8/8/2019 Cardeal Newman

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From the Editor

Hi there,

The name Cardinal Newman seems to have accompanied me fromschooldays, although back then he was probably just a name in ahymnbook. (As an aside, I have heard many English hymns since then but few, if any, with the doctrinalclarity and elegant simplicity ofFirmly I believe and truly.) But it was only 20 years ago or so that I metJohn Henry Newman in his autobiographicalApologia Pro Vita Sua and in Meriol Trevor's two-volumebiography and became a confirmed admirer.

What I mainly remember from those sources was that, thanks to his deep sincerity and commitment to

the truth, he gave himself an extraordinarily arduous life, full of public controversy, personalmisunderstandings, impossible jobs - like founding a Catholic university in Ireland without any money -poverty, and suspicion even from the highest levels in the Catholic Church. That sort of thing, however,seems to go with the territory - of becoming a saint, that is.

In anticipation of his beatification by Pope Benedict next Thursday, we have three articles on CardinalNewman today. Jack Valero, press officer for the beatification, writes about making the most of thecontroversy swirling around the event - as much on account of the Pope as of Newman himself - to bringhome to the English that Newman really is one of them, and very relevant to the issues dividing Britishsociety today.

FrDaniel Seward, parish priest of the Oxford Oratory founded by Newman, looks more closely at thoseissues, which have come down to us directly from Newman's era: aggressive secularism on the one handand anemic religion on the other, with the two merging, in Pope Benedict's famous phrase, in the"dictatorship of relativism". Against that conspiracy between bullies and sloths, Newman held fast to faith,truth and conscience.

But he was no arid intellectual. Newman scholar FrJuan Velez writes with great insight of his capacityfor friendship, summed up the motto Newman borrowed from another saint, Cor ad cor loquitur(heartspeaks to heart). Here is a straightforward account of this quality of Newman which some today are benton misinterpreting.

Our other theme today, on the eve of another 9/11 anniversary, is war. MercatorNet editorMichael

Cook asks, and answers, the hard question about Operation Iraqi Freedom: was it a just war? GeorgeFriedman says that US foreign policy has become too narrowly focused on counter-terrorism since 9/11.And Zac Alstin draws an important ethical lesson about modern warfare from the London Blitz. With thewar on terror continuing in Afghanistan, we have to do some hard thinking about when and how we usemilitary force.

Given the role that religion has come to play in geopolitics, I wonder what Cardinal Newman would haveto say about these things. Any guesses?

As always, we welcome your feedback.

Carolyn Moynihan,Deputy Editor,MercatorNet

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