Apologia arose from a newspaper review that Newman felt compelled to respond to while living in seclusion at the Birmingham Oratory, devoted to his educational ideals and promoting the Catholic laity. The book was a success in all circles. It presents his conversion, which was nothing more than the progressive understanding of the Catholic Creed, without the need to disparage Anglicanism, which he had served and dedicated himself to faithfully: "I looked at the Church, its rites, its ceremonies, its commandments, and said to myself: 'This is religion.' Then I turned my gaze to the poor Anglican Church (…) everything seemed monumentally empty to me."
It is not an autobiography, nor is it a narrative, as it does not discuss his life, hobbies, or family. He lets the facts speak for themselves and, to do so, delves into his university career, writings, and correspondence, to truthfully narrate a process that required great effort: "a dreadful thing for heart and mind." He does not seek justification, as it is unnecessary. He began by studying antiquity, the foundation of Christian doctrines and the Church of England. "And in the fifth century, it seemed to me that the Christianity of the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries was reflected. I saw my face in that mirror: I was a Monophysite. (…) Who would have thought that from all the passages in history I would end up turning to the words and actions of the old Eutyches (…) and the nonsense of a man without principles like Dioscorus, to convert to Rome!"
Newman's conversion was not a sudden fall from a horse: it was a journey of uprightness from which he gradually strayed to find another path, a journey full of difficulties, but "ten thousand difficulties do not make a single doubt," to quote his words (now included in the Catechism of the Catholic Church). In 1843, after three months of deliberation, he repudiated the criticisms directed against Rome and had to leave the vicarage of St. Mary's. And although he tried to remain in Littlemore, a parish he had built, he had to leave. He lost friends, and among some Catholics, he also encountered suspicion. In fact, the final chapter is addressed to Catholics who remained wary and offers a very balanced view of the intellectual world of the nineteenth century, with the emerging scientism "in danger of sinking into the bottomless pit of agnosticism." He opposed liberalism with all his might, that "deep and prestigious skepticism, which arises exclusively from human reason applied by the natural man."
It should not be forgotten that Newman is considered the most important Anglican theologian: he defended the infallibility of the Pope against Protestantism and was fully aware that the English idea of "papism" was not a religious idea, but a political principle. Apologia is a comforting and clear read, requiring calm to absorb the profound and broad message of someone considered the "absent father" of the Second Vatican Council, canonized in 2019, in whom it is discovered that "there are no better friends than old friends."