Apologia: A Memoir

by Aidan Nichols

(Gracewing, Leominster, 2023)

Fr. Aidan Nichols, the outstanding English theologian, has given us a succinct memoir. Apologia is the odyssey of a theologian and writer in the Catholic world after the Second Vatican Council. We travel to various places: from England to Norway to Jamaica to even (potentially) Sikkim (to name but a few). We meet religious orders and congregations of all kinds and character: Fr. Nichols’s own Dominicans, the Benedictines, the Traditionalist Dominicans and finally the Norbertines (Premonstratensians). Given the state of the Church today, Fr. Nichols’s saga may at times remind us not so much of Homer’s odyssey but of those written by the Greek poet’s 19th and 20th century successors: Flaubert, James Joyce, and Celine. Yet Fr. Nichols never succumbs to bitterness, rage and certainly not nihilism and despair – despite what he sees about him. He maintains throughout a serene and dispassionate attitude. Coming from an English writer, of course, this book now and then exhibits a sly humor;

(The parish church) was the work of the Clifton family…John Talbot Clifton, an explorer, turned out to be the last sane(and Roman Catholic ) squire…One of the richest families in Lancashire, occupying its finest Georgian house, their only son managed to bankrupt the Cliftons – and conform to the Church of England. (p.4)

We see also the author’s fine sense of detail – here describing his home county of Lancashire. Indeed, some of the intriguing, colorful information on the author’s life in his native country may be challenging for the reader not from the UK.

Fr. Nichols is a convert from a kind of nebulous Anglicanism. An encounter with an icon of the Virgin in an Orthodox church prompted his conversion. From that point forward Fr. Nichols was sensitive to the role of beauty in Christianity. He also retained from this experience a lifelong professional interest in the Eastern Churches and their theology.

At Oxford the joined the Dominicans. Now at that moment that order was going through a “revolution’ in the wake of Vatican II. Nichols was aware from the very beginning that the Dominicans were all over the map. And the state of their studies left much to be desired:

The word “shambolic” would scarcely be too harsh. (p.25)

Harsh conflicts soon developed in the community on, for example, the role of Marxism.  Yet, despite it all, a younger generation of solid Dominican priests and scholars did arise out of the chaos of the post-conciliar years. Fr. Nichols was among them.

Fr. Nichols describes some of his intellectual guiding lights – especially Aquinas and Hans Urs von Balthasar. Later, Joseph Ratzinger’s book of interviews Rapporto Sulla Fede (the “Ratzinger Report”) was “life changing.” As noted, he also explored deeply Eastern Orthodox and patristic theology and has written about everybody from Sigrid Undset to Matthias Joseph Scheeben. In contrast to what you would have perhaps expected, Fr. Nichols does not present a detailed narrative of his writings. At times in this book, he gives only a rapid-fire list of his numerous contributions. 

Fr. Nichols is no liturgical traditionalist; he states the is “moderately content” with the new rite. (p.73) Indeed, liturgical issues of any kind play a minor role in Apologia – as opposed to the author’s search for a community of religious brethren leading an orderly life under a rule. However:

At the Abbey of Einsiedeln, in the chapel of the Black Madonna, I had my first experience as celebrant of how the liturgy could go awry. Beautifully set up with a (Novus Ordo) Latin missal at an east-facing altar and a lay monk to make the responses, I became aware of a sudden commotion behind me. A coachload of Swiss housewives had descended unexpectedly. Without consultation the monk snatched the missal off the altar and replaced it with its German equivalent. With  – surely  – preternatural assistance, I managed. (p.39)

Fr. Nichols does not dwell on the situation in the Dominican order. But as early as 1995 he took a leave of absence to explore a vocation with the Fraternite Saint Vincent Ferrier (“an Old Rite community in the Dominican community but outside the Order.“) He found the life there:

(A)ltogether admirable, noting especially the care with which the Offices and Mass were celebrated, the atmosphere of silence, the warm fraternal relations at recreation….. Furthermore, the cuisine was wonderful. (p. 77) 

Yet, Fr. Nichols decided not to stay. He alludes to conflicts I sense he anticipated regarding some of his current or forthcoming theological writings. He also felt that he had work to accomplish in England or at least in the English-speaking world.

