It has been said that this book of
Newman's is one of the finest among all writings on Mary.
Contrary to clichés,
Newman did not aim at presenting a Mariology, let alone such that would
have anticipated the Mariologies in vogue after Vatican II. He merely
wanted to present unapologetically as possible the age-old Catholic
perspective of Mary as the Mother of God. He did so in rebuttal of the
claim of Pusey, a prominent Anglo-Catholic, that Mariology was a field,
in addition to papal infallability, where Rome had to retreat
considerably for the sake of reunion with the Church of England.
The Letter is rather the vindication of the supreme authority of supernatural revelation. This is why the Letter begins with a chapter on the authoritative character of the Ancient Church as setting the rules of conscience against the encroachment of the State. One may indeed take the Letter for a treatise on Conscience and the Papacy.
A sedulous attention to the Letter
might have prevented the trivialization of Catholic conscience by much
of the “new” theology unjustly laying claim to Newman. May the Letter
prove a major remedy to the moral malaise engulfing a clergy and a
laity
caught in a misconstruction of the aggiornamento.