Author Topic: 10 Objections to Card. Newman's canonzation (Read 494 times)

Incredulous · « **on:** September 14, 2019, 03:42:15 PM »

The primary objections to Newman's Canonization:

He was a crypto-Anglican and never seemed to sincerely renounce his former religion nor his previous three Anglican books.

He remains to this day credibly suspected of being a ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ or having inappropriate erotic relationship with his priest colleague, Fr. Ambrose St. John. He referred to Ambrose as "his wife" and was buried with him.

The miracle attributed to his "beatification" was curing a "pain in the back" -- see here https://www.traditioninaction.org/bev/112bev08-24-2009.htm

He was for all practical purposes a proto-modernist, tagged as "The Father of Vatican II" by the advocates of the Council https://www.traditioninaction.org/bev/096bev03-25-2008.htm

He was one of only two who opposed the dogma of papal infallibility at the Vatican I Council

He did not support trying to convert Anglicans to the Church, preferring for sympathetic Anglicans to stay Anglican to "leaven the mass".

Cardinal Manning believed Cardinal Newman was un-orthodox.

The Holy Office ordered Newman to stop supporting an ecuмenist society.

He had written multiple times on his opposition of Pope Pius IX's Syllabus of Errors.

Newman was not opposed to the theory of Evolution.

cassini · « **Reply #1 on:** September 15, 2019, 02:34:22 PM »

HERE IS WHY I WOULDN'T CANONISE HIM.

‘When Darwin’s Origin of Species was published in 1859, it came as no surprise to Henry Newman. His idea of history, with change and development implicit in it, enabled him to comprehend Darwin’s claims, which shocked so many well-educated men whose minds were dominated by a static view of history. They believed in a literal exposition of the Book of Genesis. Newman’s view of history was dynamic and he found no difficulty in reconciling his views to Darwin’s.’---
Brian Martin: J. H. Newman, His Life and Work, Challo & Windus, London, 1982, p.76.

If one senior churchman and renowned intellectual were to be singled out as a leading and influential Copernican apologist in the post U-turn era it was this man. Time and time again, he would quote the Galileo case to support his ideas as to how Catholics should view the faith, similar to Hans Kung who these days uses the Galileo case in his argument for a rejection of the dogma of papal infallibility. Cardinal John Henry Newman, we are told in numerous books and articles on him, had a keen interest in science, and the contemporary debates on the relation between religion and science. At Oxford he read for honours in both classics and mathematics. For his final examination he studied Newton’s incomprehensible Principia, geometry and trigonometry, astronomy, geology and mineralogy. The Cardinal, we see, must have been very familiar with the ‘science’ that they claimed falsified the geocentric doctrine of the Church of the seventeenth century. When he stood for the Oriel Fellowship he confided to his father that: ‘Few have ever attained the facility and comprehension which I arrived at from the regularity and constancy of my reading and the laborious and nerve-bracing and fancy-repressing study of mathematics, which has been my principal subject.’(Vincent Ferrer Belhl: Pilgrim’s Journey. John Henry Newman, Paulist Press, 2002, p.45.) Isn’t this similar to what Galileo used to say?

Henry Newman converted to the Catholic faith in 1845 and was ordained a priest in 1847. After that he was made rector of the proposed new Catholic University in Ireland where he gave a series of discourses on faith and science that resulted in his book The Idea of a University (1852). In a composition of May 24 1861, Henry Newman adduced the case of Galileo as one of the critical points towards maturing on the part of Catholic Scripture-scholars.

‘He quickly set to work and produced ‘An Essay on the Inspiration of Holy Scripture,’ which was left unpublished until 1953. Recent theologians, Newman observes, tend to perpetuate the error of the Galileo fiasco by straining to reconcile Scripture and science. A better way out of the present mischief would be to manifest that the Bible could not collide with either science or history.

