Why a new biography of Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman? Perhaps because, as two disparate thinkers, William Golding (Lord of the Flies) and C.S. Lewis, believe, saints are the most interesting and unique kinds of people to read about. Tyrants, as Lewis wrote, are all boringly the same.
Another reason, for Father Juan Vélez, an Opus Dei priest, physician and Newman scholar, is “to highlight Newman’s constant search for religious truth and lasting happiness … to show the spiritual and intellectual path that led Newman from evangelical Protestantism through Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism.” The main source for his work is Newman’s correspondence, from which he quotes extensively.
Newman grew up in a solid Anglican family. After his father’s bank’s failure and his own illness — and a period of what he thought of as rebellion against God, when he read skeptics Thomas Paine, Voltaire and David Hume — he underwent, at age 15, a religious conversion. This took the form of a Calvinist and evangelical devotion to “God as a personal Being, not an abstract truth.”
And yet this devotion was based on dogma, God’s revelation to mankind, one tenet of which was God’s omnipresence:
“This presence was not that of an impersonal power in creation, but that of an all-powerful and merciful God,” Father Vélez writes. “Newman later described this belief as the luminously self-evident idea that there are only two beings in the world, himself and the Creator. The human person can be sure of this reality and make it the framework for his beliefs and actions. This vivid realization remained with him as an adult and served as a truth upon which his knowledge of sacred Scripture and Christian doctrine were built.”
After this, Newman followed his passion for truth through becoming a priest in the Anglican Church and then becoming the de facto leader of the Oxford Movement, “a revival of the 17th-century Anglican ecclesiastical practices, doctrine and piety,” and especially the doctrines of apostolic succession and episcopal authority. Beset by both evangelicals and liberals and convinced by his own studies, accompanied by much prayer and fasting, Newman joined the Catholic Church and became an Oratorian.
Father Vélez’s book describes Newman’s life and search thoroughly and with just enough historical and religious background to make it understandable for the lay reader. An added bonus is the selection of maps, prints and photographs of settings pertinent to Newman’s life.
Father Vélez’s presentation is at times plodding and rather obvious; Brother Zeno’s John Henry Newman: His Inner Life (1979) is much better written, and I’m surprised it’s not in the bibliography.
However, Passion for Truth, as Father Vélez intended, covers ground that Brother Zeno’s book did not and does it with the same passion as Newman had in his own search. It is a solid biography for someone who has never read about Newman before.
Franklin Freeman writes from Saco, Maine.
Passion for Truth
The Life of John Henry Newman
By Father Juan R. Vélez
TAN Books, 2012
618 pages, $24.95
To order: tanbooks.com
(800) 437-5876
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Let’s hope that a new generation of OD thinkers adopt Newman as their primary spiritual inspiration
Lest pray that they change their their name. Opus Dei is a universal Church term, defined by St Benedict. It means payer. Not Escriva new double speak definition’s of a cult based on the 19th century alma c saying “work is prayer”.
Escivas ’spiritually” of autistic, self absorbed selfish, Gnostic pantheism has in large part nothing to do with Christianity. His “methodology” has more to do with scientology like double speak. It’s time to end this heresy that is as bad if not worse than the worse of liberation theology
Let’s hope that a new generation of OD thinkers adopt Newman as their primary spiritual inspiration
Let’s pray that they change their name. Opus Dei is a universal Church term, defined by St Benedict. It means payer. Not Escriva’s new double speak definition of a cult based on a 19th century almanac saying “work is prayer”.
Escivas ’spiritually” of autistic, self absorbed selfish, Gnostic pantheism has in large part nothing to do with Christianity. His “methodology” has more to do with scientology-like double speak. It’s time to end this heresy that is as bad if not worse than the worse of liberation theology
Tom ATK, “Escirva ‘s “spiritually” of autistic, self absorbed…......etc. And Escriva has been canonized a Saint because of why?
Tom ATK, what are you on about? Pantheism? Heresy? I am not an Opus Dei fan myself, but I am dismayed by weird know-nothing attacks such as this one.
“And Escriva has been canonized a Saint because of why?”
The process of beatification of Escriva was expedited, starting in 1982.
At the same time all canon that defined the office of promoter of faith were removed. This office was in place for 500 years, to ensure checks and balances in the beatification/canonization process. This office was disbanded when Cardinal Herranz (OD) became secretary, then president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, the office in charge of canon law.
In other words the canonization process was basically neutered for the “expedited” canonization of Escriva. Even the “miracle” would not pass medical scrutiny (healing of a skin rash, without any biopsy).
