Apologia Pro Beata Maria Virgine: John Henry Newman’s Defence of the Virgin Mary in Catholic Doctrine and Piety represents a discussion of a theme within John Henry Newman’s Mariology: namely, his apologetic defence of the place of the Virgin Mary in Catholic doctrine and piety. Newman is not instinctively known as a Marian theologian or apologist, but he should be. This book shows how Newman possessed a highly developed Mariology—one that grew out of his Anglican background and that developed into his life as a Catholic priest. Based upon Scripture and the Church Fathers, Newman's thought on the place of the Virgin Mary in the life and faith of Catholicism was, like much of his theology, ahead of its time and frequently out of step with the nineteenth-century Catholic milieu he lived within. This study of Newman’s defence of Catholic Mariology and its place in Catholic piety is achieved through an examination of some of Newman’s Anglican sermons, his influential Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845), some of his private correspondence and, finally, his 1866 published reply to his old friend, Edward Bouverie Pusey, the Letter to Pusey. From a discussion of these texts, this book argues that Newman’s Mariology was both unique in its day and has proved prophetic in directing the future direction of Catholic Mariology—especially in its ability to provide an orthodox commentary on the more effusive elements of Marian piety within Catholicism. Patristic and restrained in its pious expressions, Newman’s Mariology had connections with both his Anglican past and the native Recusant context he made contact with when he became a Catholic in 1845, in addition to providing an important critique of the ultramontane influences then making their way into Victorian Catholic life. For Newman, the Virgin Mary—rightly understood in her biblical and patristic context—was the `pattern of faith’, a theological model for Catholics to emulate and use when explaining the Catholic religion to others.
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