'The canonization of Newman is no conventional accolade to a very pious man. Newman strove all his life after holiness, but he had more than his share of human frailties. He could be tyrannical in friendship, he was thin-skinned and easily offended, slow to forgive, even at times implacable. Canonizations always have a point, which is often political, in the broadest sense. Newman believed passionately that religion without dogma slid inexorably into mere sentiment, and it would be possible to portray him as the patron saint of dogmatism, a model for the tame theologian anxiously eager to stay within the bounds of orthodoxy. But that would be a radical misunderstanding of his life's work. Newman possessed one of the most original Christian minds of modern times, indeed of any time. His significance for the Catholic Church, and for all the churches, is neither as a model of mere piety, nor as a paragon of conformist orthodoxy, but specifically as a teacher and exemplar of Christian thinking at the edge; for the patient, generous, attentive and interrogative mind he brought to bear on the questions of good and evil, meaning and purpose, that are the heart of religion.

'--book jacket.