Now Escrivistas are taking advantage of this neutered canonization process to push pretty anyone for canonization (for $1 million any one can hire a specialized canon lawyer now days). There are at least 1/2 dozen various OD members up for canonization, for having been “ordinary heroic” administrators, etc (this is helped by the fact that the current head of OD is also member of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints). It does not matter that some of those up for “sainthood” helped establish OD houses where members committed suicide. All this is now forgotten, glossed over.
The whole canonization process was sabotaged by OD to better sell their brand of “holiness”. Other OD modeled new “ecclesiastic movements” are copying OD in this regard. The mother of Father Maciel would have been beatified, if it was not for Maciel’s children demanding Curia compensation after Maciel’s death. Canonization will regain credibility once honesty is re-established, in other words, once an independent, fully competent office of promoter of faith is re-established. But since “holy” “dishonesty” is a key feature of Escriva’s spirituality this is unlikely to happen any time soon. This is why, for me, it is good news that some OD’s are trying to break away.
“Tom ATK, what are you on about? Pantheism? Heresy? I am not an Opus Dei fan myself, but I am dismayed by weird know-nothing attacks such as this one”
One of my main criticism of Esciva’s spirituality is their undisciplined use of words. Words counts. The Bible is quite specific about this. George Orwell also made that point in his book 1984. His fictional totalitarian governments use “double speak”, where words are devalued to confuse people (“love=war”, for example). Double speak was also studied in destructive cults, by Dr Robert Lifton. Such cults create a new langue where words no longer mean what they are supposed to mean (“Loading the language”). If one reads Escriva’s writings, it is peppered with double speak. This helps create a power structure that serves itself. It starts with the name of Esciva’s organization: “Opus Dei” which already meant something specific in the Church (payer life of the consecrated, according to St Benedict). Escriva gives it a totally different meaning (membership of a specific cult like group, implying that if one leaves, one no longer does THE work of God, a cult pressure tactic). There are numerous other examples of OD double speak, such as work=payer (condemned by Biblical teaching), ordinary=heroic; rich=poor, world=outside enemy, etc..etc…
And what is this worship of “ordinary little things”? What is this non sense about chocolate making given as example in the latest OD film? What Christ wills us is to Love God and Neighbor. This has not changed in 2000 years. It’s never “ordinary” or “little”, no matter what the circumstances. Finished, next.
Also Escriva de Balaguer (he liked Royalty) converts the mainly bad behaviors of “coercion, shamelessness and intransigence” into his primary new virtues of his “spirituality”. Those are his principle attributes to become “holy”. This goes against teachings on virtues in the Church, as well as the Aristotelian concept of Golden Mean of virtues. So, now, the “new thinking” is that the opposites of coercion, shamelessness and intransigence are “unholy”? Patience, shame, and understanding are bad now? Is now lying and deceit the only option to “holiness”, at it seems to me in their self styled “radical” cult? St Thomas Aquinas examined deceit very, very carefully, and gives clear guidelines, that Newman picks up.
Theologian Von Balthazar called Escrivas’ writing “little Spanish manual for advanced Boy Scouts”. But it’s worse than that, it’s a recipe for a non Catholic, scientology-like cult. This needs to change.
Escriva wrote a number of things that are in direct opposition to Christ’s Gospel teaching (Love of God and Neighbor as primary directive to holiness, teaching to Martha and Mary, avoiding Oaths, meaning yes and no, etc..). Escriva also wrote a number of things that are opposite of his own writings. He changes his positions on prayer, eventuality, “everything” is prayer. No, “everything” is not payer. Work should be offered to God, but its not payer. Christ did not go to the desert for nothing. He never called working in carpentry payer. It does not make work bad, it’s a different type of offering to God. Different words. Meat is not salad. Water is not air.
The hope is that a new generation of OD members trained in the disciplined use of words, will take apart Escriva’s writings, chuck away the numerous sections that are contrary to clear biblical teachings and church tradition (for example, evangelical councils should only be under consecrated life, “vows” in OD are used as a form of manipulation…), or are contradictory.
How they can ask their members to be “good” at what they are suppose to do, say in research or banking, when they are brainwashed to twist and devalue the meaning of words, and use “cheating” as only path “holiness”? This shows, look at banking in Spain today… I wish them all the best, and hope that they convert back to Christianity, away from the confusing ways of their cult leader..
Hope this makes sense. Peace.
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