Elizabeth Huddleston is head of research and publications at the National Institute for Newman Studies and associate editor of the Newman Studies Journal. She also teaches in the Department of Catholic Studies at Duquesne University. In 2024, she received a Research Travel Grant from the Cushwa Center to carry out archival research at Notre Dame in support of her project, “‘A Story of Well-Defined Purpose’: Josephine Hope-Scott Ward’s Social Criticism of Modernism.” Shane Ulbrich corresponded with Huddleston following her visit in April to the Notre Dame Archives.
Shane Ulbrich: Could you briefly introduce Josephine Hope-Scott Ward and the key contexts of her life and writing—from her family to Catholic England and beyond?
Elizabeth Huddleston: Josephine Hope-Scott Ward (1864–1932) wrote at the crossroads of the implementation of Catholic Emancipation—particularly the Universities Tests Act of 1871—and the Catholic Modernist Crisis (1893–1914). Her body of writings provides a unique perspective for viewing how the Catholic Church in England and the greater Anglophone world responded to the intellectual challenges posed by the modern world at the turn of the 20th century.
Josephine Ward was the niece of the Duke of Norfolk, which demonstrates her ties to Recusant England. She was also the daughter of the Tractarian and Oxford convert, James Robert Hope-Scott (1812–1873). In 1887, Josephine married Wilfrid Ward (1856–1916), son of the notable Oxford convert William George Ward (1812–1882), who was a moderating figure during the Catholic Modernist Crisis (1893–1914). Formed by the English Catholic intelligentsia, Josephine and Wilfrid would become two of the most influential Catholic voices in England during the Catholic Modernist Controversy. Josephine was a prominent author in her own day, though nearly all of her novels have fallen out of print—the Catholic University of America Press and Cluny Media have very recently reissued a few of her novels. Though she has all but disappeared from the historical record, her voice is essential for an understanding of the social and religious implications of the Modernist Crisis in England in particular, but also in other Anglophone locations.
In her biography of her parents, Maisie Ward writes that her mother disliked the culture surrounding modernism, particularly its “criticism and irreverence that were constantly breaking out in conversation.”1 Maisie writes that her mother saw the modernists as “a mutual admiration society living in a very small room,” and that “she [Josephine] wanted to throw open a few windows and let some air in to relieve the stuffy atmosphere.”2 The idea of a stuffy intellectualism is typically reserved for the anti-modernists in our contemporary historiography, though it seems that Josephine may have had an alternative social commentary concerning the cultures of modernism and anti-modernism. Josephine was not, however, without criticism of the anti-modernists.
Josephine likened Pius X’s encyclical, Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), to a “riot act that was read to” a mutinous group of modernists.3 However, much like her husband, Wilfrid, Josephine was also critical of the orthodox status quo, which is evident in her 1906 novel, Out of Due Time. Described by one American reviewer as “the expression of a conviction reached through an experience intimate and personal,” the somewhat autobiographical novel’s purpose was described as “the defense of the Church against the accusation that she is intolerant of intellectual freedom and progress, that she silences the thinker and persecutes the reformer.”4
While Josephine Hope-Scott Ward was personally invested in the English Catholic context, her novels extended beyond England to influence the greater Anglophone sphere. Her novels were widely read and reviewed by major publications in the United States.
SU: At the Notre Dame Archives, among other things you consulted the Sheed and Ward Family Papers, which include the papers of Josephine. Tell us about what you found at Notre Dame. Did anything surprise you?
EH: I found many interesting things in the Sheed and Ward Family Papers. I read and photographed over 300 letters and notes from Josephine, her family, and her correspondents about both personal and professional matters. Particularly, I was looking for correspondence about her writing process, the reception of her writing, and her motivation for her novel, Out of Due Time. What I encountered, however, was a loving mother, an incredibly skilled writer, and a shrewd (in the best way) and confident faithful Catholic woman who had a great influence on her readers both in England and in the greater Anglo- and Francophone spheres.
One of the most unexpected items I found in the archive was Frank Sheed’s honorary doctorate, which was received in 1956 from the Lille Catholic University (France). Another unexpected item was a list of cutleries that Josephine had scribbled on the back of an invitation to a formal dinner hosted by Lord Tennyson and his family. I also found a host of endearing letters from Josephine’s children (Maisie and Leo). It was quite fun to witness Maisie’s and Leo’s growth from school children to the highly intelligent adults they became, along with the evolving relationship they had with their mother (and father) through the years. The Catholic faith always seemed to be at the fore of their relationship. Josephine (and Wilfrid too) was keen to guide her children in a version of Catholicism that empowered them to think deeply about the church and her doctrines. It was in no way a secondary aspect of their lives. It was also helpful to read through the responses to and reviews of Maisie Ward’s biography of her parents because old friends who knew Josephine and Wilfrid often commented in letters about the accuracy of the depictions. Many also reminisced, shared stories, and elaborated on what was published in the biography, which helped to fill in the picture of who Josephine was and how she was perceived by her peers and her children.
As a historical theologian, I am often looking for the more theological writings with which I can build some kind of theological argument. What this experience reminded me of, however, is the human element to theological inquiry.
Reading the family papers is a unique and enriching experience. As a historical theologian, I am often looking for the more theological writings with which I can build some kind of theological argument. What this experience reminded me of, however, is the human element to theological inquiry. These were real people living real lives who participated in the providential work of God. I find that this is an important aspect of my work that must be remembered, so that care is taken to represent these people in the most accurate way I can.
SU: What new perspective do we gain about Catholic modernists when we pay more attention to voices like Josephine Ward’s?
EH: The Modernist Controversy has often been studied through the lens of its key figures—Tyrrell, Loisy, Hébert, Houtin, Sabatier, von Hügel, Bremond, to name a few—and their anti-modernist counterparts—Garrigou Lagrange, Merry del Val, Pius X, etc. What can be lost in only viewing the crisis through these polarized and zoomed-in lenses is a sense of how the crisis spilled into the lives of others not at the epicenter. Wilfrid and Josephine were conversant with tenets of both modernism and anti-modernism. Of course they did not want to be censored or condemned, but they also felt that the church was lacking in her relationship with the modern world. Their writings, both personal and published, reflect the tumult felt within the Catholic landscape of the era. While it is important to study the central figures and tenets of movements and crises, it is also important to take a step back and try to view the ripple effects of the crisis to the wider church. The correspondence and writings of Josephine Ward help us gain a better understanding of these currents.
The Modernist Crisis becomes a crisis of the whole church, and not just a quibble between academics and Vatican officials.
Studying the literary output of Catholic authors writing about Catholic themes during the modernist crisis can be quite enlightening. On the one hand it demonstrates, at least to some extent, how Josephine (or any author doing a similar task) understands and critiques various aspects of the crisis. On the other hand, it also demonstrates how the crisis is being translated and disseminated to those potentially unaware of the crisis at all. For example, the readers of the novel Out of Due Time encounter many of the very real tensions felt in the actual crisis, even though they may not know the drama playing in real life. This is one way in which the Modernist Crisis becomes a crisis of the whole church, and not just a quibble between academics and Vatican officials.
SU: Hers is very much an English Catholic context, but what can you tell us about Ward’s reception and influence in the wider Anglophone sphere, particularly in America?
EH: The opening paragraph to the Catholic World’s review of her novel, Out of Due Time, does a good job of demonstrating the range of her influence. It reads:
By her former work, One Poor Scruple, Mrs. Wilfrid Ward secured for herself a high place among living novelists. The wide success and high appreciation that it won proved that a religious novel, extolling Catholic ideals, when written with ability, truthfulness, and a knowledge of life, could command the favorable attention of non-Catholics, and might be a very efficient exposition and winning defence of Catholic truth, securing attention in quarters, closed, and guarded by the twin sentinels of prejudice and contemptuous indifference, against any literature making a formal plea for Catholicism.5
Josephine Ward was a best-selling author in her day, so it is a shame most today have never heard of her. Her novels were read widely in the English-speaking world, both by Catholics and non-Catholics, including both the United States and Canada.
I did find a correspondence between Josephine and a publisher, in which Josephine expressed anger that one of her novels had been translated into Italian when she had given the express instructions not to translate and distribute it in Italy. The reason for Josephine’s reticence about a worldwide audience was because she “did not think Italian Catholic readers would understand the book.”6 While I do not have direct evidence on hand that Josephine said something similar about Spanish in South and Central America, I gather from her correspondence that she was writing specifically for an English Catholic audience, but that there were enough similarities between the language and Catholic experience in the United States and Canada that she allowed, perhaps even welcomed, her book selling in those places.
SU: What are your next steps for this and other projects?
EH: The research for this project has really bloomed into a series of related projects and engagements. I am scheduled to give lectures on the topic of Josephine Ward and the Catholic Modernist Controversy at Blackfriars Hall (Oxford) this summer; another lecture as part of a panel at the de Nicola Center’s fall conference at Notre Dame; and another at the American Catholic Historical Association meeting in New York City in January 2025. A chapter for a monograph issue of Modernism on the topic of women and modernism is in the works and should be completed sometime in the fall of 2024.
Beyond these immediate projects, my work on Josephine Ward is a piece of a larger puzzle that I am working to assemble, which sees three (maybe four) generations of the Ward family and their various correspondence as a sort of periscope for viewing the changing Catholic landscape of England particularly, and the greater Anglophone sphere respectively, within the last two centuries. William George Ward (1812–1882), who was a member of the Oxford Movement and a convert to Roman Catholicism, corresponded often with the likes of John Henry Newman (1801–1890) and published widely in popular Catholic periodicals. A staunch ultramontanist, William’s many correspondences demonstrate the diversity in Catholic thought in 19th-century England, some of the differences between how converts and recusant Catholics viewed the faith, and the effects of the Anglo-Catholic movement on English Catholic imagination. William’s son, Wilfrid (1856–1916), married Josephine Hope-Scott (1864–1932). The pair would become one of the most influential Catholic couples of their day. Much of their writings demonstrate how they navigated the tumultuous waters of the Catholic Modernist Crisis. Josephine and Wilfrid’s children, Leo (1896–1942) and Maisie (1889–1975), would, like their parents and grandfather, become some of the most influential Catholic voices of their era. Maisie and her husband, Frank Sheed (1897–1981), would go on to found Sheed & Ward, one of the premier Catholic publishers in the English-speaking sphere. Leo would become an influential writer and missionary to Japan.
Notes
1 Maisie Ward, The Wilfrid Wards and the Transition, vol. II: Insurrection versus Resurrection (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1937), 190–91.
2 Ward, The Wilfrid Wards and the Transition, v. 2, 190–91.
3 Ward, The Wilfrid Wards and the Transition, v. 2, 558.
4 New York Times Book Review (26 May 1906).
5 James J. Fox, “Mrs. Wilfrid Ward’s New Novel,” Catholic World: A Monthly Eclectic Magazine of General Literature 83 (1906): 382.
6 Josephine Ward to Dr. Banffi (17 June 1909), Notre Dame Archives, CSWD 6/04.
Shane Ulbrich is assistant director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism.
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