NEWMAN AS DOCTOR - by Fr. Richard Cipolla

When the blogmaster (I suppose there is such a word) of Rorate Caeli, who is a personal friend of some years now, wrote to me recently to ask, with some astonishment on his part, why I had not written an article for publication immediately after the announcement by Pope Leo XIV that St. John Henry Newman was declared a Doctor of the Church, I replied that despite my love for Newman, I could not respond at once, for I needed time to think about not merely the declaration itself but also what this means for the Church today, as she (not it) seems to be emerging, Deo gratias, from the dark years after the Second Vatican Council that were marked by iconoclasm, denial of the Catholic Tradition and worst of all--sentimentality, the acid of religion.

Newman on Capital Punishment: Consistency is Key in Catholic Doctrine - by Edward Feser

It was announced last week that Pope Leo XIV will be declaring St. John Henry Newman to be a Doctor of the Church.  As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, the Church proclaims someone to be a Doctor on account of “eminent learning” and “a high degree of sanctity.”  This combination makes a Doctor an exemplary guide to matters of faith and morals.  To be sure, the Doctors are not infallible.  Their authority is not as great as that of scripture, the consensus of the Church Fathers, or the definitive statements of the Church’s magisterium.  All the same, their authority is considerable.  As Aquinas notes, appeal to the authority of the Doctors of the Church is “one that may properly be used” in addressing doctrinal questions, even if such an appeal by itself yields “probable” conclusions rather than incontrovertible ones (Summa Theologiae I.1.8).

Saint John Henry Newman, Doctor of the Church - Proclamation by Pope Leo XIV -- "For fifty years, I have resisted Liberalism in religion. Never did Holy Church need champions against it more sorely than now!"

His Predecessor of the same name, Leo XIII, created John Henry Newman Cardinal. Today, Leo XIV proclaimed him Doctor of the Church.

From the Bollettino (in Italian).

On July 31, 2025, the Holy Father Leo XIV received in audience His Most Reverend Eminence Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

During the same audience, the Holy Father confirmed the affirmative opinion of the Plenary Session of Cardinals and Bishops, Members of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, regarding the title of Doctor of the Universal Church, which will soon be conferred on Saint John Henry Newman, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, Founder of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in England; born in London (United Kingdom) on February 21, 1801, and died in Edgbaston (United Kingdom) on August 11, 1890.

Cardinal Newman's lifelong struggle was against liberalism in religion. He made that very clear in his famous Biglietto speech, upon the acceptance of the cardinalatial title:

Launching "Theological Classics": Newman on the Virgin Mary, St Vincent on Novelty and Heresy, Guardini on Sacred Signs

At a time of turmoil, nothing could be better or more important than rooting ourselves deeply in the Catholic tradition. One of my favorite quotations is by St. Prosper of Aquitaine (390-455), writing in his own age of chaos: “Even if the wounds of this shattered world enmesh you, and the sea in turmoil bears you along in but one surviving ship, it would still befit you to maintain your enthusiasm for studies unimpaired. Why should lasting values tremble if transient things fall?”

“The Pope’s Boundedness to Tradition as a Legislative Limit: Replying to Ultramontanist Apologetics”—Full Text of Dr. Kwasniewski’s Denver Lecture

The following lecture was given at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Littleton, Colorado, on July 31, 2021. The video has been posted at YouTube; however, the text below features extensive endnotes that contain much important material. My goal, especially in the wake of Traditionis Custodes, is to refute the all-too-plentiful Catholic apologists who—proof-texting magisterial documents the way their Protestant counterparts proof-text St. Paul—maintain that the pope has absolute executive, legislative, and judicial power over the liturgy. I argue, in contrast, that papal power exists within an historical, ecclesial context that conditions and limits its legitimate exercise, and therefore also grounds the right of the faithful to resist egregious violations of immemorial custom and venerable tradition. In short, this is a defense of the very foundations of the traditionalist movement in the Catholic Church.

