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Notes by Patrick Killough In January 2004, after two years of moderately deep immersion in John Henry Newman (1801 - 1890) and his times, I did internet searching for sources on Newman’s attitudes toward contemporary Jews and growing anti-Semitism in the England of his day. Curiously, one hit brought me to a statement by the excommunicated American Jesuit Father Leonard Feeney, S.J. He asserted that Newman was himself of Jewish descent and that this contributed to Newman’s doctrinal errors. He gave as his source writings by Canon William Barry -- a Roman Catholic apologist who deserves to be better known. For a fact, in his 1904 biography NEWMAN, Canon Barry with no ifs ands or buts did say that Newman was of Jewish descent on his father’s side. I have four of William Barry's profoundly Roman Catholic writings, including two which mention Newman's paternal ancestry. Another Newman biographer Wilfrid Ward challenged Barry who then gave his source, apparently Arthur Wollaston Hutton. Hutton said that he only raised Newman's Jewish ancestry as a possibility not a certainty; indeed there was no documented evidence of it. A tempest in a teapot? Maybe. But what on earth got it started? More anon. TPK file: newman_jew?.rtf (WP) |