The Church has never declared de fide that the sacred writings were themselves inspired. The familiar phrase, ‘Deus est auctor utriusque Testamenti,’ means ‘The Mosaic covenant as well as the Christian has come from the one God,’ instead of ‘God wrote the entire Bible.’ Further, Apostles are called inspired by Trent, and traditions are said to be dictated by the Holy Spirit, yet neither statements are made of the books themselves. Though we may believe it so, the Church has never formally proclaimed the Scriptures to be inspired.’ --- James Tunstead Burtchaell: Catholic Theories of Biblical Inspiration Since 1810, Cambridge University Press, 1969, p.71.

cassini · « **Reply #2 on:** September 15, 2019, 02:37:40 PM »

Exactly what did this man mean by ‘the Church has never formally proclaimed the Scriptures to be inspired’? Are the Books of Scripture not the words of God? Did the Council of Trent when quoting St Paul not formally proclaim the inspiration of Scripture and that its truths can be used in different ways?

‘All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproving, for correcting, for instructing in justice that the man of God may be perfect, equipped for every good work.’ (II Tim. 3; 16-17)

In his lectures in Dublin, Ireland, and in many subsequent writings, Newman explored the relation between theology and the natural sciences, as he saw it. In another book, Towards a Grammar of Assent (1870), Hodgson says ‘Newman explored the ways we’ve come to believe, and found instructive similarities between theology and science, and indeed everyday beliefs as well. We rarely believe because of a logical demonstration, but much more frequently by the convergence of probabilities. This is the case in our everyday affairs, and also in science and religion.’ Arising from all these ‘probabilities,’ Newman thought he was competent to resolve the Galileo case. In trying to do so this man raised the retreat from geocentricism to a new level of sophistry. Newman wrote:

‘As the Copernican system first made progress... it was generally received... as a truth of Revelation, that the Earth was stationary, and that the sun, fixed in a solid firmament, whirled round the Earth. After a little time, however, and on full consideration, it was found that the Church had decided next to nothing on questions such as these... it surely is a very remarkable feat, considering how widely and how long one certain interpretation of these physical statements in Scripture had been received by Catholics, that the Church should not have formally acknowledged it... Nor was this escape a mere accident, but rather the result of providential superintendence.’--- John Henry Newman: The Idea of a University, 1852, p.468.or Ch. 5 http://www.newmanreader.org/works/idea/article8.html

cassini · « **Reply #3 on:** September 15, 2019, 02:40:48 PM »

NEWMAN’S GALILEO, REVELATION, AND THE EDUCATED MAN (1861).

