A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste: Leo, Newman, Bosco

Outline:

A.  Leo XIII returns the Church to Thomism

B.  The Oxford Movement.  Divine authority rests in the Church.  The importance of the sacraments as channels of grace.  Apostolic succession of bishops.

C.  The personalities of Keble, Froude and Newman .

D.  Anglo-Catholicism:  1. dogma, 2. sacraments, 3. anti-Papalism.  Opposition from secularists and Christian liberals.  Newman’s crisis:  The Anglican Church is not part of the whole, catholic Church if it is not in union with Rome.  How?  It is a spiritual, non-juridic union.  The Church of England has “the succession, the Episcopal form, the apostolic faith and the use of sacraments.”  Tract 90 critiques Article 21 of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Faith  (“General councils are assemblies of men and may err”)

E.  The life and times of Saint John Bosco.  His experience of poverty and the poverty of the proletariat in Turin.  Education is the key, based on “reason, religion and kindness.”

F. “Education is something from the heart and God alone is its master; we cannot succeed in anything unless God gives us the key to these hearts.”