II - What Was It All About?

“As a result of Vatican II, the Catholic Church opened its windows onto the modern world, updated the liturgy, gave a larger role to laypeople, introduced the concept of religious freedom and started a dialogue with other religions.

“...‘We really haven’t made our peace as a Catholic Church, as an institution, with the Enlightenment,’ Mickens says. ‘The Vatican is a great example. It’s an absolute monarchy. The Enlightenment got rid of all that.’”

https://www.npr.org/2012/10/11/162594956/vatican-ii-a-half-century-later-a-mixed-legacy

—Sylvia Poggioli, “Vatican II: A Half-Century Later, A Mixed Legacy,” npr.org, October 11, 2012

Romantic Influence in Newman

“Newman seems to suggest that art and literature may, in fact, be more effective than preaching and theology in transmitting important truths.

“That is exactly right. If you want to teach your students about religion, it is much better to teach them about literature that involves religion than teaching them theology. And Newman used his novels and poetry as a vehicle for his theological ideas.

“You see, Newman never wrote a summa. If you want to know about Newman’s theology of purgatory you have to go through his ‘Dream of Gerontius,’ and if you want to find out how Newman thought we should approach the secularized world, you should go through his novel ‘Callista.’ Newman says in a letter that he is sorry Catholics have not taken the novel more seriously. ‘Callista’ is far more important than Newman’s other novel, the semi-autobiographical ‘Loss and Gain.’ By the way, ‘Callista’ is also a good read; it is quite good for a romantic story.”

https://angelusnews.com/faith/newman-key-to-understanding-vatican-ii-and-ecclesial-movements-expert-says/

—Stefano Rebeggiani, “Newman key to understanding Vatican II and ecclesial movements, expert says,” Angelus News, October 10, 2019

In a word, Newman laid the theological groundwork for the Catholic Reformation 500 years late.