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A Response to Eamon Duffy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 June 2012

SIMON SKINNER
SIMON SKINNER*
Affiliation:
Balliol College, Oxford OX1 3BJ; e-mail: simon.skinner@history.ox.ac.uk
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Extract

At the close of his epistolary protest at Ian Ker's contemptuous review of John Henry Newman in the Times Literary Supplement in 2002, Frank Turner remarked: ‘Ker's review raises the larger issue of whether modern British and European religious history will continue as an arena for professional research and critical analysis or succumb to the parochial constraints and contentions of denominational and intra-denominational discourse. Ian Ker has made his choice in the matter, and I have made mine.’1 My article in this Journal in October 2010, ‘History versus hagiography: the reception of Turner's Newman’, sought to demonstrate that professional research and critical analysis were altogether suffocated by the contentions of denominational discourse after that book's publication in 2002. The article was careful not in any simple way to legitimise Turner's conclusions – indeed, it set out schematically and at length the interpretative retorts which they invited – but rather his purpose and method. I concluded:

What is at stake … in the fuss over Turner's Newman, is not the plausibility or otherwise of his interpretation. It far transcends that. What is at stake is the legitimacy and remit of historical inquiry itself, when confronted with a vocal interest group whose principles and prejudices are seldom acknowledged. The difference between the book and the great majority of its critics, therefore, is not between Catholicism and Protestantism, nor even religion and secularism, but between history itself and hagiography – a difference not of prejudice, but of methodology.2

A great – though mortal – man once wrote, in the Tracts for the Times, no. 1, ‘Choose your side’.3 In his response to my article on ‘History versus hagiography’, it is at once enlightening and dispiriting to see Eamon Duffy choosing his.

Type
Debate
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 63 , Issue 3 , July 2012 , pp. 549 - 567
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

1 Frank M. Turner, ‘Letters to the editor’, TLS, 20 Dec. 2002, 15.

2 Skinner, Simon, ‘History versus hagiography: the reception of Turner's Newman’, this Journal lxi (2010), 781Google Scholar.

3 [J. H. Newman], Tracts for the Times, no. 1, Oxford 1833, 4 (original emphasis).

4 Skinner, ‘The reception of Turner's Newman’, 781, 776; Eamon Duffy, ‘The reception of Turner's Newman: a reply to Simon Skinner’, 534.

5 Skinner, ‘The reception of Turner's Newman’, 766.

6 Duffy, ‘A reply’, 534.

7 Ibid. 534.

8 Ibid. 534.

9 See, for particular examples of approbatory reviews by commentators with religious sensibilities, or in religious journals, or both: Sheridan Gilley, Church Times, 8 July 2005, 25; Nigel Yates, this Journal lvi (2005), 792–3; Jeremy Morris, HJ lii (2009), 533–4; Denis Paz, Reviews in Religion and Theology xii (Sept. 2005), 501; John Marsden, Heythrop Journal xlvii (Oct. 2006), 651; and Nigel Aston, New Directions (Mar. 2005), http://trushare.com/0118MAR05/MR05BOOK.htm.

10 Skinner, ‘The reception of Turner's Newman’, 776.

11 Eamon Duffy, ‘Confessions of a cradle Catholic’, a beautifully written and evocative memoir, in his Faith of our fathers: reflections on Catholic tradition, London 2004, 11–19.

12 Ian Ker, review of John Henry Newman, Apologia pro vita sua and six sermons, ed. Frank M. Turner, New Haven–London 2008, Catholic Historical Review xcv (Apr. 2009), 407.

13 Duffy, Faith of our fathers, 11.

14 Turner, ‘Letters to the editor’, 15.

15 Eamon Duffy, ‘Newman offers church a candle in the dark’, Guardian (main section), 18 Sept. 2010, 33.

16 Idem, ‘“Man of sacristy” walks in shadow of John Paul ii’, Irish Times. 8 Sept. 2010, http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0908/1224278447741.html.

17 Idem, ‘A hero of the Church’, New York Review of Books, 12 Dec. 2010, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/dec/23/hero-church/?page=1.

