These essays ‘explore [Newman] with critical appreciation’, ‘assess the large amount of secondary literature’, evaluate his contribution to ‘philosophy, theology, history, education, and literature’ while eschewing any effort to present Newman as offering ‘ready-made’ answers to our contemporary concerns.

Many essays will assist scholars re-evaluate Newman’s historic context. Doyen of Tractarian experts, Peter Nockles, concludes that Newman ‘bequeathed to posterity a long shadow and a contested legacy’ (p. 25): an invaluable read for anyone approaching the Oxford Movement through Apologia. Gareth Atkins on ‘Evangelicals’ is one of several authors addressing Frank Turner’s 2003 highly critical study of Newman in which he argued that Newman’s main thrust was anti-Evangelical.Footnote ¹ Atkins offers a salutary warning about party labels: the ‘boundaries between Tractarianism and Evangelicalism remained permeable’ (p. 188). In launching the Tracts Newman appealed to the Book of Common Prayer, hopefully (then) ‘common’ to all. Newman realistically met the widening reading public with a life-long commitment to what Joshua King terms the ‘print culture’. A successful instance is Apologia which largely rehabilitated Newman in the public eye and remains a ‘classic’ (J.M.I. Klaver, p. 464). Charles Hefling alerts readers to a less popular work, Lectures on Justification, re-evaluating its invaluable sacramental theology. Eamon Duffy’s treatment of Newman’s sermons is a splendid piece of contextualization. Preached to large congregations, they have been read by thousands. The faith was not merely taught in sermons and lectures: it was disseminated through the media, and is so still. The Newman volume in Classics of Western Spirituality Footnote ² is almost entirely comprised of Newman’s Sermons: this reviewer testifies that undergraduates can still warm to a Newman sermon. Keith Beaumont moves the focus to the local and domestic analysing Newman’s Oratory, reminding readers of its continuities with Oriel days. The Oratory is a ‘family and a home & bounded and rounded’.Footnote ³ Newman’s affection for Oratorian founder, Philip Neri, illustrates his openness to past wisdom and his ability to adapt it. Similar traits emerge in Newman’s patrology. Benjamin J. King argues that Newman regarded the Fathers as ‘contemporaneous’ (p. 113) and sees merit in Merton’s assessment that Newman had ‘resonance’ rather than critical engagement with certain Fathers. It is also worth pondering Brilioth’s judgement of Library of the Fathers (a Newman-Pusey initiative) as the ‘most important undertaking of all’ Tractarians publications.Footnote ⁴ Making primary sources available significantly contributes to theology. Regarding education, Colin Barr concentrates on Newman’s Irish University experience doing justice to Newman’s vision and also to Archbishop Cullen’s role: a welcome corrective to much writing on Newman. With others Newman exercised wide influence and was sensitive, perhaps touchy. More light is shed by Ann Richardson’s treating of Newman’s (at times) fractious relations with his surviving siblings. And there were difficulties aplenty in Newman’s relations with others such as Charles Golightly, the bête noire of the Tract 90 saga. However, Geertjan Zuijdwegt on Richard Whately analyses changing relations and substantial theological difficulties. It speaks well of Newman that he published an anonymous but affectionate eulogy of him.

Several essays deal with aspects relating to Newman’s lifelong effort to show the rational quality of faith. They will enrich a reading of Newman. Christians believe faith is a gift of God, but faith seeks understanding and right reason plays a role in religious faith. In post-Enlightenment Europe this was a major pastoral challenge, and continues to be so. Frederick Aquino on ‘Epistemology’ sees the consistency in Newman from the University Sermons to the Grammar of Assent, showing he ‘maps a broader’ view of the assent of faith, best seen in his ‘illative sense’. In ‘The British Naturalist Tradition’ we find a Newman ‘well read in the philosophical tradition of his own country’ (p. 155). Understandably one essay deals with the influence of philosopher bishop Joseph Butler (d. 1752) for whom Newman expressed his debt. Butler provided basic concepts: conscience, probability and a sacramental view of reality. Much pivots on ‘Conscience’ dealt with by Zuijdwegt and Terrence Merrigan. For Newman ‘a man of religious mind is he who attends to the rule of conscience, which is born with him&’.Footnote ⁵ Conscience is the means whereby God governs the world (p. 437); it is one’s awareness of a law-giver and is almost impossible to silence. Yet conscience needs developing so that good habits, virtues are formed. In this process a conducive ‘ethos’ is paramount. These essays show Newman presents faith as a ‘lived praxis’ (p. 138) and a very humane one at that. Newman summed up his view thus: ‘The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma: no man will be a martyr for a conclusion’.Footnote ⁶

