THE
P RTAL
April 2019
Page 10
Thoughts on Newman
Lost in Translation
Dr Stephen Morgan has been on his travels
I have no
wish for this month’s article to read like a “What I did on my holidays” – not least because
my recent travels had nothing of the holiday about them – but I want to share with you some reflections
from a recent visit to Europe.
I began my Lent this year in a most un-penitential
way, with three days in bright sunny Rome for a series of
meetings. The meetings were all of happy anticipation
and doubly happy outcome and the visit permitted me
the opportunity of visiting places old (including the
Church in which I was married twenty eight years ago
– Santa Maria dei Miracoli) and new (the delightful
San Crisogono in Trastevere, with its fantastic eighth
century frescoes of St Benedict, in the excavated
remains of the lower church: a Benedictine monastery
founded by Pope St Gregory the Great – who had sent
St Augustine to England), friends old (a Seminarian
who spent some years at certain Anglican Theological
College just off the Cowley Road) and new (an Italian
Composer currently working on a new setting of BCP
Evensong and a Filipino ex-Naval Chaplain who had
blessed into service in the Philippine’s Navy a ship I
had served on in the Royal Navy).
of Assent but not, strangely enough, The Idea of a
University. In another, located in the University that
is the successor to the College of Propaganda Fide,
where Newman studied, a copy of his Apologia pro
vita sua, in which he is none too complimentary about
his Alma Mater Romani, also in Italian. This got me
thinking about which of Newman’s works are available
in translation and the importance, given the near-
certainty of his canonisation later this year, of ensuring
the widest possible dissemination of his works.
Rome was followed by Lisbon and meetings at the
Catholic University of Portugal. An hour in the
extensive Theology library there yielded up only a
Portuguese edition of the same Grammar of Assent,
three volumes of his Parochial and Plain Sermons
(published in Brazil), a French-language edition on An
Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine and,
strangely enough, a copy of Newman’s novel Callista in
Other aspects of my visit conspired to have a English. Was Newman not read amongst Portuguese
felicitous Newmanian aspect, including the Lenten Theologians, I asked my host? Not widely, he replied,
Station Masses of my days there: first San Giorgio and if at all, almost only ever in English.
in Velabro, Newman’s titulus as a Cardinal Deacon),
and then, on the Friday, San Giovanni e Paolo – the
The Ordinariates have amongst their members a
John and Paul mentioned in the Canon of the Mass wide and eclectic range of linguistic skills. It would not
– which has close associations with Bl. Dominic be beyond the capacity of, say, Fr Hunwicke to render
Barberi (and which is, by the way, brilliantly lit by the the Dream of Gerontius into Greek, complete with the
most extraordinary chandeliers that came originally Priestly absolution in iambic trimeter and the angelic
from the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in new York – not a chorus singing the eponymous soul through Purgatory
Newmanian association but always worth a mention in dactylo-epitrite. It would be, undoubtedly, dazzling,
because they are just so over the top: go and have but as a contribution to wider exposure of John
look, if ever you can). Two of my work meetings took Henry’s thinking, it would have its limits. So it will
place in Libraries of different Vatican Dicasteries and, fall to those of you with facility in the modern, rather
even here, Newman pursued me. In one office – that than the classical languages to accomplish this task of
in charge of Catholic Universities – I came across an which the Universal Church has such need. To your
Italian-language copy of An Essay in Aid of a Grammar desks, Ordinariate!
Conversion ... continued from page 9
poor; they will need our prayers as they encounter the forgiveness for our sins.
truth taught by the Catholic Church, for all our sins and
For details of the university’s new MA degree
failings. Moreover, this process of conversion which
in Catholic Social Teaching contact him
they are going through is meant to be an example for
at [email protected].
all of us as we turn again to God every Lent and ask his