Leo XIV’s Doctor of the Church: "Christianity Entered History as an Idea rather than an Institution"
Cardinal Newman’s most notable work is An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845), written during his conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism. He published a revised edition in 1878.
In this book, he introduced the concept that Christian doctrine matures organically, like a living idea, rather than remaining static.
However, he applied this concept to the Church.
Cardinal Newman nods to "Mister Guizot's suggestion, that Christianity, though represented in prophecy as a kingdom, came into the world as an idea rather than an institution, and has had to wrap itself in clothing and fit itself with armour of its own providing, and to form the instruments and methods of its prosperity and warfare."
François Guizot (1787–1874), a French liberal Protestant (Huguenot), is the person to whom he refers. A young man, Guizot joined the Freemasons (Paris lodge Le Phénix, Scottish Rite) and enjoyed a successful career as Foreign Minister and then Prime Minister until the 1848 Revolution toppled the regime.
Newman approvingly quotes the then famous and honoured Guizot to argue for a living authority to give concrete form and judgement to development.
As early as 1846, the Catholic author Orestes Brownson challenged Cardinal Newman's "idea-rather-than-institution" wording because Christ founded an institution: one Church.
Brownson insisted that the Church did not begin as a formless idea seeking embodiment. Rather, she "sprung into existence full grown, and armed at all points, as Minerva from the brain of Jupiter." He added that, because of the Church's divine origin, one cannot narrate its development in the same way as that of human societies.
In fact, Cardinal Newman's wording is similar to the famous dictum of the heretic Alfred Loisys: "Jésus annonçait le Royaume, et c’est l’Église qui est venue." (1902) ("Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom, and it was the Church that came.")
Consolation: The title “Doctor of the Church” has become so overused in the past two centuries that it no longer carries much weight.
#newsTuobhdbmde