Letter to the Duke of Norfolk is a book written in 1875 by St. John Henry Newman. Consisting of approximately 150 pages, it was composed as a response to Protestant-Catholic polemics that emerged in the wake of the First Vatican Council (1869–1870).
Background
The work was prompted by a controversy involving British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone. In 1874, Gladstone published a pamphlet titled The Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance, in which he argued that the recent Vatican Council's definitions of papal supremacy and infallibility (promulgated in the constitution Pastor aeternus) required Catholics to renounce their "moral and mental freedom" and placed their "civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another." Gladstone's pamphlet sold approximately 150,000 copies by the end of 1874 and created a significant public sensation.
Content
In the Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, Newman defends the compatibility of Catholic allegiance with civil loyalty. He directly addresses Gladstone's claim that Catholics have "no mental freedom," stating that Catholics "do not deserve his injurious reproach that we are captives and slaves of the Pope."
The book is formally addressed to Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 15th Duke of Norfolk, whose family was among the most prominent recusant families (English Catholics who remained loyal to the Catholic Church after the Protestant Reformation). The work is structured into several sections, including discussions on the ancient Church, the papal Church, divided allegiance, conscience, the 1864 Syllabus of Errors, the Vatican Council, and the Vatican definition of infallibility.
Significance
Newman's Letter to the Duke of Norfolk is particularly noted for its treatment of the relationship between conscience and papal authority. Newman's famous statement on conscience from this work is quoted in paragraph 1778 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Newman had personally opposed the definition of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council on grounds of inopportunity, though he had long held the doctrine as a theological opinion. In this letter, he sought to articulate a moderate interpretation of the Vatican decrees, countering both extreme ultramontane readings and Protestant criticisms.
