CHAPTER ONE
THE BEATING HEART IS MERCY
The decision to take âOut of Shadows and Images into the Truthâ as the epitaph on his tombstone, was the most fitting homage John Henry Newman paid his entire life. This maxim - Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem â is more than an epitaph: it is the defining principle that ruled Newman, from the beginning to the end. The most brilliant expression of the virtue of truth in Newman, is dramatized in the Apologia Pro Vita Sua. There, he sets out to defend himself against a âscurrilous public attack by Charles Kingsleyâ on the sincerity of his actions and on the truth about his newfound home, the Roman Catholic Church. Newman expresses his disgust at the way Kingsley focuses on him, and âcertainly, here was an opportunity to practice what Newman had so often preached, that one must suffer for the truth.â
However, like Paul, in the Acts of the Apostles, Newmanâs search for the truth had thrown him from his high intellectual horse into a spiritual turmoil. In the Acts of the Apostles, Paul reflects on this remarkable experience:
âThus I journeyed to DamascusâŚAt middayâŚI saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining round me and those who journeyed with me. And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, âSaul, Saul, why do you persecute me?ââ (Acts 26:12-14)
Newmanâs spiritual turmoil would eventually direct him to seek out assistance, not merely in intellectual curiosity or scholarly debates, but also in the power of Godâs mercy. From the high horse of rabbinical scholarship Paul would bow down before Ananias; and from the high horse of Oxford scholarship, Newman would bow down before Fr Dominic Barberi. Their conversion stories demonstrate a certain interconnection between the search for truth and the power of mercy in human life.
I should like to say that this is not just another essay on Newmanâs search for the truth, but an essay about how truth and mercy wedded in the rich spiritual journey of J. H. Newman and how these things are relevant to us today. Let us now plunge into the deeper meanings of truth and mercy in the life of Cardinal Newman. We begin with the truth.
The âfake newsâ analysis of media houses today seems to be getting exaggerated. But there is something certainly true in this analysis. Someone has called the present times the post-truth generation. In fact, the media is a powerful metaphor of how this postmodern era more often than not, turns truth into a social construct, creates their own âtruthsâ and allows ethical issues shift with the shifting political polls. Indeed we are living in a generation where dishonesty has become commonplace, and truth more often than not, is sacrificed in the altar of political or religious correctness. Speaking about speaking the truth in todayâs media houses, the famous American film star and producer Denzel Washington made some statements; he said, âone of the effects of too much information is the need to be first, not even to be true anymore.â
âIn our society, now itâs just first â who cares, get it out there. We donât care who it hurts. We donât care who we destroy. We donât care if itâs true,â
What is striking about Denzel Washington here is his love of truth. People are losing confidence not only in media houses but in cultural, political, and religious structures, that no more represent what life truly is.
Because John Henry Newman allowed himself to be led by the kindly light of Truth, he built on Augustine of Hippoâs example, and was among the thinkers of his day that searched for truth in all the hidden corners of the world. On the preeminence of truth, Newman inscribes the following epigrammatic words in a letter to an Anglican friend:
Truth can fight its battle. It has a reality in it, which shivers to pieces swords of earth. As far as we are not on the side of truth, we shall shiver to bits, and I am willing it should be so.
The complexity of the world we live in, has made it a difficult feat to find truth. Newman believed that passion, patience, doubt, certitude and grace were hallmarks of the search for the truth. Such virtues would lead Newman to philosophically reexamine his life and the world he lives in:
I look out of myself into the world of men, and there I see a sight which fills me with unspeakable distress. The world seems simply to give the lie to that great truth, of which my whole being is so full; and the effect upon me is, in consequence, as a matter of necessity, as confusing as if it denied that I am in existence myself.
On this, Newman would argue that since he looks into the mirror and sees that he is, he has no difficulty in looking into this busy concrete world and seeing the reflection of God who created the world.
Newman believed in the Church and believed that she was the bulwark and dispenser of Truth. He didnât like, seeing truth and the Church being caricatured by people who knew little about it. He would not fear to tackle high profiled personalities like Gladstone when they engaged in such aberrations. An example in his writings of what we are talking about is The Letter to the Duke of Norfolk. Important here is to consider what prompted the writing of the letter. The letter came in the aftermath of the First Vatican Councilâs definition of the doctrine of papal infallibility. Gladstone the English Prime minister had infuriated Newman with his statement that Catholics could not be trusted citizens of the country because one could not simultaneously be faithful to the Catholic Church and loyal to the State. Newman believed this to be a misrepresentation of English Catholicism. For him, the affirmation of Gladstone was the night of falsehood to be countered with the light of truth; and Newman skillfully corrects this fabrication in his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk. After having maintained that Catholics are duty bound to obey the Pope in his divine function, Newman reminds his countrymen in this letter that it is not wholly Catholic theology that says a thing is good or bad merely because an authority says so, as he concludes thus: âCertainly, if I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts (which indeed does not seem quite the thing), I shall drink â to the Pope, if you please, - still, to Conscience first, and to the pope afterwardsâ. The event of this letter to the Duke paints the picture of Newmanâs investigative excellence and intellectual honesty in the quest for religious truth. Ultimately, it confirmed the profundity of Newmanâs comprehension of the Catholic Church.
Another masterpiece of Newman written in defense of the truth is Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England. In this particular book, he posited that the fiercest enemy of truth was prejudice. By prejudice here he meant pre-judgment, judgment by anticipation. Defamation, falsification and parody of the Catholic faith had become a natural phenomenon in Newmanâs England. No matter how much you were gifted, no matter how much you contributed to nation building, to be a Catholic was to be a profligate. In fact, in this England, the Anglicans (in the words of Newman himself)were âkinder even to their dogs and cats than usâ. So much dirt was flung on Catholicism. To be able to strip the Catholic church of these fallacies and fiction, Newman exposed prejudice for what it truly was. Prejudice, he said, âcan tell falsehoods to our dishonor by the scoreâ; it is âjealous of truthâ; prejudiced people âif they condescend to listen for a moment to your arguments it is in order to pick holes in them..â In the context of Newmanâs England, prejudice tamed facts, misstated Church doctrines, diffused wild allegation, defamed the character of holy men. Newman, faithful to his principle of defender of truth, became one of the greatest warriors against prejudice during his times. He did this so entirely and valiantly especially in his Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England. As a consequence, the following homage by Catholic Times was paid him immediately news came out that he was dead:
John Henry Newman conquered prejudice and won universal affection by the noble simplicity of his character, his fearless and unswerving adhesion to truth, his high and lofty ideal of duty, and his incomparable intellectual gifts. Those who are old enough to remember the outbursts of anti-Catholic feeling which in years gone by were so frequent amongst the Protestants of Great Britain cease not to wonder at the change which has come over the land. How much of this change is due to the part played by Cardinal NEWMAN in the national life! (âŚ) And as he found light himself he diffused it (âŚ) ...