18 Skinner, ‘The reception of Turner's Newman’, 779.

19 Duffy, ‘A reply’, 534.

20 Stuart Chessman, ‘Newman, Wojtyla and Ratzinger: the thoughts of Eamon Duffy’, 15 Sept. 2010, http://sthughofcluny.org/2010/09/newman-wojtyla-and-ratzinger-the-thoughts-of-eamon-duffy.html.

21 Nick Donnelly, ‘Catholic theologian Eamon Duffy mocks Pope Benedict & uses Newman to attack him’, 9 Sept. 2010, http://protectthepope.com/?p=1092.

22 William Doino, ‘The real John Henry Newman’, 20 Sept. 2010, http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2010/09/20/the-real-john-henry-newman. All these comments were in response to Duffy's ‘“Man of sacristy”’.

23 Sholto Byrnes, ‘Diary’, Independent on Sunday (main section), 23 June 2002, 23.

24 Ian Ker, ‘Slow road to Rome’, TLS, 6 Dec. 2002, 32.

25 Jaki, Stanley L., ‘Newman, an “apostate”?’, New Oxford Review lxx (May 2003), 38Google Scholar.

26 Oakes, Edward T., ‘Newman's liberal problem’, First Things iv (2003), 46–7Google Scholar.

27 Lawrence S. Cunningham, book review, Horizons (Spring 2003), 144–5.

28 Digby Anderson, ‘An intolerant sort of liberal’, Spectator, 26 Oct. 2002, 53–4.

29 Cunningham review, 145.

30 Jaki, ‘Newman, an “apostate”?’, 42, 44.

31 Oakes, ‘Newman's liberal problem’, 49.

32 Jaki, ‘Newman, an “apostate”?’, 45.

33 Duffy, ‘A reply’, 535; Skinner, ‘The reception of Turner's Newman’, 778–9.

34 Peter B. Nockles, book review, Albion xxxv (Winter 2004), 669–73.

35 Colin Barr, Irish Theological Quarterly lxxvi (May 2011), 192–3.

36 Duffy, ‘A reply’, 535.

37 Ian Ker, ‘Letters to the editor’, TLS, 3 Jan. 2003, 15.

38 Idem, John Henry Newman: a biography, Oxford 1988, pp. viii–ix; 2nd edn, Oxford 2009, 746 (my italics).

39 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/5214156/Cardinal-John-Newman-poised-for-beatification-after-ruling.html.

40 Newman, Apologia (Turner edn), p. vii.

41 Colin Barr, review, this Journal lxi (2010), 652.

42 Duffy, ‘A reply’, 536.

43 Turner, John Henry Newman, 631, 635.

44 Ker, ‘Slow road to Rome’, 32; Nockles review, 672–3; John T. Ford, book review, Catholic Historical Review lxxxix (Oct. 2003), 790; Zealley, Christopher, ‘Review article’, Anglican and Episcopal History lxxiii (June 2004), 209Google Scholar, 210; Sheridan Gilley, ‘Written with learning, not with love’, Church Times, 21 Feb. 2003, 17; Anderson, ‘An intolerant sort of liberal’, 53–4; Jaki, ‘Newman, an “apostate”?’, 42; James J. Buckley, ‘A new Newman? Two accounts of England's most famous convert’, Weekly Standard, 5 May 2003, 42; Cunningham review, 146; Oakes, ‘Newman's liberal problem’, 46, 47; George W. Rutler, ‘Newman's own Church’, National Review, 14 Oct. 2002, 66.

45 Jeffrey Cox, book review, HJ xlviii (2005), 590–2.

46 David Newsome, ‘Warts and all’, The Tablet, 26 Oct. 2002, 22.

47 Email to the author, 6 Sept. 2010.

48 Duffy, ‘A reply’, 536; Skinner, ‘The reception of Turner's Newman’, 771.

49 Duffy, ‘A reply’, 539–47.

50 Skinner, ‘The reception of Turner's Newman’, 776–7; Cox review, 591.

51 Skinner, ‘The reception of Turner's Newman’, 777; Nockles review, 670.

52 Skinner, ‘The reception of Turner's Newman’, 777; Ker, ‘Slow road to Rome’, 32; Gilley, ‘Written with learning, not with love’, 17.

