For many of us, Saint John Henry Newman, his teachings, and his example constitute our North Star. For many years he has been our doctor. And now he becomes the doctor of us all.
Introduction: Newman as Our North Star
On July 31, Pope Leo XIV announced that Cardinal Newman would formally be declared a doctor of the Church. For many of us who labor in the vineyard of education, Newman has been our primary teacher for years. Indeed, for most of us, he has been our North Star.
The themes in Newman’s writings from which we draw our sustenance are many. And countless books and articles have been written on these themes. Yet from the plenitude of Newman’s works and the commentary on them, at least five principles may be highlighted as a kind of constellation, principles that are inexhaustible sources for reflection. Each can be further investigated in Newman’s The Idea of a University and his less well-known but equally important Rise and Progress of Universities, works that should be read in conjunction. And though these works are devoted to education at the level of the college and university, the principles drawn from these books can easily be transposed to earlier stages of education.
Principles for Catholic Education
First, while many institutions speak of “forming the whole person,” there is usually little depth or substance supporting these claims. In contrast, Newman’s coordination of what he called the “university principle” with what he called the “collegiate principle” provides a rich and dynamic starting point for how to think about and articulate a meaningful approach to the integrated formation of students. Newman shows us how the dynamism of the accomplished and inspiring teacher—who embodies the university principle—must be brought into a thoughtful coordination with the collegiate principle, embodied in personal formation through mentors—who attend to the intellectual, moral, and spiritual formation of their students—and dedication to deep and sustained study at a humane scale. If either of these principles is implemented by an institution in isolation, students will be led to ruin or die a slow intellectual death through stagnation.
Second, Newman teaches us why we must integrate the disciplines in a comprehensive way. While other authors, such as Boethius and Thomas Aquinas can provide guidance in how this can be done, Newman memorably gives us an image—the circle of the disciplines—and a mandate. The circle of the disciplines must include theology and potentially every legitimate discipline, all ordered in proper relation to one another. Newman teaches us that if theology is absent, another discipline—which by its nature lacks the needed qualifications to be the primary ordering principle—will rush in to usurp theology’s place. If theology doesn’t teach us about God and the highest forms of human flourishing in relation to God, then psychology, sociology, politics, or some other discipline will seek to take its place and inevitably lead us astray, teaching us to accept secondary goods as primary. This usurpation will in turn distort the usurping discipline and all others as well.
A third principle, closely related to the first, is expressed in the motto Newman adopted when he was elevated to Cardinal in 1879: Cor ad cor loquitur or “heart speaks to heart.” Here we see the emphasis on interpersonal communion at the heart of education. Christians understand that the interpersonal reality within the Trinity marks every meaningful dimension of what exists. And this relation—whether it is between teacher and student, student and student, or author and student—forms the animating spirit of all fruitful dialogue that leads us—teacher and student alike—to a view of the whole of reality, to a transcendent vision. Our institutions and the activities that take place within them must be interpersonal and carried out at the scale of the human person. There is no technological substitute.
Fourth, while Newman teaches us a great deal about the “Idea” of a university, understood as a body of students and teachers pursuing a comprehensive view of reality, and emphasizes that the university must resist instrumentalization and the logic of technocracy, he also teaches us that a university or college is incomplete, i.e., lacking in integrity, if it is not nurtured in cultus, born from and held steady by the Church. If even Plato’s academy, according to Josef Pieper, acknowledged its relationship and duty to the gods, how much more should a Christian school be in close relation to the Ecclesia from which it was ultimately born and to whose highest mission it should contribute?
Living Tradition and the Philosophical Habit of Mind
Fifth, from Newman (and MacIntyre) we can learn that we exist within a tradition that has definite origins, a continuing stream of development, and a future to which we are called to contribute. Though not a Thomist-of-the-strict-observance, Newman was formed in the tradition of Aristotle and the thinkers that followed him, giving him freedom both to think within the great Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition while effectively engaging the thought of his own age. There was nothing sterile or dry-as-dust about Newman’s scholarly enquiries or writings, they are alive and engaging because they participate in receiving, cultivating, extending, and—when appropriate—applying the tradition he had received. And we can emulate Newman by engaging authors that have come after him and contributed to our understanding of education, authors such as Josef Pieper, Christopher Dawson, C.S. Lewis, T.S. Eliot, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI. We too, if we are docile and courageous enough, can follow Newman’s example of flourishing within a living tradition, inviting our students to join us in the conversation that stretches from Plato to our own day.
Sixth, Newman anticipates other thinkers, e.g., Josef Pieper, in his commitment to seeking to achieve a “philosophical habit of mind” as the goal of education. This involves the arduous journey to obtain a view of the whole of reality, one that is as integrated and comprehensive as possible while at the same time not being reductive. A colleague of mine suggests that such a vision would be analogous to what a person obtains when he grows up in a town that he knows thoroughly, then climbs a nearby mountain from which the town may be seen as whole and from a completely new perspective. This mountain-top view allows for the town to be seen not only integrated in itself but within the whole of a new horizon. Our climber sees other towns and other mountains and furthermore sees the limits of what can be seen. Then, when this person descends and returns to his town, he will see it with new eyes and in a new way. From that point on, every view of the part will be mediated by a view of the whole. That mountain-top vision will always inform the day-to-day view of the one who has returned. This is a vision of what true education looks like, the vision of one who has escaped the cave—and moved, in Newman’s words, ex umbris in veritatem, from shadows into truth.
Gaudium de Veritate: Joy in the Truth
Finally, Newman teaches us to rejoice in the truth (gaudium de veritate) and in such a way that draws others into communion both with what is true and with the One who is the author of all that is true. This is the Oratorian spirit, one that is disciplined but not overly ascetic, one that cultivates a deep interior life but never forgets the call to engage with those beyond the community, and one marked by friendships ordered to flourishing. And through this engagement with friends pursuing truth together—an activity mysteriously described in Plato’s Seventh Letter—joy marks each word, action, and decision.
Yes, for many of us, Newman, his teachings, and his example constitute our North Star. For many years he has been our doctor. And now he becomes the doctor of us all.
Republished with gracious permission from the Christendom College Education Review.
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The featured image is a photograph of John Henry Newman taken in 1887, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.