‘One of the characteristics of the day is the renewal of that collision between men of science and believers in Revelation, and of that uneasiness in the public mind as to its results, which are found in the history of the 17th century. Then Galileo raised the jealousy of Catholics in Italy; and now in England the religious portion of the community, Catholic or not, is startled at the discoveries or speculations of geologists, natural historians and linguists. Of course I am speaking, as regards both dates, of the educated classes, of those whose minds have been sufficiently opened to understand the nature of proof, who have a right to ask questions and to weigh the answers given to them. It was of such, we must reasonably suppose, that Father Commissary was tender in 1637 [1632], and to such he allied in his conversation with Galileo, as he took him in his carriage to the Holy Office. “As we went along,” says Galileo, “he put many questions to me, and showed an earnestness that I should repair the scandal, which I had given to the whole of Italy, by maintaining the opinion of the motion of the Earth; and for all the solid and mathematical reasons which I presented to him, he did but reply to me: “Terra autem in aeternum stabit,’ because ‘Terra autem in aeternum stat,’ as Scripture says.” [“The Earth will eternally stand still” because “the Earth stands still eternally,”] There could not be a greater shock to religious minds of that day than Galileo’s doctrine, whether they at once rejected it as contrary to the faith, or listened to the arguments by which he enforced it. The feeling was strong enough to effect Galileo’s compulsory recantation, though a Pope was then on the throne who was personally friendly to him. Two Sacred Congregations represented the popular voice and passed decrees against the philosopher, which were in force down to the years 1822 and 1837. Such an alarm never can occur again, for the very reason that it has occurred once. At least, for myself, I can say that, had I been brought up in the belief of the immobility of the Earth as though a dogma of Revelation, and had associated it in my mind with the incommunicable dignity of man among created things, with the destinies of the human race, with the locality of purgatory and hell, and other Christian doctrines, and then for the first time had heard Galileo’s thesis, and, moreover, the prospect held out to me that perhaps there were myriads of globes like our own all filled with rational creatures as worthy of the Creator’s regard as we are, I should have been at once indignant at its presumption and frightened at its speciousness, as I never can be at any parallel novelties in other human sciences bearing on religion; no, not though I found probable reasons for thinking the first chapters of Genesis were not of an economical character, that there was a pre-Adamite race of rational animals, or that we are now 20,000 years from Noe. For that past controversy and its issue have taught me beyond all mistake, that men of the greatest theological knowledge may firmly believe that scientific conclusions are contrary to the Word of God, when they are not so, and pronounce that to be heresy which is truth. It has taught me, that Scripture is not inspired to convey mere secular knowledge, whether about the heaven or the Earth, or the race of man; and that I need not fear for Revelation whatever truths may be brought to light by means of observation and experience out of the world of phenomena which environ us. And I seem to myself here to be speaking under the protection and sanction of the Sacred Congregation of the Index itself, which has since the time of Galileo prescribed to itself a line of action, indication of its fearlessness of any results which may happen to religion from physical sciences. Many books have since that time been placed upon its prohibited catalogue, the worlds of (humanly speaking) distinguished men, the works of Morkof, Puffendorf, Brucker, Ranke, Hallam, Macauley and Mill; but I find no one of physical celebrity, unless such writers as Dr. Erasmus, Darwin, Bonucci, Klee and Burdach are so to be accounted. One great lesson surely, if no other, is taught by the history of theological controversy since the 16th century: moderation to the assailant, equanimity to the assailed, and that as regards geological and ethnological conclusions as well as astronomical. But there is more than this to give us confidence in this matter. Consider then the case before us: Galileo on his knees abjured the heresy that the Earth moved; but the course of human thought, of observation, investigation and induction, could not be stayed; it went on and had its way. It penetrated and ran through the Catholic world as well as through the nations external to it. And then at length, in our own day, the doctrine, which was the subject of it, was found to be so harmless in a religious point of view, that the books advocating it were taken off the Index, and the prohibition to print and publish the like was withdrawn. But of course the investigation has gone further, and done, or is now even doing, some positive service to the cause which it was accused of opposing. It is on the way to restore to the Earth that prerogative and pre-eminence in the creation which it was thought to compromise. Thus investigation, which Catholics would have suppressed as dangerous, when, in spite of them, it has had its course, results in conclusions favourable to their cause. How little then need we fear the free exercise of reason! How injurious is the suspicion entertained of it by religious men. How true it is that nature and revelation are nothing but two separate communications from the same infinite Truth. Nor is this all. Much has been said of late years of the dangerous tendency of geological speculations or researches. Well, what harm have they done to the Christian cause, others must say who are more qualified than I am to determine; but on one point, that is the point before us, I observe it is acting on the side of Christian belief. In answer to the supposed improbability of their being planets with rational