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Vol. 30 No. 2 (2022)

Theology of spirituality

Via Veritatis: Learning to Trust with John Henry Newman

DOI: https://doi.org/10.34839/wpt.2022.30.2.113-129  [Google Scholar]
Published: 2023-02-08

Abstract

This work summarizes the moments in which John Henry Newman experienced a personal conversion, which led him to a greater trust in Providence. As he writes, these moments became a kind of manifestation of God’s truth in his life. The first moment occurred when, at the age of fifteen, he came to know that God was constantly with him. He grew aware of a second conversion, when he experiences the weakness and death of his sister, which compelled him to move away from the intellectual perfectionism of the evangelical faith he professed. The third moment came after the rejection of the Oxford Movement, when Newman arrived at the conclusion that it was not the Anglican Church, but the Catholic Church, that possessed all of Christian truth and tradition. Finally, the fourth moment of conversion emerged in Newman’s Catholic period, when he was confronted with the definition of papal infallibility and showed himself to be in some contradiction with the authority of the Church. These moments allowed us to define the concept of trust in Newman’s teachings and life. We follow this author in his itinerary of reflection to underline that, although in the Catholic Church trust is related to faith and is observed in pastors, this trust is never contrary nor subjected to reason.

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