On the prudence of allowing everyone their private conscience without judgment
4 min • Digitized on April 28, 2023
From A Defense of the Teachings of Mary, page 6
By St. John Henry Newman
I am the last man to quarrel with this jealous deference to the voice of our conscience, whatever judgment others may form of us in consequence, for this reason,—because their case, as it at present stands, has, as you know, been my own.
You recollect well what hard things were said against us twenty-five years ago, which we knew in our hearts we did not deserve. Hence, I am now in the position of the fugitive Queen in the well-known passage; who, “haud ignara mali” herself, had learned to sympathize with those who were the inheritors of her past wanderings.
There were Priests, good men, whose zeal outstripped their knowledge, and who in consequence spoke confidently, when they would have been wiser, had they suspended their adverse judgment of those whom they had soon to welcome as brethren in communion.
We at that time were in worse plight than your friends are now, for our opponents put their very hardest thoughts of us into print. One of them wrote thus in a Letter addressed to one of the Catholic Bishops:—
“That this Oxford crisis is a real progress to Catholicism, I have all along considered a perfect delusion. … I look upon Mr. Newman, Dr. Pusey, and their associates, as wily and crafty, though unskilful guides. … The embrace of Mr. Newman is the kiss that would betray us. …
“But,—what is the most striking feature in the rancorous malignity of these men,—their calumnies are often lavished upon us, when we should be led to think that the subject-matter of their treatises elosed every avenue against their vituperation. The three last volumes [of the Tracts] have opened my eyes to the craftiness and the cunning, as well as the malice, of the members of the Oxford Convention. …
“If the Puseyites are to be the new Apostles of Great Britain, my hopes for my country are lowering and gloomy. … I would never have consented to enter the lists against this strange confraternity … if I did not feel that my own Prelate was opposed to the guile and treachery of these men. … I impeach Dr. Pusey and his friends of a deadly hatred of our religion. … What, my Lord, would the Holy See think of the works of these Puseyites? …”
Another priest, himself a convert, wrote :—
“As we approach towards Catholicity, our love and respect increases, and our violence dies away; but the bulk of these men become more rabid as they become like Rome, a plain proof of their designs. … I do not believe that they are any nearer the portals of the Catholic Church than the most prejudiced Methodist and Evangelical preacher. … Such, Rev. Sir, is an outline of my views on the Oxford movement.”
I do not say that such a view of us was unnatural; and, for myself, I readily confess, that I had used about the Church such language, that I had no claim on Catholics for any mercy.
But, after all, and in fact, they were wrong in their anticipations,—nor did their brethren agree with them at the time. Especially Dr. Wiseman (as he was then) took a larger and more generous view of us; nor did the Holy See interfere, though the writer of one of these passages invoked its judgment.
The event showed that the more cautious line of conduct was the more prudent; and one of the Bishops, who had taken part against us, with a supererogation of charity, sent me on his deathbed an expression of his sorrow for having in past years mistrusted me. A faulty conscience, faithfully obeyed, through God’s mercy, had in the long run brought me right.