In the days before Pope Paul VI simplified the rituals surrounding the creation of new cardinals, men who had previously been informed that they had been chosen gathered in Rome; there, a day or so before the consistory at which they would be “proclaimed” and given the red hat, they received what was known as the biglietto (“ticket”). Delivered by a papal chamberlain to wherever the about-to-be-cardinal happened to be in the Eternal City, the biglietto was, quite literally, the “ticket” formally announcing the churchman’s nomination to the College of Cardinals and admitting him, as tickets do, to the impending consistory.
It was a charming ceremony and usually the occasion for the first of several parties celebrating the new cardinal. But before the celebrations began, the man receiving the biglietto was expected to make remarks.
The most famous “biglietto speech” in history took place one hundred forty-five years ago last month. Its most memorable passage still speaks to the Church today.
John Henry Newman was one of mid-19th century Catholicism’s most famous converts, and most controversial figures. His personal journey of faith had taken him from youthful skepticism to a robustly evangelical Anglicanism, and then from an Oriel College fellowship and the pastorate of the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin to the leadership of the Anglican-reforming Oxford Movement. Deep and intense study of the first-millennium Fathers of the Church had finally convinced him that the Church of England was – in historical fact, theological conviction, and relationship to state power – another Protestant denomination. So Newman entered into full communion with the Catholic Church, which cost him his Oxford positions and brought him no little trouble – from Anglicans who regarded him as a traitor and Catholics suspicious of the subtleties of his theology.
Newman, a sensitive soul as well as a brilliant mind, suffered for decades from what Dorothy Day once described as the “long loneliness” of the convert. That suffering was considerably mitigated when Pope Leo XIII, in one of the first acts of his great reforming pontificate, announced his intention to create Newman a cardinal and permit the now-elderly man to continue living in the Birmingham Oratory rather than in Rome (which was then the rule for cardinals who were not diocesan bishops).
So Newman traveled to Rome and, on May 12, 1879, gave his biglietto speech, in which he described himself in these terms:
In a long course of years I have made many mistakes….but what I trust that I may claim all through what I have written is this – an honest intention, an absence of private ends, a temper of obedience, a willingness to be corrected, a dread of error, a desire to serve Holy Church, and, through divine mercy, a fair measure of success.
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 than now…
Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another…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.
As the Church awaits the Instrumentum Laboris, the “working document,” for Synod-2024 in October, it must be hoped that those drafting that text will recognize that what Newman styled a “great mischief” is alive among us today. The reduction of religious faith to a matter of sentiment rather than of rationally defensible conviction (the beginnings of which can be traced to the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher in the early 19th century) is perhaps the single most important factor in the decay of liberal Protestant denominations into small caucuses of religious wokery with the thinnest tether to Great Tradition Christianity.
And yet, seeing that, there are Catholics who propose to go down that same, well-trodden path into…what? Utter irrelevance? Ecclesiastical oblivion?
When cardinals in the top leadership of Synod-2024 speak of their longing for a “rainbow Church,” or declare settled moral questions open, there is reason to be concerned: indeed, very concerned, because the wisdom and prescience of Newman’s “Biglietto Speech” is being ignored. And those with eyes to see have seen where that leads.
• Related at CWR: “John Henry Newman’s long war on liberalism” (October 9, 2022) by Dr. Samuel Gregg
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We need to be watchful for the certainty that is to come – more apostasy from this Vatican-inspired “synod.”
With all due respect, liberalism goes back slightly further than Friedrich Schleiermacher. “Has God said,” was the first question ever posed in human history.
From Newman, we also read that the final tipping point in his conversion into the Catholic Church and away from Anglicanism was its hollow proposal for Jerusalem…
Newman reports his “gravest suspicion, not that it [the Anglican ecclesial community] would soon cease to be a Church, but that it had never been a Church all along.” In 1841 Newman wrote a formal “Protest” in response to the Anglicanism’s “JERUSALEM BISHOPRIC” which “brought me on to the beginning of the end” (to his conversion in 1845).
At issue was the 1841 proposal to establish a bishop in Jerusalem, where “there was not a single Anglican,” to gather in the Lutherans and the Calvinists (and to possibly convert the Jews of which he was told “there are not half-a-dozen”)—whose congregating would be a matter of INDIFFERENCE—with Protestant bodies “allowing [their members] to put themselves under an Anglican Bishop, without formal renunciation of their errors or regard to the due reception of baptism and confirmation [….]
“This was the third blow [like the early Arian and Monophysite shards], which finally shattered my faith in the Anglican Church. That Church was not only forbidding any sympathy of concurrence with the Church of Rome, but it actually was courting an intercommunion [!] with Protestant Prussia and the heresy of the Orientals” (Apologia, Part V).
SUMMARY: The siren call of open-marriage/polyhedral Anglicanism!
To what extent might the instrumentum laboris groom the 21st-century synodal “style” into mimicking the 19th-century Anglican ecclesial community? How backwardist can you get?
Thank you, George, for this from St John Newman, which I hadn’t seen before but which is so timely and relevant to today’s danger that many in the hierarchy and institutional church will synodal their way to the oblivion and present uselessness of liberal Protestant churches.
I trust that this won’t happen in the true Church, the Mystical Body of Christ.
Great mischief
Thank you, Mr. Weigel, for the clear, concise, compelling assessment of what so many of our ‘Catholique’ leaders are up to.
Cardinal Newman’s description resonates more than ever now, a century and a half later.
It helps explain what is motivating our pope and so many of his henchmen who clearly are animated by something other than a love for Jesus and the truths He taught.
I hope I’m wrong, but I have a feeling that few who attend the synod, religious as well as lay, either know or care what St. John Henry Newman said about anything. (Forgive the cynicism. Life just hasn’t been the same since March 13, 2013.)
One reason that real history and any non-somnambulists at the synod need to care, is that the 19th-century John Henry Cardinal Newman—”the father of Vatican II”—spelled out what the 5th-century Vincent of Lerins also said on the difference between true “development of doctrine” and corruption/mutation/falsehood. (Pope Francis references only Vincent of Lerins…)
NEWMAN: “I venture to set down seven notes of varying cogency, independence, and applicability to discriminate healthy developments of an idea from its state of corruption and decay, as follows: “There is no corruption if it retains:
(1) One and the same TYPE [doctrine/natural law vs disconnected pastoral accompaniment?];
(2) The same PRINCIPLES [sound philosophy vs neo-Hegelianism or any distortion of the four cryptic “principles” advanced in Evangelii Gaudium, 2013];
(3) The same ORGANIZATION [the Barque of Peter vs a “pluralism” of equivalent (?) religions];
(4) If its beginnings ANTICIPATE its subsequent phases [Scripture/Catechism/Veritatis Splendor vs Germanic normalization of ersatz (im)moral theology enabling the active homosexual culture—and more],
(5) Its later phenomena PROTECT and subserve its earlier [Veritatis Splendor/Familiarus Consortio vs contradictory edits published by the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Life];
(6) If it has a power of assimilation and REVIVAL [New Evangelization vs dead-ends nested within Amazonia and der Synodal Weg?], and
(7) A vigorous ACTION from first to last…” [steadfastness/standing together vs only “walking together”]” (Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 1845/1878).
The game plan today? Is it (1) to formally affirm all of the above, but then (2) to “informally, non-liturgically, and spontaneously” disconnect such ideas/teachings from contradictory and enabled actions—this sidestep maneuver adorned with “pastoral” accommodation?
SUMMARY: Suddenly, today, has the unity of Faith & Reason become only provisional?
…Like other “irregular” situations—trial marriages, serial bigamy, and cohabitation—which now can be sorta blessed under Fiducia Supplicans (2013)?
So-called liberalism present at the synod of synodality is in fact the old system which is responsible for silencing the victims of abuse and protecting the abusers – and the system itself. Now it is dressed in “acceptance”, “walking together”, “church or listening” and whatever else.
Yesterday I spoke at a local session of “synod of synodality”. I spoke about the omission I found in the local documents – the final document erased the voices of the families who were damaged by the local child sexual abuse. The stories were heartbreaking (I literally cried when I read some of them) yet they were “silenced”. There was not so much about the abuse but its effect: people on psychiatric medication, people leaving the Church, old people saying “the Church I believed in does not exist”, “I only have Christ in the Eucharist and relationship with Him”.
When I brought up the lie of omitting the people’s voices, the audience which a minute ago was so bubbling about “listening” refused to connect in truth. They were interested in “a bright new Church” – “let us move on, why do you (I) bring us back? What for?” some said. No matter how hard I tried to drill into them that the system which enables the abuse of children is still in place, working right now – here it is, silencing again! – they refuse to get it. It was incredible – they tried to silence me speaking about the victims just like before those victims were silenced – so they proved by their actions that the system of silencing is in a place but they could not see that.
And so, the Lord brought to the people the lie and manipulation of “synod of synodality” but they refuse to see it. He brought to them the pain of the victims – they refused to connect. They want to do their “synod of synodality” without getting rid of the soulless system first, including within themselves. The result will be predictable and awful – the Church without empathy which “accepts all”.
I also brought suggestions of how to proceed including shifting a focus to Christ, doing everything through him. All my proposals were not taken. They are all about free speech and transparency, targeting the recovery of people’s psyche from the past of abuse, though Our Lord.
I believe that the true and only agenda of the true Synod (not the fake one) is purging the system which enable a child sexual abuse and other kinds of abuse to happen within the Church. This agenda is impossible to act upon or even to see (as I observed) without centering oneself on Christ. Nothing good can happen in the Church without that repentance and that purging which Our Lord demands.
A fake synodal church appears to be devoid of empathy and refusing to refer to Christ as the measure of its activity. It is not news but one thing to know abstractly and another – to try to act within it, for Christ’s and peoples’ sake.
Truly spoken Anna.
Thank you for standing for Christian discipleship, and rejecting the lies and evil of the false, parasitic “synodal-apostasy.”
Saint John Henry Newman. One of my favorite saints and a WONDERFUL writer on any topic touching on God and religion. I have many of his books which are compiled homilies or meditations which he authored. Each piece of writing is more inspirational than the next. His aims straight for the heart and evokes emotion, but is not syrupy.The church was fortunate the day this great mind decided to convert to the Catholic Church.
The “synod” of the apostate bureaucracy of Pontiff Francis is putting Christ on trial, for his failure to profess that he would conform himself to the apostate bishops and pontiff of the “McCarrick Establishment.” They profess that Christ is guilty of disobeying them, and they live for the objective of their “fellow-apostate-abuser-cult of McCarrick-and-Rupnik-and-all” live for: to decapitate The Body of Christ.
I would not put it as “decapitate” although it is correct re: the result, the church without Christ. They suffocate the Church by pushing Christ aside slowly while reconstructing their own version of “Christ”, in their own image.
This is the most important aspect in what is happening, I believe. We are beholding an assembling of a fake church with a fake Christ – I say with an antichrist. Sounds mad, I know, but let us consider who is the antichrist. He is someone totally opposite to Christ. If so, he must be opposite to Him psychologically as well – his psyche opposite to Christ to the extreme. Turning to human psychology, the exact opposite of Our Lord is a narcissist. For example:
Our Lord, although the Son of God, did not do His own will but the will of God the Father. A narcissist always does his own will only. Anything else is beneath him.
Our Lord is the empathy; out of empathy and love for us He became lowly and sacrificed Himself. A narcissist has no empathy or true love; unlike Christ he never lowers/humbles himself truly (not a fake humility).
Our Lord speaks clearly, he never manipulates, He is the Truth and the Liberator. A narcissist manipulates, lies and he enslaves.
This is enough to show two opposing vectors, of Christ and of a narcissist. This is why an antichrist must be a narcissist. However, a true overt narcissist is obnoxious because literally behaves as a little god – entitled, bursting with arrogance and so on. No one would think of such a person as Christ-like. This is why a true antichrist must be dressed in the Christian virtues, fake of course but nice enough. And so, we must have a manipulator who says that we must be truthful, a terribly proud one who engages in the acts of superficial humility in public, one who speaks of the necessity to accept all into the Church (although Church has always accepted all sinners) but mercilessly crushes those who already belong to that Church. In a word, we have what a clinical psychology calls “a covert narcissist”, a predator in the clothes of a benign shepherd who seeks his own glory only and does not care about his sheep (unlike Christ who seeks the glory of His Father and cared about His sheep to the point of dying for them).
I am convinced that “the synod of synodality” is simply an installation of an imitation of Christ in a place. It is Christ of a narcissist i.e. he himself in the place of Christ.
The tools of this process which I witnessed:
– Manipulation, “reinterpretation” of a person’s words, an omission under the mask of “listening”;
– Switch-off intellect, a disdain for all “theological” and “theologians” (hence no objective criteria for anything);
– A system which enforces “listening” without discussion: you must not ask questions; you must not be “confrontational” etc. (“soft” but very effective silencing those who try to expose lies);
– No reference to Christ, ever while plenty to “spirit” (in which I did not recognize the Holy Spirit)
Those tools are not uniquely “synodal” but a normal tool of a covert narcissist.
However, I also observed something peculiar to spiritual warfare. Many participants are taken by “the spirit” and become supernaturally harmonized with each other while saying something that does not withstand the logic. (I think they are harmonized by superficial nicety taken to a metaphysical level.)
The only way to cut through this is to be blunt and practice “yes, yes”, “no, no” and not be afraid to look “not nice”. But then you will be spat out.
When Newman became a catholic clergyman, he took an oath of obedience to the pope as the successor of Peter and recognized his magisterial authority. The photo of him in this article was made in 1887 long after Vatican I. He had no problem with papal infallibility then or ever. He had lived all his life in the English cultural atmosphere of antipapal hate mythology and saw no reason to join so called dissidents in making up more of it.
Mr. Weigel, who appears to me to be faithful, intelligent and charitable, writes the best articles. But, oddly, his articles seem to generate some of the worst comments: acerbic, almost hateful, and filled with ignorance. I don’t see this trend changing any time soon.
Augh ad infinitum!