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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
On April 13th, 1841, L’Univers published a letter from John Dobrée Dalgairns who had signed himself Un jeune membre de l’Université d’Oxford. The editorial caption read Du Mouvement Catholique au sein de l’Eglise Anglicane, and was accompanied by an enthusiastic foreword.
1 The Catholic journal L’Univers was founded by l’Abbé Migne in 1833 on 3rd November.
2 John Dobrée Dalgairns was born in Guernsey on 21st October 1818. IIe studied at Exeter College, Oxford, and became an enthusiastic follower of Newman. He was received into the Church by Blessed Dominic on 29th September 1845. He was ordained priest in December 1846, and later became an Oratorian. He succeeded Faber as Superior of the London Oratory in 1863 and died on 11th February 1876.
3 Dominic Barberi was born on 22nd June 1792 near Viterbo, Italy. He joined the Passionist Congregation in 1814 and, in that year while at prayer, is said to have received a divine intimation that he was to labour for the salvation of souls in north-west Europe and especially in England. From then on he was filled with a consuming passion for the conversion of England. In 1840 he made the first Passionist foundation outside Italy at Ere in Belgium. It was there that he received a copy of Dalgairns’s letter, sent to him by l’Abbé Charles Bernard of Lille. He came to England on 5th October 1841, and died at Reading on 27th August 1849. See Giorg. and Wilson passim.
4 In the draft text Scripture quotations are not always in inverted commas. I have followed the text in this.
5 Letter from Barberi, dated 9th February 1831, to a Passionist colleague in Rome. In this he explains the ideas he had expressed in his treatise Conferenze e Lettere Celimontane which he had written earlier that month. See Ciorg. p. 288.
6 The man here referred to is Bloxham to whom Spencer had delivered Barberi’s letter. In a letter to his cousin, Mrs. Canning, dated 30th August 1841, Spencer refers to Barberi’s letter of the previous May, and says: ‘I sent it to Bloxham of Magdalen College, who after reading it wrote to me: “On reading it, tears rushed to my eyes, and when I had finished I could not refrain from kneeling down invoking blessings on the head of the writer.’” See CC p. 228.
7 Letter from Dalgairns to Barberi dated July 1841. See PPA.
8 See Wilson p. 292.
9 Newman, J. H. Apologia pro Vita Sua (Collins, Fontana Edition, London, 1959, pp. 211 and 215.Google Scholar)
10 Dalgairns’ letter is translated from the French reproduced in Giorg. Appendix 1. Barberi’s reply translated from the original draft MS in Latin. This draft is in the hand of an amanuensis, but corrected by Barberi and signed by him. See PPA.
11 The reference is to the then Whig Government which was in power from 1830 to 1841, except for a few months of Tory Government in 1834/5. It was the political and religious Liberalism of the Whigs that prompted Keble’s sermon on National Apostacy in 1833. The Irish Catholic clergy, with the sympathy of many Catholics in England, had supported the campaign that restored the Whigs to power in 1835. From that time Daniel O’Connell co-operated with the Whig Ministry under Lord Melbourne. Hence Dalgairns reference to O’Connell as ‘the great Agitator’ and ‘the demagogue.’ See CC pp. 13–14 & 215.
12 Dalgairns would seem to have been referring to the Passionists and Redemptorists. In February 1841 Ambrose Phillipps had told Newman that Fr. Dominic was coming to England later that year. Dalgairns could have learned of this from Newman. Fr. Dominic arrived in England on 5th October 1841. The Redemptorists came in 1843. See CC. p. 215.
13 This is an error. The relevant Article is 21. See The Book of Common Prayer (C.U.P. undated but post 1968).
14 St. Paul of the Cross (Paul Francis Danei) born in Ovada, Italy, on 3rd January 1694. From 22nd November 1720 to 1st January 1721, during a solitary retreat, he wrote the Rule of the Congregation he was to found. At the same time he kept a spiritual diary. The entry for 26th November 1720 reads: ‘I was moved by a desire for the conversion of heretics especially in England and the neighbouring countries.’ Three days later he wrote: ‘I was moved in a special way to pray for the conversion of England because I long to see the Standard of the Faith raised in that country.’ Blessed Dominic testifies that many years later St. Paul of the Cross declared: ‘It would be impossible for me to abstain from praying for England, because as soon as I kneel down to pray, England comes before my eyes.’ See The Life of Blessed Paul of the Cross by St. Vincent Strambi, C.P., the Introduction to which is written by Dominic Barberi, C.P. (Richardson & Son, London, 1853).
15 The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was not declared de fide until 1854.
16 The aphorism is from Plato’s Phaedón in the context of explaining that truth must take precedence over all friendships, even the closest.