Well, I decided to look into that Cardinal Newman quote again, and it seems I hit jackpot! The mysterious quote is actually accurately attributed to him. However, the poor man is oft maligned and the quote completely decontextualized, as I suspected. How annoying is it when people misuse the words of great saints to suit their own warped purposes, like the closing of churches??? Oh, sooooo annoying! The good Cardinal Newman must be rolling in his grave.

Anyway, guess what I found? An article on EWTN written by...Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now our Holy Pontiff. Find the essay here.

In the article, our Holy Father says

It is known how Newman's insight into the ideas of development influenced his way to Catholicism. But it is not just a matter of an unfolding of ideas. In the concept of development, Newman's own life plays a role. That seems to become visible to me in his well-known words: "...to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often".
Throughout his entire life, Newman was a person converting, a person being transformed, and thus he always remained and became ever more himself.

(Continued:) In the idea of "development" Newman had written his own experience of a never finished conversion and interpreted for us, not only the way of Christian doctrine, but that of the Christian life.

So Cardinal Newman, himself a convert to the Catholic faith from Anglicanism, was referring to one's continual conversion and growth in the Lord. We are all called to conversion of life, as Benedictines know well since it's one of the vows that they take. Cardinal Newman was in no way implying that Truth somehow changes.

Today at a rally outside Holy Family Catholic Church in Sewell, NJ--in which the unholy "merger manual" was handed out and dozens of priests filed inside--a priest barked out to some of us protesters, "To live is to change. To be perfect is to change often." I responded, "Oh, did Christ say that, Father?" To which he responded, "Yes, actually. It was Cardinal Newman." I laughed audibly because I am all too familiar with the decontextualized, stock phrases whipped out of the back pocket of liberals. They like to quote well-regarded saints, etc. to justify their actions. Of course, the devil himself can quote Scripture for his purposes, as we all know. Since I must be running off to work in a few minutes I do not have long to research this phrase, but I did find this, also from Cardinal Newman. You may read the entire section here, but I will share with you one of the most relevant sections for our purposes:

For thirty, forty, fifty years I have resisted to the best of my powers the spirit of Liberalism in religion. Never did Holy Church need champions against it more sorely than now, when, alas! it is an error overspreading, as a snare, the whole earth; and on this great occasion, when it is natural for one who is in my place to look out upon the world, and upon Holy Church as in it, and upon her future, it will not, I hope, be considered out of place, if I renew the protest against it which I have made so often.

Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another, and this is the teaching which is gaining substance and force daily. It is inconsistent with any recognition of any religion, as true. It teaches that all are to be tolerated, for all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not miraculous; and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy.

Honestly, does this sound like the kind of may who would advocate the type of liberal and superficial changes that Bishop Galante would implement? Does Cardinal Newman seem like the type of man who would advocate we change, change, change for the sake of change? Surely not. I will continue to research the "change" phrase, but I do find it odd that in fifteen minutes I cannot find it in context or with a date. The only thing I see, by and large, are liberal using this quote and attaching it to Cardinal Newman, which is of course a red flag. More on this to come.

Update 9/11/08: I again looked online for the quote and came up empty. I can find no definitive attribution to Cardinal Newman. I checked CCEL (Christian Classics Ethereal Library, for those of you unfamiliar) and elsewhere. Google gives me only a handful of references to the quote, and none of them are reliable or contextualized sources. Hmmm. I wonder if anyone said this, or if he said something like this once. I'm stumped.