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A Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk: On Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Recent Expostulation
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This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
122 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1874
About the author
John Henry Newman
2,139 books300 followersSaint John Henry Cardinal Newman was an important figure in the religious history of England in the 19th century. He was known nationally by the mid-1830s.
Originally an evangelical Oxford University academic and priest in the Church of England, Newman then became drawn to the high-church tradition of Anglicanism. He became known as a leader of, and an able polemicist for, the Oxford Movement, an influential and controversial grouping of Anglicans who wished to return to the Church of England many Catholic beliefs and liturgical rituals from before the English Reformation. In this the movement had some success. However, in 1845 Newman, joined by some but not all of his followers, left the Church of England and his teaching post at Oxford University and was received into the Catholic Church. He was quickly ordained as a priest and continued as an influential religious leader, based in Birmingham. In 1879, he was created a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in recognition of his services to the cause of the Catholic Church in England. He was instrumental in the founding of the Catholic University of Ireland, which evolved into University College Dublin, today the largest university in Ireland.
Newman was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on 19 September 2010 during his visit to the United Kingdom. He was then canonised by Pope Francis on 13 October 2019.
Newman was also a literary figure of note: his major writings including the Tracts for the Times (1833–1841), his autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1865–66), the Grammar of Assent (1870), and the poem The Dream of Gerontius (1865),[6] which was set to music in 1900 by Edward Elgar. He wrote the popular hymns "Lead, Kindly Light" and "Praise to the Holiest in the Height" (taken from Gerontius).
Originally an evangelical Oxford University academic and priest in the Church of England, Newman then became drawn to the high-church tradition of Anglicanism. He became known as a leader of, and an able polemicist for, the Oxford Movement, an influential and controversial grouping of Anglicans who wished to return to the Church of England many Catholic beliefs and liturgical rituals from before the English Reformation. In this the movement had some success. However, in 1845 Newman, joined by some but not all of his followers, left the Church of England and his teaching post at Oxford University and was received into the Catholic Church. He was quickly ordained as a priest and continued as an influential religious leader, based in Birmingham. In 1879, he was created a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in recognition of his services to the cause of the Catholic Church in England. He was instrumental in the founding of the Catholic University of Ireland, which evolved into University College Dublin, today the largest university in Ireland.
Newman was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on 19 September 2010 during his visit to the United Kingdom. He was then canonised by Pope Francis on 13 October 2019.
Newman was also a literary figure of note: his major writings including the Tracts for the Times (1833–1841), his autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1865–66), the Grammar of Assent (1870), and the poem The Dream of Gerontius (1865),[6] which was set to music in 1900 by Edward Elgar. He wrote the popular hymns "Lead, Kindly Light" and "Praise to the Holiest in the Height" (taken from Gerontius).
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 4, 2021
Rare example of Newman's political thought (and more importantly reflections on the Council and the place of Catholics in society)
December 17, 2025
"La fe, contando incluso con un especial auxilio divino, es una virtud muy difícil, en la medida en que requiere el ejercicio de la razón" ~ J.H.N.
En mi primer encuentro con Newman, este tratado sobre la conciencia me ha ofrecido una lectura breve, pero exigente y profunda. Suave, pero directa. Compleja, pero precisa. Sé que este será solo el primero de varios futuros encuentros con sus escritos, y tengo ganas de seguir explorando.
En mi primer encuentro con Newman, este tratado sobre la conciencia me ha ofrecido una lectura breve, pero exigente y profunda. Suave, pero directa. Compleja, pero precisa. Sé que este será solo el primero de varios futuros encuentros con sus escritos, y tengo ganas de seguir explorando.
May 27, 2026
Though a relatively short volume, only highly seasoned theologians are likely to read this without having to do some background research. Most Irish readers will be broadly familiar with the position of Catholics in relation to the English government in the nineteenth century, and will therefore find Cardinal Newman’s point-by-point refutation of Gladstone understandable. What presents the real challenge is the way Newman casually refers to incidents in Church history while appearing to assume that his readers are already intimately familiar with them.
One particularly dense paragraph, used by Newman for the purposes of comparison, sent me off on a substantial research tangent. The passage assumes profound familiarity with one of the major Christological controversies of the fifth century, beginning with the condemnation of Nestorianism at the First Council of Ephesus (431). Nestorianism involved a belief in an excessively sharp division between Christ’s divinity and humanity. Its opposite error, Monophysitism, flourished in reaction to this condemnation and held that Christ possessed only one nature after the Incarnation.
The Second Council of Ephesus (449) was later convened to address the Monophysite controversy. It subsequently became known as the 'Robber Council' because of the coercive and disorderly manner in which proceedings were conducted. Opponents were shouted down, intimidation and violence were employed, and St. Flavian of Constantinople was physically assaulted and later died from his injuries. The Monophysites also refused to allow Pope Leo I’s doctrinal letter to be read aloud. The eventual correction came at the Council of Chalcedon (451), where Pope Leo’s intervention helped clarify that Christ is one person in two natures, divine and human, 'without confusion, change, division, or separation.'
Newman’s writing is suffused with such deep historical knowledge that passages like this are far from unusual in so short a work. His prose is nuanced, layered, elegant, and at times gently sarcastic as he systematically dismantles what he regards as Gladstone’s public panic-mongering and misinformation concerning the declarations of the First Vatican Council.
One motivating factor behind Newman’s response was a private letter he wrote to his bishop in 1870 expressing concerns about the controversies surrounding papal infallibility, a letter that was later leaked to the public. This leak was an event Newman found deeply disturbing. In the letter, he used unusually strong language about the ultramontane faction advocating for the definition of papal infallibility, most famously referring to it as 'an insolent and aggressive faction.' Historically, the leak appears to have occurred indirectly through episcopal circulation: Bishop Ullathorne showed the letter to other bishops, and somewhere along that chain copies were made and portions found their way into the press. Newman himself never fully discovered how the leak occurred.
The controversy has an unexpectedly modern quality. Private correspondence is leaked, partial quotations are weaponized out of context, and a media storm follows. Newman’s frustration throughout the pamphlet stems partly from the fact that, while the original recipient understood the context of the letter, the wider public did not. The letter had never been intended as a public manifesto, yet it exposed private episcopal counsel to partisan interpretation. Newman valued private candour, but he was also acutely conscious of the responsibilities of public rhetoric. One can only begin to imagine how Newman would view a world in which social media soundbites play a pivotal role in shaping public opinion.
My initial purpose in reading this short work was not to disappear down historical research tangents; I simply wanted a clearer understanding of Newman’s conception of conscience. In practice, however, one can only fully appreciate his arguments by understanding the controversies to which he constantly alludes. Realistically, only Newman scholars, seasoned theologians, and readers with substantial historical or theological background will move through this text without pausing frequently to peel back the onion layers of Newman’s extraordinarily textured and learned prose. That said, perhaps it's fitting that the most recently declared Doctor of the Church demands sustained attention from his readers.
One particularly dense paragraph, used by Newman for the purposes of comparison, sent me off on a substantial research tangent. The passage assumes profound familiarity with one of the major Christological controversies of the fifth century, beginning with the condemnation of Nestorianism at the First Council of Ephesus (431). Nestorianism involved a belief in an excessively sharp division between Christ’s divinity and humanity. Its opposite error, Monophysitism, flourished in reaction to this condemnation and held that Christ possessed only one nature after the Incarnation.
The Second Council of Ephesus (449) was later convened to address the Monophysite controversy. It subsequently became known as the 'Robber Council' because of the coercive and disorderly manner in which proceedings were conducted. Opponents were shouted down, intimidation and violence were employed, and St. Flavian of Constantinople was physically assaulted and later died from his injuries. The Monophysites also refused to allow Pope Leo I’s doctrinal letter to be read aloud. The eventual correction came at the Council of Chalcedon (451), where Pope Leo’s intervention helped clarify that Christ is one person in two natures, divine and human, 'without confusion, change, division, or separation.'
Newman’s writing is suffused with such deep historical knowledge that passages like this are far from unusual in so short a work. His prose is nuanced, layered, elegant, and at times gently sarcastic as he systematically dismantles what he regards as Gladstone’s public panic-mongering and misinformation concerning the declarations of the First Vatican Council.
One motivating factor behind Newman’s response was a private letter he wrote to his bishop in 1870 expressing concerns about the controversies surrounding papal infallibility, a letter that was later leaked to the public. This leak was an event Newman found deeply disturbing. In the letter, he used unusually strong language about the ultramontane faction advocating for the definition of papal infallibility, most famously referring to it as 'an insolent and aggressive faction.' Historically, the leak appears to have occurred indirectly through episcopal circulation: Bishop Ullathorne showed the letter to other bishops, and somewhere along that chain copies were made and portions found their way into the press. Newman himself never fully discovered how the leak occurred.
The controversy has an unexpectedly modern quality. Private correspondence is leaked, partial quotations are weaponized out of context, and a media storm follows. Newman’s frustration throughout the pamphlet stems partly from the fact that, while the original recipient understood the context of the letter, the wider public did not. The letter had never been intended as a public manifesto, yet it exposed private episcopal counsel to partisan interpretation. Newman valued private candour, but he was also acutely conscious of the responsibilities of public rhetoric. One can only begin to imagine how Newman would view a world in which social media soundbites play a pivotal role in shaping public opinion.
My initial purpose in reading this short work was not to disappear down historical research tangents; I simply wanted a clearer understanding of Newman’s conception of conscience. In practice, however, one can only fully appreciate his arguments by understanding the controversies to which he constantly alludes. Realistically, only Newman scholars, seasoned theologians, and readers with substantial historical or theological background will move through this text without pausing frequently to peel back the onion layers of Newman’s extraordinarily textured and learned prose. That said, perhaps it's fitting that the most recently declared Doctor of the Church demands sustained attention from his readers.
May 7, 2026
Newman’s Letter was occasioned by some indignant remarks by William Gladstone, who had just completed a term of office as Prime Minister. He complained essentially that Catholics necessarily had a divided loyalty, as their obedience to the pope made them poor citizens. His attack focused upon 4 issues, a voting issue involving Ireland and three issues involving the pope: the encyclical Quanta Cura, the Syllabus of Errors and Vatican I.
Newman responds at considerable length in this book. He makes some very pertinent points which are timelessly valid, especially where he highlights misreadings of papal documents. But he also makes quite a few ad hominem points which may have had force to his immediate readers but they are largely irrelevant to modern readers. For example, when dealing with Religious Freedom he chides Gladestone with rebuking the pope for criticising religious freedom, when Newman’s own religious freedom is limited in Birmingham. That of course is no longer the case for UK citizens, so the point he is making now lacks force.
Where the book excels is in its analysis of the Syllabus of Errors. Many other Catholics of his era (and some modern readers) treat the 80 propositions of the Syllabus as a list of condemned propositions. But nothing could be further from the truth. Newman makes the point very clearly that they are just an aide memoire for bishops. The list includes references for where they arose in real documents by the pope, and that is where any authority they have, will arise from. So Newman goes through those contexts, showing exactly what they meant in their original contexts.
What he finds is that some of the propositions in the Syllabus of Errors are not even particularly accurate summaries of the real (authoritative) statements by the pope in the texts cited. And when he looks at their context, what Newman often found was a comment aimed at a very particular situation, which in the Syllabus can be all too easily misread as a generalised timeless truth. For example, one of the criticisms of Religious Freedom is actually a comment critical of Spain for breaking the terms of its treaty with the Vatican. The point is expressed in general terms, but the real specific point made by the pope was about the situation in Spain.
Should readers really try to draw a timeless truth about all countries, from that particular situation? Newman is not the only Catholic commentator to insist that that would be inappropriate. Ten years earlier Bishop Dupanloup noticed that it would be absurd to read the Syllabus as if it was containing general condemnations of Religious Freedom, as the pope himself allows (or tolerates) some non-Catholic worship in Rome. The pope would be condemning himself on those kinds of expansive readings of the document.
Newman’s careful scholarship unravels issues in the encyclical too, and it is particularly deployed on the issues around Vatican I and papal infallibility. In those chapters he writes in a much more personally engaged way, as people have misquoted him and someone has leaked a private letter he wrote. So he has very real ‘skin in the game’ and he sets out to set the record straight.
