On January 23, 1875...
the Reverend Charles Kingsley went to his reward. While a noted novelist and essayist in his time, what fame he has now mostly rests on some incredibly insulting words he flung out in an anonymus article....
"Truth, for its own sake, had never been a virtue with the Roman clergy. Father Newman informs us that it need not, and on the whole ought not to be; that cunning is the weapon which Heaven has given to the saints wherewith to withstand the brute male force of the wicked world which marries and is given in marriage. Whether his notion be doctrinally correct or not, it is at least historically so."
Rev. Kingsley's refusal to properly retract this outrageous statement led to the writing and publication of Apologia Pro Vita Sua, the book considered by most to be the masterpiece in the many volumes written by Venerable John Henry Newman, C.O.
The Venerable himself wrote a comment on Kingsley' death, in a letter to a friend.
'As to Mr. Kingsley, much less could I feel any resentment against him when he was accidentally the instrument, in the good Providence of God, by whom I had an opportunity given me, which otherwise I should not have had, of vindicating my character and conduct in my "Apologia." I heard, too, a few years back from a friend that she chanced to go into Chester Cathedral and found Mr. K. preaching about me, kindly though, of course, with criticisms on me. And it has rejoiced me to observe lately that he was defending the Athanasian Creed, and, as it seemed to me, in his views generally nearing the Catholic view of things. I have always hoped that by good luck I might meet him, feeling sure that there would be no embarrassment on my part, and I said Mass for his soul as soon as I heard of his death.
'Most truly yours,
JOHN H. NEWMAN.'
the Reverend Charles Kingsley went to his reward. While a noted novelist and essayist in his time, what fame he has now mostly rests on some incredibly insulting words he flung out in an anonymus article....
"Truth, for its own sake, had never been a virtue with the Roman clergy. Father Newman informs us that it need not, and on the whole ought not to be; that cunning is the weapon which Heaven has given to the saints wherewith to withstand the brute male force of the wicked world which marries and is given in marriage. Whether his notion be doctrinally correct or not, it is at least historically so."
Rev. Kingsley's refusal to properly retract this outrageous statement led to the writing and publication of Apologia Pro Vita Sua, the book considered by most to be the masterpiece in the many volumes written by Venerable John Henry Newman, C.O.
The Venerable himself wrote a comment on Kingsley' death, in a letter to a friend.
'As to Mr. Kingsley, much less could I feel any resentment against him when he was accidentally the instrument, in the good Providence of God, by whom I had an opportunity given me, which otherwise I should not have had, of vindicating my character and conduct in my "Apologia." I heard, too, a few years back from a friend that she chanced to go into Chester Cathedral and found Mr. K. preaching about me, kindly though, of course, with criticisms on me. And it has rejoiced me to observe lately that he was defending the Athanasian Creed, and, as it seemed to me, in his views generally nearing the Catholic view of things. I have always hoped that by good luck I might meet him, feeling sure that there would be no embarrassment on my part, and I said Mass for his soul as soon as I heard of his death.
'Most truly yours,
JOHN H. NEWMAN.'
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