John Henry Newman (1801-1890) was not a political figure in the modern sense. He understood the world primarily as a historical theologian. His life spanned a transformative era in British history, and his opinions, fairly interpreted as old-fashioned Tory or Traditionalist, were shaped by his deep suspicion of secular progress.
From the 1830s the British state became increasingly indifferent to the Christian religion, stripping away the mystery of faith to make it socially useful. On the relationship between Church and State, Newman’s views shifted as he moved from the Church of England into the Roman Catholic Church. As an Anglican, he initially supported the Established Church, wherein Church and State were tightly linked. But he objected once the British government began interfering in ecclesiastical matters. The Church must be independent of the State, he argued, in order to avoid being used as a mere political tool. While Newman was a liberal in the breadth of his thought, he regarded liberalism, defined as the anti-dogmatic principle that religious truth is a matter of opinion rather than objective fact, as false and destructive.
Newman was a typical Victorian elitist in his temperament. Sceptical of democracy, he was sceptical, too, of the populist movements of his time. He favoured hierarchy and tradition over popular sovereignty. If a society abandoned its religious foundation, no amount of political engineering or legislation could save it from eventual decay. He was wary of the expansion of voting rights, fearing that raw democracy would lead to the tyranny of the majority and the erosion of traditional values. He advocated for liberal education in The Idea of a University (1852), but what he meant by “liberal education” was the cultivation of the mind and soul as distinct from the creation of productive workers or informed voters for a secular democracy. Nevertheless, it should be noted that, despite his conservative instincts, Newman’s time in Ireland in the 1850s, while he was setting up the Catholic University of Ireland, caused him to modify some of his views. He became sympathetic to the plight of the Irish people under Westminster rule. He was critical of the harshness of the English political economy, which prioritised wealth and efficiency over the spiritual and physical well-being of Irish workers. He was confronted for the first time in his life with the reality that a man cannot worship God and pray if he and his family are hungry. For human flourishing both body and soul need adequate nourishment. It was the responsibility of the Christian government and community to provide those necessary things.
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