Newman on Vatican II by Ian Ker (review)

Ian Ker’s Newman on Vatican II maintains that, had Cardinal John Henry Newman taken part in it, he would have aligned himself with the reformist party at the Council. Reformers, Ker then adds, “sooner or later divide into moderate and extreme factions” (p. 159). In the case of the latest council, there were those who wished to interpret its decrees in the light of Tradition and those who embraced a hermeneutic of discontinuity with the past, championing radical change in doctrine and practice.

Newman, the great proponent of doctrinal development, would have defended a “hermeneutic of reform in continuity” (p. 159), in which true developments continually build on Tradition, clarifying and enriching it. The first two chapters introduce Newman as a “conservative-radical” (p. 6), proposing change in continuity—a continuity defined by the notes of a true development that he delineated in the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (London, 1845): that the development retain the same type and principles as the original idea, that its beginnings anticipate its subsequent phases, that the later phenomena protect and subserve the earlier, and so on. In the following chapters Ker applies the notes to the doctrines of the Second Vatican Council, particularly those on the nature of the Church, the action of the Holy Spirit within it, Evangelization, and conscience. He sees them not only in continuity with Tradition but also with Newman’s own ideas on those subjects. Ker considers that the cardinal had already advanced some conciliar doctrines; pointed in the direction of others; and, in some cases, gone beyond what the Council actually promulgated. A case in point of the latter, according to Ker, is evangelization. He expresses the opinion that Vatican II did not explicitly deal with the topic of evangelization. This is open to question. Apostolicam Actuositatem, on the apostolate of the laity, was the Council’s clarion call to a capillary evangelization; a call that has not yet perhaps produced all the fruits intended by the Council.

Newman’s theory of development is central to Newman and Vatican II. Ker uses the book to comment briefly on different interpretations of the Essay’s origins and value. Among other points made, he disagrees with the author of this review about the genesis of Newman’s theory of development. This reviewer responded to Ker’s comments in a more recent book; let the arguments rest there. Newman on Vatican II is written with Ker’s usual verve and thorough knowledge of his subject. It is a short book, but it takes the reader through a considerable part of the Newman corpus and of his fundamental ideas. In length and style it might be said to be in line with the Oxford Movement’s Tracts for the Times: short, passionate, and addressing important questions of the moment.