Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations (Works of Cardinal Newman: Birmingham Oratory Millennium Edition)

by John Henry Newman, James Tolhurst (Introduction)

John Henry Newman, aged 48, now a Catholic priest, arrives in Birmingham in 1849 as the head of a religious community. Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations, "more rhetorical than my former sermons," examines Catholicism from the inside and deals with the popular prejudices which contemporaries entertained of it. We can see the same touch which he displayed in the pulpit of St. Mary's now used to explain the truths of the faith which he had embraced. But he allows his humor and irony to enable him to reach those "who do not narrow their belief to their experience." This edition reveals the context of the Discourses and contains a wealth of references.

Genres: Catholic, Christianity, Christian

494 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1984

About the author

Saint 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).

Reviews

[Tyler Proctor · Rating 5 out of 5]

4 for the theology, 5 for the writing. If he were around to preach to me in person, I'd definitely be Roman Catholic.

[Gene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Newman's sermons are masterpieces of literature and logic. And they do not just touch the mind, though they do that with clarity and persuasion, but they also touch the soul and make one want to be a better Christian. I went through the book slowly and with reflection, so it took a little longer to read than I had expected, but it was time very well spent. He is a master apologist who feels no awe in the presence of the rationalists of his time. It appears he pities them more than despises them. And he also does not lose touch with the common working man or woman, often addressing them directly, though his scholarly world is far removed from theirs. It is written in an older, more dry style, and those who are put off by that will perhaps not benefit from the book. Now that he has been declared a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, I believe it will not be long before he is also designated a Doctor of the Church like Ambrose, Aquinas, and Augustine.