Pope Benedict "sanitising Newman"?

Ther Hermeneutic of Continuity ^ | 5/13/2010 | Fr. Tim Finnigan

[markomalley]

In the Times article attacking the beatification of Newman, John Cornwell does not lose the opportunity to have a go at Pope Benedict whom he says is "clearly bent on sanitising Newman’s progressive Catholicism."

Cardinal Ratzinger's 1991 lecture on Conscience and Truth is well worth reading for an understanding of how he understands conscience and takes Newman's view that it is not merely something subjective but the voice of God within us. As he explains when discussing the Newman toast quote:

Modern man, who presupposes the opposition of authority to subjectivity, has difficulty understanding this. For him, conscience stands on the side of subjectivity and is the expression of the freedom of the subject. Authority, on the other hand, appears to him as the constraint on, threat to and even the negation of, freedom. So then we must go deeper to recover a vision in which this kind of opposition does not obtain.

He goes on to show that the lifelong opposition to liberalism which Newman himself acknowledged when speaking on the occasion of his elevation to the cardinalate, led him to understand conscience as the perceptible and demanding voice of truth.

In this lecture, Ratzinger also made a point which is relevant to other attempts to smear him. He tells of a particular conversation with academic colleagues concerning the justifying power of the erroneous conscience. Someone countered that if this thesis were true, then the Nazi SS would be justified and we should seek them in heaven because "they carried out all their atrocities with fanatic conviction and complete certainty of conscience". Another colleague responded with assurance that this would be the case. Ratzinger comments:

Since that conversation, I knew with complete certainty that something was wrong with the theory of justifying power of the subjective conscience, that, in other words, a concept of conscience which leads to such conclusions must be false.

[Puddleglum]

[livius]

I’m very puzzled by this. Newman has never needed “sanitizing.” His “Grammar of Assent” is entirely about achieving faith in an objective truth (which of course is what led him to the Church) so he was thinking about the issue long before he became a Catholic. He consistently stresses the responsibility of the intellect and the necessity to seek the truth and not merely to wallow in subjectivity. Perhaps people get confused because he puts a considerable amount of emphasis on the individual and the fact that the individual decision is key...but then, so did Jesus.

[markomalley]

Newman has never needed “sanitizing.”

Of course not.

But since when would that impact The Times' coverage of him?

[johniegrad]

But Newman was certainly a dissident when it came to overbearing papal authority, creeping infallibility, the downgrading of the laity, the primacy of papal dogma over individual conscience.

No reason to be confused. The Times article demonstrates a total and complete misunderstanding of the concept of conscience.

[livius]

Newman was opposed to the idea of papal infallibility, but when the doctrine was proclaimed, he accepted it, although he didn’t like it. But that’s hardly a radical! However, the Times, as you say, does misunderstand the whole concept.

[dangus]

I’d really be interested to read Newman on papal infallibility, and his objections, because my understanding of the proclamation of the doctrine of papal infallibility was almost closer to establishing narrow theological limits on infallibility rather than expanding papal authority.