Newman was formed in the Church of England and all his major theological concerns were developed in an Anglican context. The rebuttal of utilitarian scepticism in the University Sermons; the ecclesial context of Christian faith and life in The Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church; the strong sense of mystery in Newman's epistemology and apologetic; the sacramental character of Christian truth are all significantly part of the Anglican inheritance that he took to the Roman Catholic Church. Furthermore Newman's early formation was ‘pre-Victorian’– he was engaged when writing his Essay on Scriptural Miracles with earlier debates with the Deists, as well as sharing in the rediscovery of the imagination that characterised Coleridge and the Romantic Movement. This paper explores these and other issues to show an important part of Newman's enduring Anglican inheritance.

John Henry Newman's study of the Church Fathers began during his years as a fellow of Oriel College and continued through his Anglican and Catholic periods almost to the end of his life. Among the various motives that attracted Newman to patristic theology, there are two that I consider especially important: scriptural hermeneutics and ecclesiology. He saw in the Fathers authentic interpreters of scripture, who read the Bible in and with the church in an exemplary way; he also found in them witnesses to the church's understanding of herself and of her offices. Through his ever more extensive reading on the doctrinal controversies in the patristic period, Newman formulated his theory of the development of doctrine, which is one of his major contributions to modern Catholic theology. Newman read the Fathers as contemporaries, as participants in the theological conversations and controversies of his own day. In the writings of the early bishops and theologians, he found a theological method that was congenial to his own.

Of the two sorts of doubt, interdenominational doubt and fundamental religious doubt, Newman does not seem to have suffered from the latter and did not write a great deal about it. What he did write, especially about conscience, is not convincing for a later secular age. What is more fruitful is how Newman related to other doubters of his age: his younger brother Francis who finished a Unitarian, and Matthew Arnold and his younger brother Tom who (twice) became a Catholic. John Newman first shunned his brother but in the end maintained friendly but distant relations with unbelievers. But Victorian doubt was inherited and the real threat to what Newman stood for came from a later generation.

Pope St Pius X's Pascendi dominici gregis, denouncing modernism as ‘the synthesis of all heresies’, was promulgated in September 1907. The (false) suspicion that its intended target was Cardinal Newman – a suggestion promoted by George Tyrrell, among others – sparked a protracted controversy in the British secular and religious press, with modernists and anti-modernists both fighting to claim Newman. After narrating the early skirmishes of this debate, this paper explores the controversy in light of two main themes: popular views regarding Newman's standing and esteem in the eyes of the curia and magisterium; and his central, symbolic role in the construction of English Catholicism. Both, I argue, fanned the flames engulfing the letters pages of the Times. Particular attention is also given to the key (and perhaps surprising) role of another great English Cardinal in defending Blessed John Henry: St Pius’‘uncompromising ultramontane’ Secretary of State, Rafael Merry del Val.

This paper addresses Newman's understanding of conscience and authority, with the main emphasis on conscience. It asks how central a place conscience holds in his theological understanding? Is the general high esteem in which Newman's perception of conscience is held – and by some even regarded as one of the integral elements of his thinking, providing it with an inner consistency – justified? Finally the relationship between conscience and authority is explored. John Henry Newman's teaching on conscience and authority is a complex but highly pertinent question which continues to enthral many, not least Pope Benedict XVI who has hailed Newman's understanding of conscience as ‘an important foundation for theological personalism’. Newman denounced the modern secularized and purely subjective understanding of conscience as he perceived it to be ‘the voice of God’. He focused his writings on conscience within the contexts of morality and theology and considered the role that conscience may play in moral decision-making and in establishing a person's belief in God. In Newman's legendary dispute with W. E. Gladstone in the 1870s the Cardinal maintained that there is no contradiction between the conscience of the individual and the authority of the Pope or of the church, as they occupy two different spheres.

This article examines the place of wonder in Newman's account of university education. It pays particular attention to Newman's ‘Rise and Progress of Universities’ (1872) rather than to his better known The Idea of a University (1873). The article first introduces some ideas about wonders and wondering, as found in medieval thought and in Newman's writings, before proceeding to the wonder that was Newman's attempt to establish a university in Dublin, and that is his history (historia) of the university: a story (fabula) that is every bit as marvellous as any medieval tale. Newman's educational romance involves the islands of Britannia and Hibernia, and the cities of Athens, Rome and Dublin. The article also considers the place of personal encounter and the written word in Newman's idea and practice of education, before finally offering some brief reflections on the diversity of modern society and university education. The article closes by suggesting the necessity of wonder for the gaining of knowledge.

The 1960s were an incredibly busy and productive time for the Dominican Yves Congar (1904–1995). In addition to drafting many seminal passages of Council documents, including Dei Verbum 8, which is the subject of this paper, he also wrote his historical-theological masterpiece, Tradition and Traditions between 1960 and 1963. Drawing on the latter's explicit references to John Henry Newman, this article unpacks the particular ways in which Newman's thought contributed to the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation through the reception by and writing of Congar. Particular attention is paid to the connatural way of knowing which stems from the gifts of the Holy Spirit, typically alluded to by Newman in his meditations on the faith of Mary.

When people think about Newman, they usually think, first of all, about his ideas, doctrinal development, the relationship between faith and reason, the place of the laity in the Church, and much else besides. But however brilliant those ideas may have been, Newman was never simply a thinker, a man trapped in his brain. The key question for him was always how to make the ideas become real. He had no interest in moving minds without touching hearts. Newly ordained as an Anglican deacon, then as a tutor at Oriel, as a leader and preacher during the early years of the Oxford Movement, as a parish priest in Birmingham, as an educator, and as a champion of the via media, of moderation in dispute, his instinct was invariably pastoral.