The Pope’s Boundedness to Tradition as a Legislative Limit:
Replying to Ultramontanist Apologetics

Peter A. Kwasniewski

 

Catholic apologists have done a lot of great work over the decades. They have refuted many a Protestant, Mormon, Jehovah’s Witness, or the like oddity, and have helped Jews, Moslems, atheists, agnostics, neo-pagans, and members of all manner of false religions to find Christ and to enter His Church. For this, we are all grateful, and long may their work in this vein continue.

But the same apologists do not perform so well when they turn their sights to intraecclesial affairs, particularly when it comes to explaining the nature, purpose, and limits of papal infallibility. Even there, the apologists do well when they are justifying wonderful things like Humanae Vitae, for its teaching is in accord with natural and divine law and the tradition of the Church, and the pope’s job is to uphold all that, regardless of pressures against it. Yet when popes make spectacularly bad decisions or teach that which is ambiguous or male sonans (evil-sounding) or materially erroneous, these apologists are caught flat-footed and empty-handed. They are tempted either to ignore the problem as an embarrassing exception or to appeal bravely to an unthinking ultramontanism, as if sheer bluster will somehow paper it over.

We have seen a great deal of the latter problem ever since the release of the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes. Most commentators, it is true, fall into two more obvious categories: the progressives who gloat shamelessly over the defeat of the nasty trads, and nearly everyone else who sees Pope Francis’s move as unwarranted, malicious, inflammatory, bellicose, unworkable, and—the worst sin after Vatican II—thoroughly unpastoral. But there is a coetus of self-styled apologists who have rushed to make podcasts defending the pope’s supposed right to create, abolish, and modify liturgy nearly any way he pleases.

This lecture will not be an extensive critique of Traditionis Custodes—that can be found in many other places at this point.[1] Rather, I want to explain how we reached a point of such absurdity that a Roman Pontiff can dare, with the stroke of a pen, to consign to the margins and to eventual oblivion an unbroken liturgical patrimony of millennia and to claim that the new rites created by committee under Paul VI are the “only” (unica) lex orandi or law of prayer of the Catholic Church—and the even greater absurdity that there are Catholic apologists defending him and his purported “right” to do so.

“The effect of this temper of innovation”: New anthology brings together best of Newman on worship, reverence, and ritual

We all known John Henry Newman was a rare genius, a brilliant preacher, a man of great earnestness and prayer. His sanctity has been formally recognized. But are people as familiar as they should be with his wisdom on matters liturgical, devotional, sacramental?

Some have suggested that there isn’t a whole lot of attention to liturgy in Newman. But the new 524-page anthology, John Henry Newman on Worship, Reverence, and Ritual (Os Justi Press, 2019), which I prepared in the months leading up to the canonization, gives us a treasure-trove to explore.

The anthology draws on the full sweep of Newman’s career, from young Anglican preacher in Oxford to the Meditations and Devotions published posthumously in 1893. All of the substantial discussions of divine worship, liturgical rites, and the various attitudes, feelings, mindsets, practices, that could come under the heading of “reverence” are found in this volume.

It is astonishing to see how relevant even the Oxford Newman of the 1830s remains to the issues that most plague the Catholic Church in 2020. He was dealing with the same urges of “tinkeritis” and “optionitis” in the liturgy, with the plague of casualness and indifference, with the loss of a correct attitude of veneration for inherited practices. We can see this in so many passages. Here are some samples.

“A Half-Century of Novelty: Revisiting Paul VI’s Apologia for the New Mass”

This lecture was given in Wagga Wagga on March 28, in Melbourne on March 30, and in Hobart on April 3, during Dr Kwasniewski's visit sponsored by the Latin Mass Society of Australia. The full text is presented below, in a Rorate exclusive. UPDATE: The video of the lecture as given in Melbourne may be found here.

