One more shot...

It's my only day off this week, so I am going to go ahead with my last rant of the day before I throw myself into the house work that the wife is going to expect to be done before she gets home and the kids get off the bus.

Pope Benedict XVI is going to the UK, and he is going to beatify (the first step in Catholic sainthood) John Henry Cardinal Newman, a Victorian-era Anglican reformer and convert to the Catholic faith.

I have found two articles in today's headlines giving both sides of the reaction to the Pope's visit and his reasoning, and both are very telling in their stated positions.

The first is from the Financial Times of London, and it is a rather scathing indictment of Benedict's rationale for beatifying Cardinal Newman, even going so far as to refer to the beatification of Newman as a "hijacking" by the Vatican in its very headline.

The author's premise seems to be that Newman was, before and after his conversion to the Roman Catholic faith, adversarial to the office of the Papacy and its role in the life of the individual Catholic across the world. His opinions about the current Pope seem to show that he feels Benedict is immovable and stagnant in his application of dogmatic theological rules, and has no concern for what the "common man" has to say about what it means to be Catholic.

I cannot claim to be an expert on the life and writings of Cardinal Newman, as his works are so prodigious and varied that I couldn't imagine anyone outside of true full-time scholars actually having the time in their lives to read it all (he was, after all, a writer of poetry, fiction, biographies, theological tracts, commentaries, hymns and music, and thousands of letters). I do know that the established Catholic leadership in England at the time of his conversion thought him to be "the most dangerous man in England", and looked to have him removed from any position of authority... because he was too liberal (in the classical sense of the word) and too critical of Pope Pius IX.

The second article comes from an editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer, and is far more apologetic in its approach to the actions of Benedict XVI. The author recognizes that many might question the move by Benedict as contradictory to his stated positions on many issues, and that Cardinal Newman was a contravesial figure, both during his life and after, and the author works to explain the significance of the move to beatify.

I leave the articles to be read and judged according to their content, and will only say that the first article seemed to stem from an unfavorable opinion of Benedict and his views than it did from anything else, and very few of those views are reflected in Newman's writings or teachings. Controversy over whether or not Cardinal Newman was homosexual are mute and utterly irrelevant to the discussion, for no other reason that the man was utterly committed to the path of chastity from the age of 15, and inclinations are purely personal (meaning no one's to judge but God Himself) without actions to account for sin... and inclination does not equal intention. We are all inclined to sin, but without intention and action, there is no culpable sin.

I found it telling that the American author saw the beatification of Cardinal Newman as a means by which Benedict can try and bring Europe back from a "relativism" that is growing more and more prominent in the political and social structure of the continent, while the British author saw it as Benedict "stealing" an English radical from the pages of secular history.

The Oxford Movement that Newman worked to start in England never really flourished there past the universities where it began, while the impact that movement has had in the New World can still be seen today through the thousands of Newman Centers located at non-Catholic universities across North America, and in the conscience-oriented position that so many American and Canadian Catholics (both lay and religious) take when discussing and discerning the teachings of the Magisterium. Cardinal Newman believed our final decision making tool given to us by God was our conscience, and in using our conscience, all we had to do was be as well informed as possible when making our personal life choices... be they faith oriented or not. However, to suggest that this position meant he failed to accept or understand the Magisterium's position on such matters as papal infallibility, contraception, the sanctity of marriage as a Sacrament of the Church, or the role of women within the Church is disingenuous at best, and an outright falsehood at worst.

He believed that dialogue and frank discussion partnered with charitable openness to new ideas could solve any difference of opinion and would always lead to greater understanding of whatever topic was being investigated by all involved... and I personally don't think Benedict XVI could have found a better example to hold up in this close-minded age of ours as an example for the world on how best to come to mutual understanding and acceptance.

There are more than 65 million Catholics in America today, and I am confident that were it possible for Cardinal Newman to hear the statistic that the British author used when he said the majority of American Catholics don't agree with Church teaching as they stand today, he would say that the fault lies in their understanding of the teaching (or in the Church's instructions on the teaching) rather than in the teaching itself. If that is true of America, then surely it must be even more true of Europe today.