inhabitants, considering that our globe has such, geology teaches us that, in fact, whatever our religion may accidentally teach us to hope or fear about other worlds, in this world at least, long ages past, we had either no inhabitants at all, or none but those rude and vast brutal forms, which could perform no intelligent homage and service to their Creator. Thus one order of spiritual researches bears upon another, and that in the interest or service of Christianity; and supposing, as some persons seem to believe in their hearts, that these researches are all in the hands of the enemy of God, we have the observable phenomenon of Satan casting out Satan and restoring the balance of physical arguments in favour of Revelation. Now let us suppose that the influences which were in the ascendant throughout Italy in 1637 had succeeded in repressing any free investigation on the question of the motion of the Earth. The mind of the educated class would have not the less felt that it was a question, and would have been haunted, and would have been poisoned, by the misgiving that there was some real danger to Revelation in the investigation; for otherwise the ecclesiastical authorities would not have forbidden it. There would have been in the Catholic community a mass of irritated, ill-tempered, feverish and festering suspicion, engendering general scepticism and hatred of the priesthood, and relieving itself in a sort of tacit Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ, of which secret societies are the development, and then in sudden outbreaks perhaps of violence and blasphemy. Protestantism is a dismal evil; but in this respect Providence has overruled it for the good. It has, by allowing free inquiry in science, destroyed a bugbear, and thereby saved Catholics so far from the misery of hollow profession and secret infidelity. I think, then, I must say distinctly that I have no sympathy at all in that policy, which will not look difficulties or apparent difficulties in the face, and puts off the evil day of considering them as long as it can. It is the way of politicians who live from hand to mouth, only careful that the existing state of things should last their time. If I find that scientific inquiries are running counter against certain theological opinions, it is not expedient to refuse to examine whether these opinions are well founded, merely because those inquiries have not yet reached their issue or attained a triumphant success. The history of Galileo is the proof of it. Are we not at a disadvantage as regards that history? Why, except because our theologians, instead of cautiously examining what Scripture, that is, the Written Word of God, really said, thought it better to put down with a high hand the astronomical views which were opposed to its popular interpretation? The contrary course was pursued in our own day; but what is not against the faith now, was not against the faith three centuries ago; yet Galileo was forced to pronounce his opinions a heresy. It might not indeed have been prudent to have done in 1637 what was done in 1822; but, though in the former date it might have been unjustifiable to allow the free publication of his treatises with the sanction of the Church, that does not show that it was justifiable to pronounce that they were against the faith and to enforce the abjuration. I am not certain that I might not go further and advocate the full liberty to teach the motion of the Earth, as a philosophical truth, not only now, but even three centuries ago. The Father Commissary said it was a scandal to the whole of Italy; that is, I suppose, an offence, a shock, a perplexity. This might be, but there was a class, whose claims to consideration are too little regarded now, and were passed over then. I mean the educated class; to them the prohibition would be a real scandal in the true meaning of the word, an occasion of their falling. Men who have sharpened their intellects by exercise and study anticipate the conclusions of the many by some centuries. If the tone of public opinion in 1822 called for a withdrawal of the prohibition at Trent of the Earth’s movement, the condition of the able and educated called for it in Galileo’s age; and it is as clear to me that their spiritual state ought to be consulted for, as it is difficult to say why in fact it is so often is not. They are tenderly to be regarded for their own sake; they are to be respected and conciliated for the sake of their influence upon other classes. I cannot help feeling that, in high circles, the Church is sometimes looked upon as made up of the hierarchy and the poor, and that the educated portion, men and women, are viewed as a difficulty, an encuмbrance, as the seat and source of heresy, as almost aliens to the Catholic body, whom it would be a great gain, if possible, to annihilate. For all these reasons, I cannot agree with those who would have us stand by what is probably or possibly erroneous, as if it were dogma, till it is acknowledged on all hands, by the force of demonstrations to be actually such. If she affirms, as I do not think she will affirm, that everything was made and finished in a moment though Scripture seems to say otherwise, and though science seems to prove otherwise, I affirm it too, and with an inward and sincere assent. And, as her word is to be believed, so her command is to be obeyed. I am as willing then to be silenced on doctrinal matters which are not of faith as to be taught in matters which are. It would be nothing else than a great gain to be rid of the anxiety which haunts a person circuмstanced as I am, lest, by keeping silence on points as that on which I have begun to speak, I should perchance be hiding my talent in a napkin. I should welcome the authority which by its decision allowed me to turn my mind to subjects more congenial to it. On the other hand, it is legitimate authority alone which I have any warrant to recognize; as to the ipse dixit of individual divines, I have long essayed to divest myself of what spiritual writers call “human respect.” I am indeed too old to be frightened and my past has set loose my future.’[1]

