Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home Culture Book of the Week

Family life sheds light on Newman

byGuest Contributor
17 November 2013
Reading Time: 2 mins read
AA
Family life sheds light on Newman

Family life sheds light on Newman

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Family life sheds light on Newman
Family life sheds light on Newman

 NEWMAN AND HIS FAMILY

By Edward Short; Bloomsbury; RRP $45.

Reviewed by Br Brian Grenier CFC

 

ACCORDING to Edward Short, “Few eminent Victorians can be understood without reference to their families. … Similarly, no one can understand Newman’s warm, affectionate, playful, gregarious, generous nature unless he knows something of the love he received from and gave back to his family, even though his evolving religious convictions would, in many cases, alienate that love”.

The truth of these assertions is convincingly demonstrated in the excellent book under review.

It is the second volume in a proposed trilogy. Newman and His Contemporaries was published in 2011 and Newman and His Critics is yet to come.

The eight chapters in what the author describes as “in essence, a work of family history” explore in considerable detail Blessed John Henry Newman’s close and complex relationships with his “genial, astute, broadminded father” John (a London banker); his Huguenot mother Jemima (née Fourdrinier), a warm-hearted woman of “radiant good sense” whose most endearing qualities he inherited; his five siblings – Charles, Frank, Mary, Harriett and Jemima – and his nephew John Rickards Mozley (the son of his sister Jemima and one of his many regular correspondents).

The book reveals Newman’s deep and enduring love for his family and the home in which he was nurtured. Exercised even in the face of opposition and sometimes-heartbreaking trials, it was in the writer’s words a “special, difficult, sanctifying love”.

None of the family were ever entirely reconciled to his conversion in 1845 – an event that Gladstone described as “calamitous” – and none of them followed him into the Catholic Church.

Related Stories

The season of ‘anticipation, hope, love and family’

18 classic Christmas movies for the family

Ministry to married couples must change to save marriage, author urges

Indeed, his brother Frank published a vituperative memoir of his brother shortly after the latter’s death.

Meticulously researched and elegantly written, Edward Short’s book is a volume worthy of a man who in a long life (1801-1890) played with distinction many parts – priest, educator, theologian, philosopher, apologist, preacher, novelist, poet, satirist, sage, friend and likely saint.

Among Newman’s many admirable qualities, Short draws attention to his intellectual rigour, his self-deprecatory honesty, his versatility in friendship, his generosity as a correspondent, his acute sense of home, his undoubted Englishness, his profound simplicity of heart, his singleness of mind and purpose, and “his admirable aplomb under duress”.

He was, moreover, the personification of intelligent discussion on religious matters – a gift not in evidence among some of our more disputatious non-believing contemporaries.

This volume, which makes good use of Newman’s voluminous correspondence, his published and unpublished writings and other primary sources, is enhanced by the inclusion of pertinent photographs, an ample bibliography and a very detailed index.

Appropriate documentation is provided throughout the text in brief footnotes and ismore satisfying than endnotes.

Edward Short wrote: “My only object was to share with my readers how Newman’s relations with his family informed his understanding not only of himself and his contemporaries but of his faith in God.”

I am sure that readers to whom I heartily recommend this work will concur in my judgment that the author has achieved his stated aim admirably.

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Graces of Holy Spirit key to evangelisation

Next Post

Pope Francis surely God’s choice

Guest Contributor

Related Posts

The season of ‘anticipation, hope, love and family’
Faith

The season of ‘anticipation, hope, love and family’

28 December 2021
Classic films: Characters from It's a Wonderful Life.
Life

18 classic Christmas movies for the family

16 December 2021
Relationships

Ministry to married couples must change to save marriage, author urges

11 November 2021
Next Post

Pope Francis surely God's choice

Fond farewell to Woorabinda

Fond farewell to Woorabinda

Fr Mac’s ‘originals’ bowing out

Fr Mac’s ‘originals’ bowing out

Popular News

  • Pregnant woman

    Queensland election: The pro-life political parties committed to abortion law reforms

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Here are the stories of 10 new saints being canonised this Sunday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Nationwide rosary event happening for Australia’s patroness this Saturday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Angel’s Kitchen serves hot meals to the hungry in Southport

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies
QLD

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies

by Joe Higgins
20 May 2022
0

BRISBANE grandmother Gwendoline Grant has clocked up 15,000 hours cuddling and caring for sick and premature babies...

Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition

Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition

20 May 2022
Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

19 May 2022
Catholic relationship advisers offer five tips to look after your mental health

Nationwide rosary event happening for Australia’s patroness this Saturday

19 May 2022
Francis offers advice on politics: Seek unity, don’t get lost in conflict

Francis offers advice on politics: Seek unity, don’t get lost in conflict

19 May 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping