A major study of Newman's religious development, from his childhood to his conversion to Roman Catholicism, using materials never before fully explored: verse, sermons, prayers and letters, both by and to Newman.

This new study of Newman's religious development, from his childhood to his conversion to Roman Catholicism, explores Newman's growth in holiness and truth, i.e. religious truth, and the mutual influence of one upon the other. The former, the author states, 'is the more difficult to explore, since it involves not only a study of words and actions but of his inner life and motivation, which are often hidden.' This exploration is undertaken here with the aid of materials not hitherto fully exploited: verses, sermons, prayers and letters both by and to Newman. The detailed treatment of Newman's inner life as revealed in his private journals - not intended for publication - shows the continuity and change involved in his growth in holiness in their proper perspective, and how his early rigorous self-examination, meditation and assiduous study of the whole of the Scriptures produced the flowering of 'realizations of the Christian mysteries, full of psychological insights and abounding in quotations from Scripture', of the Parochial and Plain Sermons.

This book is a systematic study of religious morality in the works of John Henry Newman (1801-1890). The work considers Newman’s widely discussed views on conscience and assent, analyzing his understanding of moral law and its relation to the development of moral doctrine in Church tradition. By integrating Newman’s religious epistemology and theological method, the author explores the hermeneutics of the imagination in moral decision-making: the imagination enables us to interpret complex reality in a practical manner, to relate belief with action. The analysis bridges philosophical and religious discourse, discussing three related categories. The first deals with Newman’s commitment to truth and holiness whereby he connects the realm of doctrine with the realm of salvation. The second category considers theoretical foundations of religious morality, and the third category explores Newman’s hermeneutics of the imagination to clarify his view of moral law, moral conscience, and Church tradition as practical foundations of religious morality. The author explains how secular reason in moral discernment can elicit religious significance. As a result, Church tradition should develop doctrine and foster holiness by being receptive to emerging experiences and cultural change. John Henry Newman was a highly controversial figure and his insightful writings continue to challenge and influence scholarship today. This book is a significant contribution to that scholarship and the analysis and literature comprise a detailed research guide for graduates and scholars.

Many books exist devoted to the life, thought, and writings of Blessed John Henry Newman, the premier Catholic theologian in nineteenth-century England. His influence has been enormous, perhaps especially on Vatican II (1962–65). This book is a Newman primer, and not only a primer about Newman himself, but also about his time and place in church history. It attends to the papacy during his lifetime, his companions and friends, some of his peers at Oxford University, the First Vatican Council (1869–70), as well as some of his writing and theology. It should be especially helpful to an interested reader who has no particular background in nineteenth-century church history or in Newman himself.

Through his writings, the spiritual journey of one the most beloved and influential Catholic voices of the modern era. Book jacket.

John Henry Newman (1801-1890) was a man who sought to integrate life and holiness. He believed that the spiritual life needed to be lived in an active and dynamic way, touching a person's fundamental attitudes and actions. Although Newman rejected the title of spiritual director as such, it is obvious from his correspondence that directing others through various facets of the Christian life was one of his dominant concerns. Surprisingly, comparatively little has been written about Newman's idea of spiritual direction. This book investigates Newman's understanding of spiritual direction during his life as a Roman Catholic, 1845-1890. It examines the major areas in which Newman gave spiritual direction through an analysis of the correspondence from his Catholic years. It also explicates those principles of Newman's own spiritual life that found expression in his direction of others. Newman had a mammoth apostolate of correspondence. His Letters and Diaries have been edited and published in a series of thirty-two volumes, embracing more than twenty thousand letters. The first ten volumes deal with Newman's Anglican period; the remaining twenty-two volumes cover his Catholic period and are the primary source for this book. These volumes have been studied chronologically in order to determine and extract the major areas in which Newman gave spiritual direction to others, and to investigate the stages of development in his spiritual advice.

How is Kenneth Starr's extraordinary term as independent counsel to be understood? Was he a partisan warrior out to get the Clintons, or a saviour of the Republic? An unstoppable menace, an unethical lawyer, or a sex-obsessed Puritan striving to enforce a right-wing social morality? This volume is designed to offer an evaluation and critique of Starr's tenure as independent counsel. Relying on lengthy, revealing interviews with Starr and many other players in Clinton-era Washington, Washington Post journalist Benjamin Wittes arrives at an understanding of Starr and the part he played in one of American history's most enthralling public sagas. Wittes offers a portrait of a decent man who fundamentally misconstrued his function under the independent counsel law. Starr took his task to be ferreting out and reporting the truth about official misconduct, a well-intentioned but nevertheless misguided distortion of the law, Wittes argues. At key moments throughout Starr's probe - from the decision to reinvestigate the death of Vincent Foster, to the repeated prosecutions of Susan McDougal and Webster Hubbell to the failure to secure Monica Lewinsky's testimony quickly - the prosecutor avoided the most sensible prosecutorial course, fearing that it would compromise the larger search for truth. This approach not only delayed investigations enormously, but it gave Starr the appearance of partisan zealotry and an almost maniacal determination to prosecute the president. Wittes provides in this account of Starr's term a reinterpretation of the man, his performance, and the controversial events that surrounded the impeachment of President Clinton.