Newman's historical research in the Church Fathers and his theory of development in Christian doctrine eventually convinced him that the ideal of an Anglican
via media was illusory. In 1845 he was received into the Roman Catholic Church, in 1847 he was ordained, and in 1848 he established the Birmingham Oratory as a center for those who shared his aspirations.
Newman struggled futilely during the years 1851–1858 to succeed as rector of the new Catholic University of Ireland, but political forces were too strong for him. Out of this defeat, however, came his main educational work, The Idea of a University (1852, 1859), which looked forward to a new synthesis of scientific, humanistic, and theological studies. Newman's strongly felt defense of his religious integrity and conversion expressed in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864) restored his rapport with educated readers in England. It also cleared the path for the presentation of his basic philosophical views on knowledge and his defense of the reasonable character of the act of religious faith. Newman regarded his Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (1870) as his way of discharging an intellectual debt to his generation and to religious seekers of every age.
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