Now if ever one wanted a brief account of how Modernism entered the womb of the Catholic Church as a result of the Galilean reformation, there it is, the worst of its errors underlined. If one were to search all the comments on the Galileo case throughout history, one could not find a better example of the damage that 1741-1835 U-turn did to Catholic faith and reason. That said; let us begin with the subject of pride, so evident throughout this diatribe. In that same essay John Henry Newman claimed:

‘Few have ever attained the facility and comprehension which I arrived at from the regularity and constancy of my reading and the laborious and nerve-bracing and fancy-repressing study of mathematics, which has been my principal subject.’

‘The history of Galileo is the proof of it. Are we not at a disadvantage as regards that history? Why, except because our theologians, instead of cautiously examining what Scripture, that is, the Written Word of God, really said, thought it better to put down with a high hand the astronomical views which were opposed to its popular interpretation?’ --- Philosophical Readings on Cardinal John Henry Newman

Newman also states that the Church’s anti-heliocentric decrees hindered the free progress of science, an accusation already condemned by Pope Pius IX in his 1864 Syllabus of Errors. Newman also says in his opinion ‘evil’ Protestants opened up the truth of faith and reason by ‘overruling’ the Catholic Church’s condemnation of heliocentric, again inferring Providence had a hand in this co-operation ‘for the good.’ Is this then a legacy worthy of a man thought to be a great Catholic convert scholar, learned in science, professing to understand the nature of proof, a man now considered to be elevated as someone to look up to as a saint?

[1]As found in James Collins, Philosophical Readings on Cardinal John Henry Newman (Chicago: H. Regnery Press, 1961), pp.284-291. http://inters.org/Newman-Galileo-Revelation

Donachie · « **Reply #4 on:** September 15, 2019, 03:23:06 PM »

I read in Dorothy Stimson's, "The Gradual Acceptance of the Copernican Theory of the Universe", that two English Catholics of that time, Roberts and Mivart, maintained that the Church had formally condemned heliocentrism with Papal Infallibility.

I accept geocentrism by nature anyway. It's what I always thought from the first even if I didn't have all the explanation. Whoever does have all the explanation anyway? One may get by with a sufficient answer even if it's not totally complete, and I don't think the Earth is flat.

I didn't know any of these disappointing details about Newman. No St. Dominic or St. Bellarmine obviously. No Father Suarez either. So it goes.

If anybody thinks about it, imho, he should be able to guess by common sense that St. Patrick and all the saints were geocentic too. Exercise simple humility and accept the simple facts. Science can't do better than the facts.

klasG4e · « **Reply #5 on:** September 15, 2019, 04:03:16 PM »

Quote from: Donachie on September 15, 2019, 03:23:06 PM

I accept geocentrism by nature anyway. It's what I always thought from the first even if I didn't have all the explanation. Whoever does have all the explanation anyway?

The published work of Dr. Robert Sungenis on both the Church history and the science supporting geocentrism is an extraordinary contribution to our knowledge of geocentrism. I can hardly recommend it strongly enough to all those of good faith who want to be more learned in this area.

Author Topic: 10 Objections to Card. Newman's canonzation (Read 494 times)

Incredulous

10 Objections to Card. Newman's canonzation

cassini

Re: 10 Objections to Card. Newman's canonzation

cassini

Re: 10 Objections to Card. Newman's canonzation

cassini

Re: 10 Objections to Card. Newman's canonzation

Donachie

Re: 10 Objections to Card. Newman's canonzation

klasG4e

Re: 10 Objections to Card. Newman's canonzation