I respect both your opinions. I generally avoid commentary on history because a) I am admittedly not an expert, and b) historical events are generally as likely to be controversial as any question of Biblical interpretation, and if there must be controversy, I’d rather be talking about Scripture than the Oxford Movement.
However, as an attorney, I have also learned there are usually going to be compelling arguments on both sides of any longstanding controversy, I have no more wish to be gullible than anyone else, so when I first heard about the Oxford Movement, I did do some preliminary research. I am at work right now and cannot access that, but I do remember reading Newman’s treatise on lying, in which he does evaluate there can be some narrow cases in a just cause for passive silence that is in effect deceptive. At the time I also read a corollary piece by Augustine in which he takes the harder course and opts for honesty at all times, trusting to the providence of God for outcomes.
In any event, I am with Augustine on this. Newman’s work strikes me as a precursor to relativism. Not in full bloom, as in Joe Fletcher’s situational ethics, but certainly moving away from Augustine. In this context, and given the other sources I have seen, you can understand how someone might find his doctrine of “mental reservation” a credible link with some of the Protestant misgivings about the Oxford Movement.
Nevertheless, at your prodding, I will review my sources and conclusions to see if any revision might be in order. To that end, I would appreciate it if you would direct me to these primary sources you found useful in your own research.
Peace,
SR
1. Mental reservation: nothing wrong with that. Silence is not the same as lying. You are not morally obligated to say everything you know, all the time, to everyone.
When the Nazi says, "Where are the Jew?" you can say "I'm certain I saw them heading east," mentally reserving the detail "... toward the eastern corner of my hidden basement." --- you're not morally obliged to explain everything and become an outright accomplice to murder.
Jesus Himself didn't blurt out to everybody from the first that he was the Son of God. (Some term this the "Messianic Secret." He even said, "Why do you call Me holy?"
2. Walter Walsh's "The Secret History of the Oxford Movement": I have not read the book, I have just read about it. The little I read shows the incoherence of saying the Oxford Movement was secretive and at the same time "out there publishing and openly arguing everything." The Oxford Movement was held at fault for adamantly withholding thing from public scrutiny, and for never withholding things from public scrutiny.
It does seem that years, even decades after Dr. Newman's reception into the Catholic Church, there were various intrigues whereby some Anglicans tried to re-establish Apostolic Succession by being co-ordained or re-ordained by Melkite, Greek Orthodox, or Coptic Bishops, or all three, but this does not bear on Newman's activities at all, it was intra-Anglican pedigree-fixing.
I've already told you more than I know, so I'll wisely stop here!
I don't wish to be disputatious about things that frankly do not concern me, like the validity of Anglican Holy Orders.