53 Skinner, ‘The reception of Turner's Newman’, 777; Cox review, 591; Ward, W. R., book review, Journal of Modern History lxxvi (2004), 680–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Carter, Grayson, ‘“At no time conspicuous, as a party, for talent or learning”: Newman and Evangelicalism’, Books & Culture: A Christian Review (Jan./Feb. 2004), 19Google Scholar.

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56 Skinner, ‘The reception of Turner's Newman’, 776–7.

57 Duffy, ‘A reply’, 546–7.

58 Ker, John Henry Newman, 748.

59 Duffy, ‘A reply’, 534.

60 Cunningham review, 145–6.

61 http://www.newmanfriendsinternational.org/newman/?p=199.

62 Ford review, 789.

63 Jaki, ‘Newman, an “apostate”?’, 39.

64 Duffy, ‘A reply’, 537 n. 14; Skinner, S. A., ‘Newman, the Tractarians, and the British Critic’, this Journal l (1999), 716–59Google Scholar. Duffy comments that Newman ‘ruthlessly ousted the editor of a genteel High Church periodical’ in the course of his article, ‘A hero of the Church’.

65 Skinner, S. A., Tractarians and the ‘condition of England’: the social and political thought of the Oxford Movement, Oxford 2004, 50–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 Duffy, ‘A reply’, 548; the phrase is Newman's: Apologia (Turner edn), 128.

67 Ker, ‘Slow road to Rome’, 32.

68 Jaki, ‘Newman, an “apostate”?’, 43.

69 Gates, Lewis E., Selections from the press writings of John Henry Cardinal Newman, New York 1895, p. xixGoogle Scholar.

70 Siebenschuh, William R., ‘Art and evidence in Newman's Apologia’, Biography iii (Fall 1980), 314–30Google Scholar.

71 Altholz, J. L., ‘The Tractarian moment: the incidental origins of the Oxford Movement’, Albion xxvi (Summer 1994), 273Google Scholar.

72 Nockles, P. B., The Oxford Movement in context: Anglican High Churchmanship, 1760–1857, Cambridge 1994, 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73 W. E. Houghton, The art of Newman's ‘Apologia’, London–New Haven 1945, 22. The quotation is from Newman's Grammar of assent.

74 Cross, F. L., John Henry Newman, London 1933, 132–3Google Scholar.

75 Houghton, Newman's ‘Apologia’, 106.

76 Duffy, ‘A reply’, 548; Skinner, ‘The reception of Turner's Newman’, 780.

77 Skinner, ‘The reception of Turner's Newman’, 779.

78 A. N. Wilson, ‘What if he went the whole way?’, Literary Review (Dec. 2002/Jan 2003), 25; Anderson, ‘An intolerant sort of liberal’, 53; Cox review, 590-2.

79 Turner, John Henry Newman, 1, 640, 641.

80 J. H. Newman, The idea of a university, ed. Frank M. Turner, New Haven–London 1996, pp. ix, xiii, 257, 258, 285, 262–3.

81 Idem, Apologia (Turner edn), pp. vii, 1, 106, 114.

82 Turner, John Henry Newman, 640–1.

83 Idem, Contesting cultural authority: essays in Victorian intellectual life, Cambridge 1993, 40–2, 71–2, 16–17, 48–55, and also pp. 26–9, 60–5.

84 Extracts from emails received by the author and reproduced with their authors’ permission.

85 J. H. Newman to Robert Ornsby, 26 Mar. 1863, in Letters and diaries of John Henry Newman, xx, ed. C. S. Dessain, Oxford 1970, 426.

86 Duffy, ‘Newman offers church a candle in the dark’, 33, and ‘“Man of sacristy”’.

87 Newman to Ornsby, 26 Mar. 1863, Letters and diaries of John Henry Newman, xx. 426.