Fr. Nichols of course had to face the “new crisis” in the Church created by the Francis papacy. He of course was a great advocate of developing the riches of the Catholic Church, for Fr. Nichols, that includes the Anglican and the Eastern Orthodox traditions. Yet as he puts it:

The greater the richness the more decisively is clarity required. And Rome is the location identified by apostles, attested by the Fathers, whence that clarity comes. (p.101)

Accordingly,  Fr. Nichols felt compelled to sign two letters, one on Amoris Laetitia, the other on the Abu Dhabi declaration. The second letter “raised the issue of a pope, who by negligence or misdirection, strays into doctrinal error(heresy).”

The language of the second letter was certainly strong. But the seriousness of the situation called for a kind of description that eschews diplomatic formulae of an ambiguous kind. (p. 103)

Fr. Nichols then elegantly and honestly lays out the reasoning that led him to sign these letters.

There’s an intriguing chapter on a visit to Moscow. Fr. Nichols apparently hoped that, in the spirit of ecumenism, the Russian Orthodox might intervene in some way at the Vatican to arrest “the advance in the Roman Church of opinions incompatible with sanctity of the moral law.” (p.111) Fr. Nichols does not know if anything followed from this. And then these relationships were overshadowed by the war in the Ukraine. But Fr. Nichols believes that: 

The Church of Russia is too important a potential contributor to the survival of Christendom to be made a corporate pariah. (p.112)

In the wake of the two letters Fr. Nichols himself became somewhat of a pariah in the Dominican order. But then came an invitation from St Michael’s Premonstratensian Abbey in California. This seemed an answer to Fr. Nichols’s prayers (he calls the Abbey Rivendell!).  St. Michael’s has long been theologically Thomistic yet Novus Ordo. In a chapter written in a rapturous tone different from the rest of Apologia, Fr. Nichols describes the life, the architecture, and the landscape of the Abbey.

Fr. Nichols hadn’t reckoned, however, with the long reach of the institutional Church. Bishop Vann of the diocese of Orange found that Fr. Nichols posed a threat to the peace and good order of the  diocese. There was no real dialogue about the matter. The Bishop of Orange summarily imposed these restrictions: 

I could not preach or celebrate mass publicly in the Abbey church (assuming non Norbertines are present which they always were) nor hear confessions (except those of Norbertine canons) nor could I teach a course in theology or any related discipline to the Abbey’s “seminarians.”  Much less could I carry out any version of these activities beyond the Abbey’s territorial limits.  The effect of these inhibitions was to call into question the entire  process whereby I was contemplating a move from the Dominican Friars to the Canons Regular of Premontre.

Fr. Nichols surmises Rome and Washington were also involved in the matter; it was noted that Fr. Nichols’s correspondence with the Dominican leadership in Rome suddenly was routed through the US nunciature. 

The contemptuous treatment the Roman Catholic Church accords one of her most distinguished theologians is amazing. For this book was published several months ago,  and the lack of any uproar among scholars, clergy and laity since its appearance indicates to me they are comfortable with these actions. In 1979-80 the progressive forces of the Church raised an unholy uproar about the treatment of Hans Kung, who suffered nothing like these indignities. And later, Hans Kung was treated to a full day private audience with Pope Benedict, including a working lunch. Indeed, throughout Apologia you will find numerous other examples of questionable actions of ecclesiastical and religious authorities.  

But Fr. Nichols also has his own supporters. The Abbot of Saint Michael’s was already in the process of setting up a new priority in Illinois; Fr.  Nichols could go there with the blessings of the local bishop. For the time being, however, he returned to England to live at a vestigial Norbertine outpost close to the place of his childhood. An English bishop has written an  appreciative note at the beginning of this book. 

Where things stand now I do not know. The narrative breaks off in August 2023 with Fr. Nichols still in the UK. Father Nichols is listed as a member of the Abbey of Saint Michael’s. I hope things work out for him after so much seeking. This book is the moving record of a cleric who mostly lived the retiring life of a scholar. He made many distinguished contributions in so many aspects of his field.  And, as you can see from the above, he was anything but belligerent or polemical.  Yet when the time of decision came, he could not shrink from telling the truth regardless of the consequences.