A Half-Century of Novelty: Revisiting Paul VI’s Apologia for the New Mass

Peter A. Kwasniewski

April 3 of this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the promulgation of the Novus Ordo Missae by Pope Paul VI’s 1969 Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum, the provisions of which were to go into effect on November 30, the first Sunday of Advent.

Good Friday - Crucified Lord, give thy Bishops knowledge, discernment, prudence, and love

Considerabam ad dexteram, et videbam, et non erat qui cognosceret me

  O Lord, who art called the Branch, the Orient, the Splendour of the eternal light, and the Sun of Justice, who art that Tree, of whom Thy beloved disciple speaks as the Tree of life, bearing twelve fruits, and its leaves for the healing of the nations, give Thy grace and blessing on all those various states and conditions in Thy Holy Church, which have sprung from Thee and live in Thy Life.

Give to all Bishops the gifts of knowledge, discernment, prudence, and love.

OP-ED: "To Ross Douthat, With Affectionate Correction", by Fr. Richard Cipolla - Church Crisis, the True Battle, and Sacred Liturgy

To Ross Douthat, With Affectionate Correction

Fr. Richard G. Cipolla, DPhil

Paolo Veronese - The Wedding Feast at Cana (1563) - Musée du Louvre

It is certainly true, as has been observed on Rorate Caeli, that Ross Douthat’s Erasmus Lecture for First Things has caused quite a stir in traditional Catholic circles.  Msgr. Pope’s article bemoaning the lack of growth in the presence of the Traditional Mass in the Church has also gained the attention of Traditional Catholics, but that article lacks the depth and urgency that is contained in Douthat’s lecture. Many of us have admired his Op-Ed pieces in the New York Times, often wondering how he achieved his position amidst the quintessential Liberal Establishment embodied by that paper of record.  His skirmish with the Catholic theologians (and I have refrained from putting theologians in quotation marks out of some sense of objectivity, despite my belief that there may no longer be any Catholic theologians, for Catholic theologians have to be immersed in the Tradition, and there do not seem to be any who are so today) is an example of the proper role of the laity in the Church as encouraged by the Second Vatican Council. 

Radicati EDITORIAL: An Indulgence is not a Truce

An Indulgence is not a Truce

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, January 2016

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

“The post-conciliar Church? It is a Church in which life is removed considerably from the event of Calvary. A Church that diminishes its demands and doesn’t resolve problems anymore according to the will of God, but according to human possibilities. A Church which I believe has become elastic and morally relativistic. A Church in the fog and without the tables of the Law. A Church that closes its eyes to sin, that fears reproach for not being modern.” (Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski)

Why has the Church observed Holy years, why has She held Jubilees with their plenary indulgences? Basically because men must turn back to God and separate themselves from sin which brings eternal death. There is no other reason, there is absolutely no other!

We are witnessing [at present] a peculiar insistence on the mercy of God which sounds foreign, very foreign to Catholic ears. We hear talk of the Lord who is always forgiving, but this insistence is never preceded and accompanied by the memory of the gravity of sin, in [all] its deadly consequences.

The 2015 Newman Lecture in Melbourne: - Newman's Conversion of Conscience and the Resolution of the Crisis of Modernity

As last year, when we provided the text of "The Inaugural Blessed John Henry Newman Lecture" delivered by Dr Stephen McInerney on Newman and the Roman Rite, this year we bring you the text of the second lecture, delivered by Fr Scot Armstrong*, a founding member of the Brisbane Oratory in Formation.

