Ryan J. MARR. To Be Perfect is to Have Changed Often: The Development of John Henry Newman’s Ecclesiological Outlook, 1845-1877. Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2018. pp. 195. $100.00. ISBN 978-1978700574. Reviewed by Ono EKEH. Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, CT 06825.

Ryan Marr investigates the evolution of John Henry Newman’s ecclesiology over a three-decade span, from the late 1840s to the late 1870s. Specifically, the book investigates Newman’s attempt to balance the role of the laity, Newman’s religious epistemology, and his understanding of the threefold office of the Church: priest, prophet, and king. Newman’s early Catholic ecclesiology, an imbalanced “moderate ultramontanism,” which stemmed from his erroneous understanding of Roman Catholic theology in his Anglican years, emphasized the need for an infallible authority, a role for which only the Roman Catholic Church was capable of filling. Newman saw infallibility as a charism of the Church and an antecedent necessity for legitimate doctrinal development.

Newman’s 1959 Rambler article, “On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine,” signaled a shift in and rebalancing of his ecclesiological outlook to include the role of the laity. This evolved view saw the consensus of the faithful as providing a vital instinct for the mystical body of Christ. Marr notes that Newman’s understanding is based on his analysis of the historical data in which the laity play a “vital role in the reception and transmission of doctrine”(23), which leads to two important effects. First, Newman, for theologians, highlights the importance of history in understanding and formulating doctrine, and second, Newman opens up space for “passive” lay contributions in the development of doctrine, using Mary as a model.

The next period of Newman’s development comes in the era of Vatican I (1869-1870), specifically with the issue of papal infallibility which Newman thought ill-timed. Newman thought it important to work through difficulties on the subject and that the role of history was an essential ingredient in deliberations about dogma. He also argued for consideration for the impact on the consciences of the faithful and further, later, that the conscience was the “aboriginal Vicar of Christ,” thus supplying a counterpoint to the dogma of papal infallibility

In a fascinating move, Marr places Newman’s Grammar of Assent, not only in the context of Newman’s relationship and correspondence with William Froude and the school of skepticism, but in the context of Vatican I and his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk. Given the backdrop of the doctrine of papal infallibility, Newman introduces anthropology as a necessary aspect of ecclesiology and inserts a role for the laity such that he can “provide an alternative to neo-ultramontane conceptions of ecclesiastical authority” (111).Newman thus defends the reasonableness of the laity’s simple faith and justifies their theological instincts manifested in conscience. Even if the laity lack theological sophistication, one may reasonably believe in doctrines that one may not fully understand.

Marr’s work traces the development of Newman’s ecclesiology from its unbalanced early ultramontanism to the gradual inclusion of the role of the laity, initially in passive form to a more active form of participation. Marr argues that Newman’s final landing ecclesiology seeks to take into account the reality of the Church’s failings in practice, i.e., corruption, superstition, etc., and fit that reality into the doctrine of an ideal Mystical Body of Christ. Newman attributes the failure of internal harmony to the tensions caused and inherent weaknesses of each of the threefold office of the Church, the priestly, prophetic, and kingly offices, which can only be resolved by each office recognizing and acceding to the value and function of the others.

Marr raises areas for further study including the dialectic of conscience and papal infallibility, and the creation of ecclesiastical structures to accommodate the sensus  fidelium. Marr seems to equate the use of conscience, functioning as one pole of the dialectic, with the laity, and thus notes how that it in effect reduces the laity to passivity in matters of doctrine. Following Marr’s lead, more work needs to be done to show how we can cash out these ideas to give the laity a more active role in matters of doctrine.

This study also highlights the need for clarification on Newman’s Marian analogy to the laity in terms of ecclesial participation. To wit, even though the analogy comes from Newman’s middle Catholic period, one can still ask if it is a useful model. It seems that Mary, in her employment of faith and reason in the reception of revelation, is equated more with theologians as such, not the laity, whose contributions, for Newman, seem limited to “the activity of popular devotions” (30). The phenomenon of the pervasive Catholic non-clerical theologian is relatively recent in Church history, thus, the theologian as such—the prophetical office—does not necessarily imply laity. Furthermore, in the case of clerical theologians, there is a conflation of the prophetic and the kingly offices. Thus, if Mary is more suited to being a model for the theologian, is she, in her reflective capacity, a true model for lay contributions?

Ryan Marr’s book, in the same vein as a number of new studies that have begun to pay closer critical attention to Newman’s development and historical context, is well-written and researched, andwill be a valuable contribution to Newman studies. This book stimulates many interesting research ideas going forward both in Newman studies and in ecclesiology as a whole.