Jaki's book has a thesis well summarized by the first reviewer. The polemic to support this thesis gets in the way for this reader. Newman is not an easy companion for either pro-curialists like Jaki on the one hand or the liberal sorts who try to claim Newman. Jaki sees Newman totally on his side and to do that you have to ignore Newman's own problems with Rome and the English and Irish hierarchies. If Newman was as ultramontane (super Roman) as Jaki says, why did the conservative hierarchy at the time distrust him so?