***

“Newman's Conversion of Conscience

and the Resolution of the Crisis of Modernity"

Delivered at the Parish of Blessed John Henry Newman, Melbourne

17th October, 2015

The Denial of the Law of God and His Rights

In his great encyclical letter Libertas Praestantissimum, Pope Leo XIII explains that it is not man’s place to dictate to God what man owes Him, but rather humbly and obediently to receive from God the law that must be followed if we are to please Him and attain the happiness for which He created us:

If the human mind be so presumptuous as to define the nature and extent of God’s rights and its own duties, reverence for the divine law will be apparent rather than real, and arbitrary judgment will prevail over the authority and providence of God. Man must, therefore, take his standard of a loyal and religious life from the eternal law; and from all and every one of those laws which God, in His infinite wisdom and power, has been pleased to enact, and to make known to us by such clear and unmistakable signs as to leave no room for doubt. And the more so because laws of this kind have the same origin, the same author, as the eternal law, are absolutely in accordance with right reason, and perfect the natural law. These laws it is that embody the government of God, who graciously guides and directs the intellect and the will of man lest these fall into error. (Libertas 17)

We see in these luminous words the confidence of a pope and of a church convinced of the reality and primacy of God, the existence of absolute truth, the ability of reason and faith to know that truth—and the ability of even fallen men to live according to that truth with the help of God’s grace (as Pope Leo develops at greater length elsewhere in the same encyclical, and as John Paul II was to do so masterfully in Veritatis Splendor).

Cardinal Piacenza in Wigratzbad: Mercy, Primacy of Conscience and Primacy of Truth

From a teaching lecture given by Cardinal Piacenza, the Major Penitentiary, at a course on the Internal Forum in the Diocese of Ausburg for German speaking priests.

Iacopo Scaramuzzi

Vatican Insider (La Stampa)

January 15, 2015

“In Christianity, the placing of mercy and truth in opposition or at least contradistinction is always the result of a vision that is only partial”. This is what Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, the Major Penitentiary of the Tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary, says in a teaching lecture given at Wigratzbad, Diocese of Augsburg in Germany, on the occasion of a course on the Internal Forum for German speaking priests.

“At that place where Psalm 85 says (from which comes the title of my lecture): ‘Mercy and truth will meet each other’, we are dealing with a new reality, not made by human hands, something to be desired, something deeply awaited, but realized uniquely in accordance with the gift from God”, affirms the Cardinal, who is centering his reflections on the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

The Newman Lecture in Melbourne: - Found, not Manufactured: Newman, the Roman Rite, and Cranmer's Prayer Book

The Inaugural Blessed John Henry Newman Lecture was delivered by Dr Stephen McInerney (Senior Lecturer in Literature, Campion College).

***

“Marvellous Disclosures”: 

John Henry Newman’s Anglican Reflections on the Liturgy(1)

Delivered at the Parish of Blessed John Henry Newman, Melbourne

12th October, 2014

[High Mass for All Souls at the Birmingham Oratory - Entrance]

Over fifty years ago, as he reflected on the legacy of John Henry Newman, Fr Frank O’Malley asked: “What was the spirit of this man who is with us a constant reference and a standard and a sign?” By way of an answer, he pointed to something that few Newman scholars before or since have sought to highlight:

the spirit of Newman moved within the spirit of the liturgy, the liturgy thought of in its most significant sense as the very rhythm of Christian existence, stirred and centred by the life of Christ. Newman absorbed the liturgical character of existence. He lived by the liturgy. (2)

No, Newman cannot be used to defend Kasper

SYNOD AND TRUTH: Understanding In Depth the Grave Errors of Cardinal Kasper - A Major Article by Roberto de Mattei

KASPER’S MESS

The origins of the errors

For them, Christianity is praxis, not justice

Roberto de Mattei

Il Foglio

October 1, 2014

The upcoming Synod of Bishops has been preceded by a rumpus in the media which attaches to it a historical significance greater than its ecclesiastical importance as merely a consultative assembly in the Church. Some are complaining about the theological war the Synod promises to be, but the history of all the Episcopal meetings in the Church (such is the etymological significance of the term “synod” and its synonym “council”) has been made up of theological conflicts and bitter debates on errors and divisions that have threatened the Christian community since its beginnings.

The Legitimacy of Calling Oneself a “Traditional Catholic”

In honor of the 100th anniversary of the death of Saint Pius X
for whom Traditionalists “are the true friends of the People”
_______________________________

Bishop Aillet ordaining a priest
of the FSSP this past July

One often hears objections against the use of the term “traditional” or “traditionalist” as a way of defining oneself as a Catholic. Although I’ve written about this before here at Rorate, it is a topic that merits further attention.

Someone might object as follows. Although tradition is obviously a major component of Catholic life, and the handing on and receiving that tradition a major task of the Church, nevertheless it’s only one of a number of such components. Why it should be singled out as the primary one, as is inescapably the case when one uses that term to self-identify? Tradition is not so much a criterion of truth in itself as it is a means of knowing truth and, to some extent, a guarantee of truths. We receive and preserve what has been handed down from Christ because we know that they are true—true because they come from the Incarnate Word, not true because they are handed down as such. It is certainly the case that the necessity and value of tradition are especially denied today. But that doesn’t seem to be a sufficient reason to choose the term to identify ourselves. If what I said above is correct and tradition as such is not the fundamental criterion of the Faith, then it’s a mistake to identify ourselves by it simply because it’s denied so often today. We shouldn’t over emphasize a truth that someone else denies; rather, we should give it its proper place in our thinking.

And (continues our objector), are you not familiar with Pope Benedict XV’s criticism of putting a qualifier in front of Catholic that he made in his first encyclical Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum in 1914? This was shortly after the modernist crisis had been contained by the firm action of Pope Saint Pius X, and so, just as today, people back then were anxious to distinguish their Catholicism from that of others. Benedict XV wrote:

It is Our will that Catholics should abstain from certain appellations which have recently been brought into use to distinguish one group of Catholics from another. They are to be avoided not only as “profane novelties of words,” out of harmony with both truth and justice, but also because they give rise to great trouble and confusion among Catholics. Such is the nature of Catholicism that it does not admit of more or less, but must be held as a whole or as a whole rejected: “This is the Catholic faith, which unless a man believe faithfully and firmly; he cannot be saved” (Athanasian Creed). There is no need of adding any qualifying terms to the profession of Catholicism: it is quite enough for each one to proclaim “Christian is my name and Catholic my surname,” only let him endeavor to be in reality what he calls himself.

What might be said to such a line of argument?

"Dear Father": Answers for Troubled TimesII - In these times, can I be critical or skeptical of hierarchy pronouncements?

"Dear Father,

Originality in explaining the Truth: Newman's relevant words to the Synod on the Family

by Father Richard G. Cipolla

A cursory reading of the Instrumentum Laboris for the upcoming Synod on the Family does not inspire confidence in the working proceedings of the Synod itself.  It is heavily dosed with orthopraxis jargon in a catena of the results of the questionnaires that were solicited from both clergy and laity.  But the Instrumentum quite rightly asks the question of how the Church should teach about and to the Catholic family in a secular age that no longer responds to the vocabulary and imagery of a Christian world-view.  A writer for this blog recently expressed here his unease about paragraph 30, in which is discussed the need for the teaching on Natural Law to be updated and made meaningful to Catholic families and to the non-Catholic world as well. 

To Be Deep in History: Lead, Kindly Light

On the two-year anniversary of his beatification, Rorate is pleased to bring you this very special, free look at a wonderful video on John Henry Cardinal Newman. "Lead, Kindly Light" is a special 20-minute film about this great convert.

Until now, it has only been shown once: on large-screen televisions (19 September 2010) in Birmingham, England, immediately before the Pope’s special Mass with the Beatification of Cardinal Newman.

The film was produced in 2010 by the Newman Connection, in association with Corpus Christi Watershed.

It is now being made public today in celebration of the imminent release of the St. Edmund Campion Missal & Hymnal for the Traditional Latin Mass.

To learn more about the special connection between this film and the Campion project, please click here.