Apologia Pro Vita Sua - Definition and Overview

The classic defence of the religious opinions of John Henry Newman, published in 1864 in response to what he saw as an unwarranted attack on Roman Catholic doctrine by Charles Kingsley. Kingsley had strongly suggested that Newman was representative of a line of Roman Catholic theologians who had distorted the truth, writing in Macmillan's Magazine "Truth, for its own sake had never been a virtue with the Roman clergy. Father Newman informs us that it need not, and on the whole ought not to be".

After a brief and unsatisfactory correspondence in which Newman asked Kingsley to point out exactly where he was alleged to have held such an opinion, Newman began work on the Apologia.