Post intelligent and civil comments. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the NLM
This is fascinating, firstly because I have never had any such association of Newman with the the councils (sadly I haven't read much of him; it seems timely to start).
Secondly, from my experience, movements in general are better tempered and better understood when associated with a person. Look at other Church Councils. I hope that a growing association of the ideas of Vatican II with Newman will result in a better interpretation and fuller realization.
I recall that Cardinal Newman was an opponent of the manner in which papal infallibility was promulgated at Vatican Council I. Tom
I believe that Newman was not enthusiastic concerning the way papal infallibility was defined at Vatican I (a posture that did not exactly endear him to certain circles at the time), but of course submitted to it once it was defined, ratified and promulgated. Certainly he did not approve of all the hysterics that surrounded the definition and cautioned the opposing parties that it usually took at least a hundred years or more for the decrees of a council and its relation to all the others to be adequately absorbed and understand: advice that we would all do well to take to heart in the present circumstances.
"Vatican II was deafeningly silent about . . . evangelization."
I don't think this is at all accurate.
Nor do I think that evangelization, in the historic Christian sense of the world, was all that emphasized under the John Paul pontificate. That magisterium's teaching was almost always worded very ambiguously, such that many (most?) Catholics and non-Catholics associated Catholic use of the term with non-descript "good works."
Just my humble opinion.
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The following article by Fr. Ker confirms many things that I have found to be true about the Council and its continuity with what had come before it.
I think the point is well taken that Cardinal Newman converted to Catholicism precisely because he went backwards and began to study what the Church had taught from the beginning.
The same thing also happens to others who go back and re-analyze what they had taken for granted or disregarded altogether.
I know that I went and re-read my theology manuals before I united with Rome once I realized how faulty the ideas that I was hearing about theology really were from my "independent" parish priest.
It has become quite fashionable to associate Newman as someone who pre-empted Vatican II.
The fact is that the liturgical reform of Vatican II was an example of the worst case of ultramontanism. The radical changes that were ensued to the liturgy under St. Pius X, carrying all the way up to Pius XII, meant that most people believed the pope could do what he liked with the liturgy.
I'd be more cautious of enthusiastically associating Newman with Vatican II.
You did understate Newman's confidence in the laity and in particular their place in the Arian dilemna when it was they with few Bishops who upheld orthodoxy...not the greater number of Bishops or Rome. Let's recite a title of an essay he wrote:
"On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine". Don't panic. He only said "consulting". That would mean in this millenium that maybe Rome should actually poll Catholics on issues via the internet.
Unless Rome is not going to consult them at all in any form whatsoever.
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