Textually the version of the book I read was the (free) original 1875 version which can be found on the internet. With hindsight I wish I’d read a more modern version with some footnotes, as there are some background issues which Newman glosses over which it would be helpful to get some further information on (such as the legal issue involving the voters in Ireland). This original version also has a few instances of untranslated Latin and Greek in the text.
Overall, this is a classic text which deserves a modern readership. Its style is very of its era, so it is not necessarily the most conducive for modern readers. But the theology, and the application of history to bring out the theology is an object lesson in how to read documents and theologise properly from them.
Newman responds at considerable length in this book. He makes some very pertinent points which are timelessly valid, especially where he highlights misreadings of papal documents. But he also makes quite a few ad hominem points which may have had force to his immediate readers but they are largely irrelevant to modern readers. For example, when dealing with Religious Freedom he chides Gladestone with rebuking the pope for criticising religious freedom, when Newman’s own religious freedom is limited in Birmingham. That of course is no longer the case for UK citizens, so the point he is making now lacks force.
Where the book excels is in its analysis of the Syllabus of Errors. Many other Catholics of his era (and some modern readers) treat the 80 propositions of the Syllabus as a list of condemned propositions. But nothing could be further from the truth. Newman makes the point very clearly that they are just an aide memoire for bishops. The list includes references for where they arose in real documents by the pope, and that is where any authority they have, will arise from. So Newman goes through those contexts, showing exactly what they meant in their original contexts.
What he finds is that some of the propositions in the Syllabus of Errors are not even particularly accurate summaries of the real (authoritative) statements by the pope in the texts cited. And when he looks at their context, what Newman often found was a comment aimed at a very particular situation, which in the Syllabus can be all too easily misread as a generalised timeless truth. For example, one of the criticisms of Religious Freedom is actually a comment critical of Spain for breaking the terms of its treaty with the Vatican. The point is expressed in general terms, but the real specific point made by the pope was about the situation in Spain.
Should readers really try to draw a timeless truth about all countries, from that particular situation? Newman is not the only Catholic commentator to insist that that would be inappropriate. Ten years earlier Bishop Dupanloup noticed that it would be absurd to read the Syllabus as if it was containing general condemnations of Religious Freedom, as the pope himself allows (or tolerates) some non-Catholic worship in Rome. The pope would be condemning himself on those kinds of expansive readings of the document.
Newman’s careful scholarship unravels issues in the encyclical too, and it is particularly deployed on the issues around Vatican I and papal infallibility. In those chapters he writes in a much more personally engaged way, as people have misquoted him and someone has leaked a private letter he wrote. So he has very real ‘skin in the game’ and he sets out to set the record straight.
Textually the version of the book I read was the (free) original 1875 version which can be found on the internet. With hindsight I wish I’d read a more modern version with some footnotes, as there are some background issues which Newman glosses over which it would be helpful to get some further information on (such as the legal issue involving the voters in Ireland). This original version also has a few instances of untranslated Latin and Greek in the text.
Overall, this is a classic text which deserves a modern readership. Its style is very of its era, so it is not necessarily the most conducive for modern readers. But the theology, and the application of history to bring out the theology is an object lesson in how to read documents and theologise properly from them.
June 1, 2021
In this academically rigorous yet popular and understandable work, the famous Anglican convert to Catholicism, John Henry Newman, defends himself and his fellow Catholics from Prime Minister William Gladstone's claim that English Catholics could not be loyal subjects of England if they clung to the doctrine of Papal infallibility. I found this book to be an extraordinarily humorous and witty explanation and apologetic defense of individual conscience and of the extent and limits of the Catholic teaching on Papal infallibility. This book helped me immensely, and I highly recommend it!
April 7, 2022
Un tratado sobre la conciencia, entendida no como mecanismo egoísta o deseo de ser coherente con una opinión propia (que puede ser falsa), sino como «ley aprehendida por la mente en cada hombre» y como Mensajero de Dios. Es una obra maravillosa que explica el desarrollo genuino de una idea, defendida con la pasión que caracteriza a Newman. Una joya de gran valor.
January 6, 2022
Descubre la esencia del pensamiento y la gran personalidad de Newman con este libro
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews