The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, vol. 8 ed. by Gerard Tracey (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 655 Barrera's project could be furthered by a reading that attempts to develop something simply out of the magisterial documents themselves. In fact, the book is at its best when Barrera does exactly this. In the chapter on the universal destination of goods-the teaching that the goods of the earth are intended for the benefit of all-he is forced to rely on magisterial teaching almost exclusively, because of the dearth of secondary material on this subject. Here he presents an impressive overview of the development of this teaching, and then convincingly shows how it is extended to address the needs of a knowledge-based economy where intellectual property is becoming increasingly more important relative to physical property. Modern Catholic Social Documents & Political Economy is an ambitious effort to synthesize Catholic social teaching that makes an important contribution to scholarship in this area. A stronger focus on the original Church documents themselves would only enrich the effort. The Catholic University ofAmerica Washington, D.C. ANDREW V. ABELA The Letters and Diaries of john Henry Newman, vol. 8. Edited by GERARD TRACEY. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. Pp. xxvii + 644. $125 (doth). ISBN 0-19-920403-9. I had so wanted to begin this review with the following remark: "Gerard Tracey, I am pleased to report, is a worthy successor to the magisterial editing of Cardinal Newman's letters begun by the late Fr. Stephen Dessain, his mentor." Gerard Tracey was such a worthy editor to be sure, but Newman scholars were numbed to learn of Gerard's untimely death on 20 January 2003. More about Gerard Tracey is found infra. Letters and Diaries, vol. 8 (LD 8) covers the tumultuous period in Newman's life from January 1841 until May 1842. His own foreboding words in the Apologia capture the period's poignancy: "From the end of 1841, I was on my death-bed, as regards my membership with the Anglican Church." During these fifteen months Newman wrote Tract 90, experienced its seismic effects in the English church, saw his Via Media's branch-church conception shredded by the establishment of a bishopric in Jerusalem, and felt the entire Oxford Movement (his and Pusey's and Keble's) put on a sort of trial in the voting for the Poetry Professorship by the entire body of M.A.s of the university. The only other comparable period in Newman's life of such sustained drama and intense correspondence came in 1869-70, when Vatican I defined papal infallibility (see my review of LD 25 in The Thomist, April 1974). By Lent of 1842 Newman was 656 BOOK REVIEWS by stages "retiring" to Littlemore, the quasi-monastic cottage setting he leased, which lay almost three miles from Oxford. Projected volumes 9 and 10 will cover these remaining months in the Anglican church until Newman's "conforming" to Rome-his customary phrase for it-in October 1845. Theyare crucial times in Newman's discernment process, during which he worked out a vision of doctrinal development that freed him from the major criticisms leveled against Roman dogmas, but these more hidden months were not nearly as dramatic as W S's fifteen months. (For readers unfamiliar with the Letters and Diaries publishing strategy: Stephen Dessain began with Newman's Roman Catholic period, 1845-90, volumes 11to31, having first mapped out a printing prospectus for the extant corpus of over twenty thousand Newman letters. The projected ten volumes of Anglican letters then began appearing, following Dessain's own untimely death. Tracey edited volumes 6, 7, and the present 8.) The careful reconstruction of the critical text, its necessary clarifying footnotes, the thumbnail descriptions of persons mentioned in the text, and the sourcing of Newman's letters are all present in the expected quality of Dessain's legacy. Moreover, given the commotion of these fifteen months, Tracey has given more ample play to the inclusion of letters to Newman (many from Keble and Pusey) and letters between other principal players (e.g., Richard Church's long letter to Frederic Rogers surveying Oxford contretemps [108-11]). He has also provided supplementary material in appendices (e.g., Newman's seven "Catholicus" letters to The...