David Solomon speaks on the importance of the little-known Ward family

The Center for Ethics and Culture continued its fall series, “Victorian Catholics: Penning the Grandeur of God,” with a recent lecture on the Ward family by Philosophy Professor David Solomon, the center’s director.

Solomon described the Ward family as “one of the most vexed topics, I think, in the history of Catholic culture over the last 200 years.”  He argued that, though relatively unknown, the four-generation Ward family provides a remarkable lens into the tensions and changes in Catholic culture over the last two centuries.

The lecture focused on the Ward patriarch, William George Ward, a brilliant mathematician, whom Solomon affectionately referred to as “WG.”  Solomon noted the Oxford scholar’s “deep personal piety” and spoke of how Ward’s faith developed at Oxford.

Solomon explained that a sermon by John Henry Newman completely captured Ward, who “claimed to come completely under the spell of Newman’s view” to a more Catholic Anglicanism.  Ward soon joined Newman’s Oxford Movement.  He staunchly defended Newman’s works and, in response, Oxford officials asked him to resign his lecturing position.  When Ward refused to retract his 1844 IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH, Oxford formally censured him.

For all Ward’s support of Newman, the two often disagreed, explained Solomon.  After Ward converted to Catholicism, he became an ultramontane, advocating the declaration of papal infallibility.  Solomon mentioned Ward’s statement, “I should like a new papal bull every morning with my TIMES at breakfast.”

Newman’s view was less strict.  Ward grew to disapprove of Newman’s views as too moderate.  Solomon commented, “Ward constantly had this deep personal affection for Newman – while he found he always had this suspicion that Newman, who spent most of his time battering liberalism, …himself might be too liberal.”

Wilfrid Ward, whom Solomon described as the most intellectually able of William George Ward’s three sons, found himself in a different cultural conflict.  He became enmeshed in the debate about modernism.  While Wilfrid Ward struggled over his friendships with modernists, Solomon said, he “could not but help be true to the magisterium.”

Ward encouraged British Catholicism to abandon its siege mentality and view the Church in a different light.  Solomon suggested Wilfrid Ward possessed “a lot of sympathy for some of the sort of cultural features of modernists.”

Ward also was an early biographer of Cardinal Newman.  Solomon said Ward’s Newman biography was the best until Fr. Ian Ker’s.

Wilfrid’s wife, Josephine Hope, who preferred the name Mrs. Wilfrid Ward, wrote five novels.  Solomon made clear his general dislike for her work.  He suggested Out of Due Time but recommended the audience avoid The Job Secretary “at all costs.”

Maisie, the Wilfrid Wards’ daughter, worked as a street preacher in London and later New Jersey.  She founded the Catholic Evidence Guild and married Frank Sheed, an Australian street preacher.  They ran the Sheed & Ward publishing firm, which published apologetic and other theological works. While Solomon rejected claims Sheed invented the Catholic literary revival, he said it is “hard to imagine the Catholic literary revival without” the couple.

Their second son was American writer Wilfrid Sheed.  Solomon called Sheed “his own man” and “betwixt and between.”  He was less clearly Catholic than his ancestors.  Born in England, he adored the United States and eventually emigrated here.  He contracted polio as a teenager and later battled alcoholism and tongue cancer.

Addressing the claim that Sheed’s dark humor is a reflection of bitterness in the face of suffering, Solomon pointed out Sheed’s reflection on his polio in FRANK AND MAISIE, his biography of his parents.  Sheed wrote, “The problem of why God allows pain at all was no problem to me.  Human life without it would be superficial beyond endurance: people would just lie around and sunbathe.”

Solomon also recommended Sheed’s THREE MOBS: LABOR, CHURCH, and MAFIA as an excellent treatment of post-Vatican II American Catholic culture.  Sheed died in January 2011.

Finally, Solomon discussed three current views of the Ward family:  their views and concerns are outdated; they began as fervent converts, but their energy waned over 4 generations; and Solomon’s opinion, they were constantly searching for “a new siege” on Catholicism and how they could combat it successfully.

Lamenting the absence of a definitive work on the Wards, Solomon said his lecture was “an invitation to students in the audience to think about writing the great book about this family.”

Sam Bellafiore is a first year intended philosophy and vocal performance major living in Stanford.  He loves the Hesburgh basement because it is quiet and air conditioned, and Stanford is neither.  Contact him at sbellafi@nd.edu.