Book description
John Henry Newman, one of the towering figures of the early Victorian
Church of England, caused shock and outrage in equal measure when he
announced his espousal of Roman Catholicism in 1845. His Apologia,
written nearly twenty years later in response to a scurrilous public
attack by Charles Kingsley, is a superbly crafted response to those who
criticized his actions and questioned his motives, and traces his
spiritual development since boyhood, his close involvement in the high
church Tractarian Movement and his agonizing decision to reject the
church he had been born into. Ostensibly an autobiography and a speech
for the defence, the Apologia transcends self-justification to explore
the very nature of Christianity and its place in the modern age.
John Henry Newman (1801 - 1890) was a vicar of Oxford University's
church from 1828 - 1842, when his controversial Tract attempting to
interpret the 39 Articles of Faith of the Church of England in a
Catholic sense, led to him retiring to Littlemore, where he lived in
monastic seclusion. He was received into the Catholic Church in 1845
and ordained in 1847. Apologia Pro Vita Sua appeared in 1864.
Ian Ker has a MA from Oxford and a Ph. D from Cambridge. He was
ordained a Roman Catholic Priest in 1979 and has taught at
universities in Britain and the United States. He is the author and
editor of sixteen books on Newman, including Newman and the Fullness
of Christianity (1993).
