The Newman of New England
James Kent Stone/Fr. Fidelis of the Cross, C.P.
(1840–1921)

by James Likoudis

One of the greatest nineteenth-century converts to the Church was James Kent Stone, who has been rightly called the “American Newman.” Stone was the scion of a distinguished Boston family of many Episcopalian and Presbyterian clerics—including such luminaries as his grandfather, Chancellor James Kent, the famous author of Commentaries on American Law, and his father, Dr. John F. Stone, rector of St. Paul’s Church in Boston and later professor of theology and dean of the faculty at the Episcopal Theological School at Cambridge. A brilliant student, James Kent Stone entered Harvard University in 1855, at the age of 16, and also studied at the University of Göttingen in Germany before graduating from Harvard in 1861.

Soldier and Scholar

With the advent of the Civil War, Stone joined the army as a private and quickly advanced to lieutenant, seeing action in the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, Antietam, in which some 22,000 men were killed. Upon leaving military service, he received an MA and then a doctorate in theology from Harvard. Ordained a deacon and then a priest in the Episcopal Church, he served as a professor of Latin at Kenyon College in Ohio. Stone married Cornelia Fay in 1863 and became the happy father of two daughters.

In 1867, he became the president of Kenyon College, the youngest college president of the period. Soon after, acknowledged as a brilliant scholar and speaker, he accepted the position of president of Hobart College in Geneva, New York. To his great sorrow, Cornelia died in 1869, after giving birth to their third child, Frances. Stone’s conversion to the Catholic Church would occur soon afterward.

Unexpected Conversion

It became evident that Stone’s theological studies had been affected by the Oxford Tractarian movement in England, which attempted to prove that the Church of England and its Protestant Episcopal offshoot had retained the features of primitive Christianity that a later “Romanism” had corrupted. Stone’s developing “High Church” views encountered resistance in the super-Protestant “Low Church” atmosphere of Kenyon College and led to his resignation from Kenyon College, whereupon he was offered the presidency at Hobart, which was High Church Anglican in ethos. In letters to his mother in 1869, he wrote:

I became convinced that the Catholic Church in communion with the Successor of St. Peter was the true Church of our Blessed Savior. It came upon me all of a sudden. One week I had not the slightest suspicion that I should ever become a Roman Catholic, and the next (I think the time was as short, or, at any rate, not much longer) I saw it as plain as day. I cannot explain it, and do not attempt to explain it, but consider it simply as the work of Divine Grace. It was last December, when I was in Geneva and when Cornelia was apparently getting a little better. I was not in any way under Catholic influence; the subject was not brought in any way to my direct notice. I can only call it God’s work . . . I only wrote to you now because I knew you would hear the story from others. What could I do? I am as sure that the Roman Catholic Church is the true Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ as I am that there is a God in heaven or that I have a soul to be saved. I see it as plainly as I see the sun above me. You know the history of my youth well enough to know that I was sincere and devout, and that I truly loved my Lord and Savior. The only desire I ever had for myself was to be His minister. And now, it is love for Him alone that has drawn me into His Church. He has called me, and what can I do? Can I refuse to go? Nay, I have given up everything for His sake—everything. What is there that I have not given up? I would go through it all a thousand times over, though I should die a thousand times from sheer distress, rather than refuse to obey the Divine Voice which calls me. I would die tomorrow, joyfully, by the most ignominious and painful of deaths, rather than betray for a single instant the blessed faith, which is dearer to me than life and stronger than the fear of death.

Stone had read the touching appeal of Bl. Pius IX, “Pio Nono,” to all Protestants and non-Catholic Christians for their return to Catholic unity, but he was little affected. To his mind, he had already dealt with the “Roman question,” and felt only pity for its author. In the words of biographer Katherine Burton in her book No Shadow of Turning (Longmans, Green and Company, 1944):

The very suggestion that Romanism might after all be identical with true Christianity was preposterous to him. Surely it was the papacy that had been the great apostate, the mystery of iniquity, the masterpiece of Satan, which had made its most successful attack upon the Church of God by entering and corrupting it. The rise of the papal authority was a matter of plain history; he had read of it himself over and over, and it was his conviction that the simple faith of early days was now scarcely recognizable under the accumulated error of centuries.

Stone had defended the Anglican Reformation “with all his soul.” Yet one night, in a mysterious experience, the terrible thought came to him, “What if the old Roman Church should be right after all?” Upon the death of his beloved wife, and torn by both personal and doctrinal anguish, he determined to study in depth the nature of the Church Christ had established.

Defender of Truth and Papal Authority

The resolution of all Stone’s troubling questions would receive final clarification after his entrance into the Church and the completion of his masterpiece of apologetics, An Invitation Heeded. This impressive volume would go into 17 printings and would prove invaluable to many other seekers of the true Church. Dismissed by one of his Protestant detractors as the “silliest trash ever put forth,” An Invitation Heeded is perhaps the most powerful apologia for the Catholic faith written by an American convert from Anglicanism. Indeed, his spirit, style, and logical acumen have been likened to that of the incomparable John Henry Newman.

Stone’s defense and exposition of the Roman primacy of universal jurisdiction in the Church remains of special interest today as ecumenical studies (such as that occurring with the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue recently concluded at Ravenna in October 2007) have begun to focus on the relationship between primacy and collegiality in the hierarchical structure of the Church. In his survey of the history of the Church concerning the papacy, the “American Newman” was to conclude:

The primacy of the See of Peter is the most prominent fact in the history of Christianity. And it is a fact which is inseparably associated with a distinct prophecy. Moreover, the Primacy is not only professedly grounded upon the prophecy in question, but is actually so grounded. I mean that the words of Christ [in the famous petrine texts of Scripture] are so substantially the foundation of the papal power that the latter could never have existed without the former. No intelligent student will think of denying this. Indeed, without looking into the past at all, it is perfectly plain that, if it were not for the divine sentences so often quoted, the pontifical claims would be wholly without sanction, and the papacy would fall to pieces in an hour . . . “Thou art a Rock; and upon this Rock I will build My Church; and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” Stupendous prophecy! Where among all the words of God shall its mate be found?

A Life Well Lived

An Invitation Heeded was written in the interval between Stone’s reception into the Catholic Church on December 8, 1869, and his ordination as a priest. Space does not permit a fuller account of his truly remarkable life. James Kent Stone arranged for the care and education of his daughters and became a Paulist priest, and then a famous and much admired Passionist missionary, known as Fr. Fidelis of the Cross. He helped establish Passionist houses and churches in America and South America, including such countries as Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Cuba. Stone died in the arms of his daughter Frances during a visit to her home in San Mateo, California, on October 15, 1921.

James Likoudis is president emeritus of Catholics United for the Faith.

Editorial Note: Copies of James Kent Stone’s An Invitation Heeded are still available from booksellers. James Likoudis’ own works dealing with the Roman primacy as a divine institution are also available. His Ending the Byzantine Greek Schism can be ordered from Emmaus Road Publishing by calling (800) 398-5470 or visiting www.emmausroad.org. Both his The Divine Primacy of the Bishop of Rome and Modern Eastern Orthodoxy: Letters to a Greek Orthodox on the Unity of the Church ($27.95) and Eastern Orthodoxy and the See of Peter ($24.95) are available directly from the author (prices include shipping and handling). To order, send a check or money order to P.O. Box 852, Montour Falls, NY 14865.

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