Agnes Cunningham, sscm
Theo/ogy and Humanism: Newman Revisiied Newman's humanism is paradoxical for it reftects the essential mystery at the heart of the human person.
Among the severa! events which will occasion visits to Rome during the course of the Roly Year, one is of singular interest to a growing number of theologiims throughout the world. This is the Cardinal Newman Academie Symposium, scheduled for April 3-8, 1975. The theme of the symposium, "Newman's Realisation of Christian Life," carries ecclesiological, spiritual and humanistic overtones. The lectures announced for the conference have been proposed, it would seem, in view of this triple dimension, so frequently disregarded in earlier Newman studies. Of particular significance, in the light of the recently 1·enewed appreciation· of the Fathers of the Church, is the topic to be addressed by Vincent F. Blehl, S.J.: "Patristic humanism of Newman." Indeed, Newman is generally recognized as an outstanding humanist. The study by Francis Hermans (L'Histoire doctrinale de l'h,tmanisme chrétien. 4 vols. Paris: Tournai, 1948) presents Newman as the crown in a long Iine of Christian humanists, dating from Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), ali of whom walked--consciously or not-in the footsteps of Clement of Alexandria (Hermans, vol. 1, p. 204). This work. in its discussion of Newman as humanist, is far from exhaustive. Newman's debt to John Colet, rather than to More, through the Cambridge Platonists, has yet to be explored. There is need, · also, to move beyond Hermans' concept of Newman as a "peda67