This evening at St. Pius X in Fairfield, CT, Fr Richard Cipolla celebrated the Votive Mass for St. John. Henry Newman whose feast was yesterday. Here is his sermon:
Yesterday was the feast of Saint John Henry Newman. We could not celebrate this
feast because yesterday was a Sunday. So this Mass is being celebrated as a
Votive Mass of St John Henry Newman. And why should we do this? Because it
is this saint who was canonized only 3 years ago that is truly a man for our times. I
must confess that my devotion to him is intensely personal, for it was he who
guided me into the Catholic Church and it was and still he who helps sustain my
faith in these times in which the faith handed down from the apostles is threatened
with ferocity by a non-believing and crassly self-centered world from without and
threatened by those within the Church who advocate for an abandonment of the
teaching Tradition of the Church from Jesus Christ himself in the name of
openness to the changing world.
Newman was one of the most brilliant minds of the second half of the nineteenth
century in England. His conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism rocked both
the established Church and the intellectual centers of England, especially the
University of Oxford. His writings as a Catholic on the Development of Doctrine,
on the purpose of a University, on what it means to assent in faith, and his
understanding of the role of the laity in the development of doctrine, his
understanding of conscience in the life of the Christian, his poetry, his prayers and
mediations, his sermons: a truly remarkable Catholic man.
He had his detractors both outside and within the Church. He suffered both as an
Anglican and as a Catholic, and he understood this because suffering is the mark of
a man that is being conformed to Christ. He received a most wonderful surprise
near the end of his life when Pope Leo XIII made him a cardinal. His acceptance
speech made in the presence of the Pope in Rome should be read by every Catholic
today. The following are excerpts from that speech.
And, I rejoice to say, to one great mischief I have from the first opposed myself.
For thirty, forty, fifty years I have resisted to the best of my powers the spirit of
liberalism in religion. Never did Holy Church need champions against it more
sorely than now, when, alas! it is an error overspreading, as a snare, the whole
earth.
Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but
that one creed is as good as another, and this is the teaching which is gaining
substance and force daily. It is inconsistent with any recognition of any religion, as
true. It teaches that all are to be tolerated, for all are matters of opinion. Revealed
religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not
miraculous; and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy. Devotion is not necessarily founded on faith. Men may go to Protestant
Churches and to Catholic, may get good from both and belong to neither. They
may fraternise together in spiritual thoughts and feelings, without having any
views at all of doctrine in common, or seeing the need of them. Since, then, religion
is so personal a peculiarity and so private a possession, we must of necessity
ignore it in the intercourse of man with man. If a man puts on a new religion every
morning, what is that to you? It is as impertinent to think about a man’s religion as
about his sources of income or his management of his family. Religion is in no
sense the bond of society.
Now, everywhere that goodly framework of society, which is the creation of
Christianity, is throwing off Christianity. Instead of the Church’s authority and
teaching, they would substitute first of all a universal and a thoroughly secular
education, calculated to bring home to every individual that to be orderly,
industrious, and sober, is his personal interest. Then, for great working principles
to take the place of religion, for the use of the masses thus carefully educated, it
provides — the broad fundamental ethical truths, of justice, benevolence, veracity,
and the like; proved experience; and those natural laws which exist and act
spontaneously in society, and in social matters, whether physical or psychological;
for instance, in government, trade, finance, sanitary experiments, and the
intercourse of nations. As to Religion, it is a private luxury, which a man may have
if he will; but which of course he must pay for, and which he must not obtrude
upon others, or indulge in to their annoyance.
I lament it deeply, because I foresee that it may be the ruin of many souls; but I
have no fear at all that it really can do aught of serious harm to the Word of God,
to Holy Church, to our Almighty King, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Faithful and
True, or to His Vicar on earth. Christianity has been too often in what seemed
deadly peril, that we should fear for it any new, trial now. So far is certain; on the
other hand, what is uncertain, and in these great contests commonly is uncertain,
and what is commonly a great surprise, when it is witnessed, is the particular
mode by which, in the event, Providence rescues and saves His elect inheritance.
Sometimes our enemy is turned into a friend; sometimes he is despoiled of that
special virulence of evil which was so threatening; sometimes he falls to pieces of
himself; sometimes he does just so much as is beneficial, and then is removed.
Commonly the Church has nothing more to do than to go on in her own proper
duties, in confidence and peace; to stand still and to see the salvation of God. “The
meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace” (Ps 37:11).
What Saint John Henry Newman wrote over 100 years ago, applies in much
greater force in our own time. Would that the hierarchy of the Church today read
what Newman wrote about dogma, about liberty, about Tradition, about the
struggle between the world and the Church and apply it to these times of the de-
Christianization of our society and apply it with loving chastisement to those
within the bosom of the Church who have deliberately forgotten the source and
meaning of truth.
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