The Charismatic Church

The rediscovery of the charismatic dimension of the Church in the first two chapters of Lumen Gentium has been distorted or neglected after Vatican II, but Newman, both as an Anglican and a Catholic, was very conscious of its importance. He well understood the immense significance for the Church of figures like St Benedict, St Francis, St Dominic, and St Ignatius Loyola. As the leader of the Oxford Movement, which involved both clergy and laity, and as the founder of the Oratory of St Philip, whose origins he well understood, Newman would have appreciated the significance of the rise of the...

The rediscovery of the charismatic dimension of the Church in the first two chapters of Lumen Gentium has been distorted or neglected after Vatican II, but Newman, both as an Anglican and a Catholic, was very conscious of its importance. He well understood the immense significance for the Church of figures like St Benedict, St Francis, St Dominic, and St Ignatius Loyola. As the leader of the Oxford Movement, which involved both clergy and laity, and as the founder of the Oratory of St Philip, whose origins he well understood, Newman would have appreciated the significance of the rise of the ecclesial movements and communities, which exemplify the ecclesiology of the communion of the baptized which Lumen Gentium sets out and which he himself had learned from the Greek Fathers.