Cardinal John Henry Newman on…

On the Blessed Virgin Mary

I recollect one saying among others of my confessor, a Jesuit Father, one of the holiest, most prudent men I ever knew. He said that we could not love the Blessed Virgin too much, if we loved Our Lord a great deal more.

— Difficulties of Anglicans. I, 21.

In her [Mary] the destinies of the world were to be reversed, and the serpent’s head bruised. On her was bestowed the greatest honour ever put upon any individual of our fallen race. . . . in her the curse pronounced on Eve was changed to a blessing.

—”The Reverence Due to the Virgin Mary,” PPS, Volume II.

On the Sacred Liturgy

There is no such thing as abstract religion. When persons attempt to worship in this (what they call) more spiritual manner, they end, in fact, in not worshipping at all. This frequently happens. Every one may know it from his own experience of himself. Youths, for instance (and perhaps those who should know better than they), sometimes argue with themselves, “What is the need of praying statedly morning and evening? why use a form of words? why kneel? why cannot I pray in bed, or walking, or dressing?” they end in not praying at all. Again, what will the devotion of the country people be, if we strip religion of its external symbols, and bid them seek out and gaze upon the Invisible?

— PPS. II 74 (1.1.1831)

Rites which the Church has appointed, and with reason,—for the Church’s authority is from Christ, — being long used, cannot be disused without harm to our souls.

— PPS. II 77 B 78 (1.1.1831)

. . . to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words, Cit is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity.

— Loss and Gain (1848)

On a Coming Era of Organized Atheism

You will say that their theories have been in the world and are no new thing. No. Individuals have put them forth, but they have not been current and popular ideas. Christianity has never yet had experience of a world simply irreligious. Perhaps China may be an exception. We do not know enough about it to speak, but consider what the Roman and Greek world was when Christianity appeared. It was full of superstition, not of infidelity. There was much unbelief in all as regards their mythology, and in every educated man, as to eternal punishment. But there was no casting off the idea of religion, and of unseen powers who governed the world. When they spoke of Fate, even here they considered that there was a great moral governance of the world carried on by fated laws. Their first principles were the same as ours. Even among the sceptics of Athens, St. Paul could appeal to the Unknown God. Even to the ignorant populace of Lystra he could speak of the living God who did them good from heaven. And so when the northern barbarians came down at a later age, they, amid all their superstitions, were believers in an unseen Providence and in the moral law. But we are now coming to a time when the world does not acknowledge our first principles. Of course I do not deny that, as in the revolted kingdom of Israel, there will be a remnant. The history of Elias is here a great consolation for us, for he was told from heaven that even in that time of idolatrous apostasy, there were seven thousand men who had not bowed their knees to Baal. Much more it may be expected now, when our Lord has come and the Gospel been preached to the whole world, that there will be a remnant who belong to the soul of the Church, though their eyes are not opened to acknowledge her who is their true Mother. But I speak first of the educated world, scientific, literary, political, professional, artistic and next of the mass of town population, the two great classes on which the fortunes of England are turning: the thinking, speaking and acting England. My Brethren, you are coming into a world, if present appearances do not deceive, such as priests never came into before, that is, so far forth as you do go into it, so far as you go beyond your flocks, and so far as those flocks may be in great danger as under the influence of the prevailing epidemic.

— “The Infidelity of the Future” (October 2, 1873)

On Reform

But men are not easily wrought upon to be faithful advocates of any cause. Not only is the multitude fickle: but the best men, unless urged, tutored, disciplined to their work, give way; untrained nature has no principles.

It is plain every great change is effected by the few, not by the many; by the resolute, undaunted, zealous few.

Doubtless, much may be undone by the many, but nothing is done except by those who are specially trained for action.

—  P.S. I 286 (24.4.1831)

Calculation never made a hero.

—  On the Development of Doctrine, Chapter 7/2.3 (“A Supremacy of Faith”), 1845.

A few highly-endowed men will rescue the world for centuries to come.

—  U.S. 97 (22.1.1832)

On the Church and the World

[The Church] fights and she suffers, in proportion as she plays her part well; and if she is without suffering, it is because she is slumbering. Her doctrines and precepts never can be palatable to the world; and if the world does not persecute, it is because she does not preach.

—  P.S. V 237 (3.3.1839)

On the Sacred Priesthood

Had Angels been your Priests, my brethren, they could not have condoled with you, sympathised with you, have had compassion on you, felt tenderly for you, and made allowances for you, as we can…

— “Men, not Angels, the Priests of the Gospel,” Discourses to Mixed Congregations, 1849.

On Catholic Education

It is indeed the gravest of questions whether our people are to commence life with or without adequate instruction in those all‑important truths which ought to colour all thought and to direct all action; whether they are or are not to accept this visible world for their god and their all, its teaching as their only truth, and its prizes as their highest aims; for, if they do not gain, when young, that sacred knowledge which comes to us from Revelation, when will they acquire it?

— Letter to Archbishop Roger Bede Vaughan of Sydney (November 16, 1879).

On Conscience

Conscience has rights because it has duties; conscience is the voice of God, whereas it is fashionable on all hands now to consider it in one way or another a creation of man. . . .. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ, a prophet in its informations, a monarch in its peremptoriness, a priest in its blessings and anathemas, and, even though the eternal priesthood throughout the Church could cease to be, in it the sacerdotal principle would remain and would have a sway. . . . I am using the word “conscience” in the high sense in which I have already explained it, not as a fancy or an opinion, but as a dutiful obedience to what claims to be a divine voice, speaking within us; and that this is the view properly to be taken of it, I shall not attempt to prove here, but shall assume it as a first principle. . . . I add one remark. Certainly, if I am obliged to bring religion into after‑dinner toasts, (which indeed does not seem quite the thing) I shall drink to the Pope, if you please, still, to Conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.

— “Letter to the Duke of Norfolk,” 1875.

On the Fathers of the Church

The Fathers made me a Catholic, and I am not going to kick down the ladder by which I ascended into the Church. It is a ladder quite as serviceable for that purpose now, as it was twenty years ago. Though I hold, as you know, a process of development in Apostolic truth as time goes on, such development does not supersede the Fathers, but explains and completes them.

— “Letter to Pusey”, 1865.

(Editor’s note: Much of Newman’s writings can be found online on The National Institute of Newman Studies website.)