Newman on the Faithful

 In all times the laity have been the measure of the Catholic spirit.

So said Newman, in a concluding part of a series of lectures given to fellow Oratorians.   His topic was the position of Catholics in the British Islands at the time.  It was 1851.   He was describing a time when Protestants were in unquestioned control of the government, the media, education, all the public organs of society, basically.  Catholics were looked down upon -- until recently, they had been discriminated against legally, and prejudice against them was still standard and accepted.

Though different forces are in play in our time, much of what he says is applicable.  Particularly, his "desideratum" for the laity is often quoted; most recently I came across it in an article by Fr Peter Stravinskas.    Other examples are here, here, and here.      

I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold, and what they do not, who know their creed so well, that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity; . . . I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other. . . You ought to be able to bring out what you feel and what you mean, as well as to feel and mean it; to expose to the comprehension of others the fictions and fallacies of your opponents; and to explain the charges brought against the Church, to the satisfaction, not, indeed, of bigots, but of men of sense, of whatever cast of opinion.

Also from his address:

 I would aim primarily at organization, edification, cultivation of mind, growth of the reason. It is a moral force, not a material, which will vindicate your profession, and will secure your triumph. It is not giants who do most. How small was the Holy Land! yet it subdued the world. How poor a spot was Attica! yet it has formed the intellect. Moses was one, Elias was one, David was one, Paul was one, Athanasius was one, Leo was one. Grace ever works by few; it is the keen vision, the intense conviction, the indomitable resolve of the few, it is the blood of the martyr, it is the prayer of the saint, it is the heroic deed, it is the momentary crisis, it is the concentrated energy of a word or a look, which is the instrument of {390} heaven. Fear not, little flock, for He is mighty who is in the midst of you, and will do for you great things.

As troubles and trials circle round you, He will give you what you want at present—"a mouth, and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist and gainsay." "There is a time for silence, and a time to speak;" the time for speaking is come. What I desiderate in Catholics is the gift of bringing out what their religion is; it is one of those "better gifts," of which the Apostle bids you be "zealous."

I started blogging again because it seemed to me that there is a lot said about the laity in post-Vatican II Catholicism, but there is not usually a good understanding of how the laity actually works or should work.   Newman accounts for the laity both as a kind of collective or communion -- saying that by the general temper of the laity, the Church declines or increases -- and also for laypeople as individuals.  One or a few can change the whole direction of affairs.  

 He does not see the laity primarily as a kind of political bloc, either in civic terms or within the Church as a special interest lobby.    Rather, his interest is in what kind of people they will be, which incorporates what they think and believe, and what they say when called to speak.

Newman also wrote on Consulting the Faithful in matters of Doctrine, and on Orthodoxy of the Body of the Faithful during the Arian times.     The beginning of the second work is worth quoting:

THE episcopate, whose action was so prompt and concordant at Nicæa on the rise of Arianism, did not, as a class or order of men, play a good part in the troubles consequent upon the Council; and the laity did. The Catholic people, in the length and breadth of Christendom, were the obstinate champions of Catholic truth, and the bishops were not. Of course there were great and illustrious exceptions; first, Athanasius, Hilary, the Latin Eusebius, and Phœbadius; and after them, Basil, the two Gregories, and Ambrose; there are others, too, who suffered, if they did nothing else, as Eustathius, Paulus, Paulinus, and Dionysius; and the Egyptian bishops, whose weight was small in the Church in proportion to the great power of their Patriarch. And, on the other hand, as I shall say presently, there were exceptions to the Christian heroism of the laity, especially in some of the great towns. And again, in speaking of the laity, I speak inclusively of their parish-priests (so to call them), at least in many places; but on the whole, taking a wide view of the history, we are obliged to say that the governing body of the Church came short, and the governed were pre-eminent in faith, zeal, courage, and constancy.

This is a very remarkable fact: but there is a moral in it. Perhaps it was permitted, in order to impress upon the Church at that very time passing out of her state of persecution to  her long temporal ascendancy, the great evangelical lesson, that, not the wise and powerful, but the obscure, the unlearned, and the weak constitute her real strength. It was mainly by the faithful people that Paganism was overthrown; it was by the faithful people, under the lead of Athanasius and the Egyptian bishops, and in some places supported by their Bishops or priests, that the worst of heresies was withstood and stamped out of the sacred territory.