Articulating the reasonableness of faith was not merely an intellectual challenge, it was at the heart of Newman. Analysing his theology should pay due attention to practical theology, that is, pastoral care. This thread is a unifying element of Newman’s life and work, it made sense and offered ‘telos’ for all learning and spirituality: the newly ordained deacon visiting parishioners; the Oriel Fellow seeing tutoring as pastoral care; the Vicar of St Mary’s enlivening many with the venture of faith; devoting time and energy to the hitherto neglected Littlemore; the educator being pastoral in creating an ‘ethos’ where people can grow; and throughout a long life penning hundreds of letters of guidance and encouragement for troubled souls.

Pastoral concern was inseparable from Newman’s commitment to personal influence in establishing a truly Christian ‘ethos’. Several authors deal with this aspect. Newman had an extraordinary ability to network, evident in largely overlooked diary entries in the 32-volume Letters and Diaries. His lifelong friendships provided groundwork for later ecumenical relations and Bishop Rowell’s essay illustrates how readily these blossomed when springtime arrived. Newman could express warm appreciation for the Church of England: he regretted any attack on the Church of England in Oxford where it was upholding revealed religion. ‘In weakening Oxford, we are weakening our friends’.Footnote ⁷ Beaumont describes the Oratory as ‘flexible’ and ‘homely’ (pp. 35, 36) and Barr concluded that while the Catholic University aimed to establish a ‘Catholic ethos’ it was surprisingly open and tolerant (p. 58) and life at Newman’s House was ‘congenial, comfortable and intellectually stimulating’ (p. 65). Universities should offer ‘elbow room’ for one’s development (John Sullivan, p. 549). Newman’s educational theories are not limited to universities (M. Katherine Tillman, p. 418). Indeed, they were lived out over many years in the Oratory School. A school is ‘a pastoral charge of the most intimate kind’.Footnote ⁸ To a parent who expected strong discipline for his wayward son, Newman wrote ‘I must carry him with me in any rules I make’Footnote ⁹ ; to another he cautioned not to ‘make too much of little things’.Footnote ¹⁰ Newman’s Oratory School letters could challenge some Victorian stereotypes.

Several essays deal more especially (though not exclusively) with (Roman) Catholic issues. William J. Abraham treats the often neglected Newman’s preordination years in Rome. Newman, steeped in the British Philosophical tradition, was something of a mystery to his mentors. Mark McInroy traces Catholic theological receptions of Newman. His Essay on Development proved welcome during the process of defining the Immaculate Conception (p. 497), fell into the shadows in Neo-scholastic years, avoided criticism as Modernist, thanks to a misreading by the Bishop of Limerick and came back to centre stage thanks to pre-Vatican II theologians. C. Michael Shea suggests more work is needed on similarities between Newman and contemporary German theologian, Johannes Adam Möhler (p. 296). Newman had skirmishes with authority regarding his ‘sensus fidelum’ essay. King revisits the issue and alerts all shades of opinion to the ‘highly rhetorical’ nature of Newman’s article in The Rambler (p. 281). Paying attention to literary forms is surely a basic requirement! Abraham referred to Newman’s ‘pessimism’ (p. 316), an impression often taken from sermons, where the subject matter is of a serious nature. There are numerous instances where Newman’s prose lifts the human spirit and touches of the poetic and musical. Newman thought he wrote better after playing Beethoven: ‘Perhaps thought is music’.Footnote ¹¹ Sullivan regards Newman’s vision of the university a ‘rhetorical device’ lifting our vision from the mundane (p. 554).

American historian Patrick AllittFootnote ¹² argued that on both sides of the Atlantic, converts (mostly in the wake of Tractarianism) dominated Roman Catholic intellectual life between 1840 and 1960. After crossing the Tiber their creative skills did not atrophy. They joined a small, cautious English community of surviving recusants being swelled by a large mass of poor Irish migrants. They reshaped this into a community better educated, more confident of its identity and vigorous in its pastoral mission. Among the thousands of followers on either side of the Tiber, Newman remains a towering figure. These essays will help readers of Newman appreciate the ‘very long shadow’ he continues to cast.