Beatification of Newman and His Submission to the Infallible Church

Yesterday while attending the beatification of Blessed John Henry Newman, I had the opportunity of being interviewed a couple of times about my becoming a Catholic. One question that was asked of me was why I felt Newman was important to me and why yesterday was so special. Off camera, the interviewer made a comment that if Newman were alive today he would be in disagreement with this present Pope and she wondered how that would go down at an "event" (the language of course is Mass) like the one we were gathering for. I enquired as to the reading list of Blessed Newman and the Holy Father done by this person with the expected answer. My comments were around the fact that in many places the present Holy Father has been shaped by Newman's thinking on many theological issues.

After further reflection, I was reminded of Newman's remarks on this issue. The reporter's point that Newman would be more liberal than this Pope and disagree with his sentiments cannot be squared with the response below.

And now, having thus described it (infallibility), I profess my own absolute submission to its claim. I believe the whole revealed dogma as taught by the Apostles, as committed by the Apostles to the Church, and as declared by the Church to me. I receive it, as it is infallibly interpreted by the authority to whom it is thus committed, and (implicitly) as it shall be, in like manner, further interpreted by that same authority till the end of time. I submit, moreover, to the universally received traditions of the Church, in which lies the matter of those new dogmatic {343} definitions which are from time to time made, and which in all times are the clothing and the illustration of the Catholic dogma as already defined. And I submit myself to those other decisions of the Holy See, theological or not, through the organs which it has itself appointed, which, waiving the question of their infallibility, on the lowest ground come to me with a claim to be accepted and obeyed. Also, I consider that, gradually and in the course of ages, Catholic inquiry has taken certain definite shapes, and has thrown itself into the form of a science, with a method and a phraseology of its own, under the intellectual handling of great minds, such as St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas; and I feel no temptation at all to break in pieces the great legacy of thought thus committed to us for these latter days.

Blessed Cardinal Newman, pray for your beloved land and the Church within her today!