ENPages That Mention Cashel, Co. Tipperary, Ireland
Copy letter from John Henry Newman (The Oratory, Birmingham) to the 'Deans, professors & other officers' [of the Catholic University], discussing the conflict between his Rectorship and his headship of the Oratory, and proposing his resignation as Rector
"Copy"
The Oratory Birmingham November 6 1858
My dear Professors, Deans & other officers of the University
It is rare indeed that a man has so speedy and so large a reward of responsibilities which he has taken upon himself in any important work, as I have in the knowledge of your feelings towards me as Rector, which are expressed in your address. Those feelings indeed, I am conscious, are far beyond what I can fairly claim by my actual services, and so far ought rather to humble than to rejoice me; but if my right to their profession is to be determined by any own feelings towards yourselves and my zeal for the object which has associated us in common labours, then certainly I will allow that your attachment is not undeserved and its expression most welcome.
And I have to thank you also, in the name of my brethren here, for your consideration towards them. It would be strange indeed if they were not touched by the allusions you have made to the self denial, which during the last year you have sustained yourselves, of the absence of their head. And I thank you for it most sincerely myself, for you could not have done me personally a greater kindness, than you have laid me under by thus showing that there are those who enter into their past difficulties, and acquit them of unreasonableness in at length re calling me to Birmingham.
I wish it were as easy to solve a very arduous problem, as it is thus to express gra titiude for the extreme kindness of your letter, and to feel a real and deep sympathy in the perplexities which have occasioned it. I will say a few words, first on my own position, then on that of my Congregation relatively to it.
1. For myself: - the following message has lately come to me from the Archbishop of Dublin through the Archbishop of Cashel.
"Oct. 3.1858. Dr Cullen, before leaving Dublin, wrote to me on the necessity of your residing in the University as before, or at least for some time, some considerable time, each session. Indeed I believe your presence for a much longer time than you gave last year necessary for the success of the University."