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 2010 Papal Travels of Pope Benedict XVI Great Britain: Saint John Henry Newman (inset) Scott 1488 (2011) The feast of Saint John Henry Newman is celebrated on October 9. The stamp above, from the 2010 set memorializing the travels of Pope Benedict XVI, remembers his visit to Great Britain. He beatified John Henry Newman on September 19, 2010, while in Birmingham, England, and Pope Francis canonized him in 2019. John Henry Newman (1801-1890) was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, he was elected a fellow of Oriel College in 1822, and served as vicar of the university church of St. Mary’s in 1828. He was a leading figure in the Oxford Movement, an effort to restore traditional Catholic teachings and ceremony within the Church of England. Newman contributed essays to "Tracts for Our Times", a series of 90 theological publications on doctrine and related matters published in 1833. Newman’s Tract 90 interpreted the 39 Articles (1562-1571) of the Anglican Church in a Catholic sense. Newman then resigned his position and in 1842 retired to a monastery at Littlemore, a parish in Oxford. Then, in 1845, he was received into the Roman Catholic Church and was ordained a priest in 1847. In 1848 he founded the Birmingham Oratory, the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. A prolific writer, Newman’s works include his autobiography, "Apologia pro Vita Sua" (1864), "The Idea of a University" (1873), "The Dream of Gerontius" (a poem on the afterlife, 1865), and "An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent", his justification for religious belief. Newman was created a cardinal in 1879 by Pope Leo XIII. Newman and the Oxford Movement affected both the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. Not everyone within the Movement followed Newman into Catholicism and some people remained within what came to be called “High Church Anglicanism.” The Oxford Movement particularly stimulated interest in study of the Church Fathers which serves as a significant contribution to Christian scholarship. Newman’s decisions created a rupture among friendships and family. Newman’s path was definitely “counter-cultural” for mid-nineteenth century England and he was much-criticized and even despised for his actions. His biographer, Ian Kerr, describes Newman’s sensitivity and the frustrations associated with his decisions. Kerr remarks about Newman’s “astonishing resilience and uncompromising toughness in the face of adversity….” He was one of the most prolific letter-writers of the English language. His mind, Kerr suggests, “…is characterized not by contradictions but by complementary strengths, so that he may be called, without inconsistency, both conservative and liberal, progressive and traditional, cautious and radical, dogmatic yet pragmatic, idealistic but realistic.” Kerr concludes that Newman occupies “a central place in the religious history of the nineteenth century.” In his homily delivered in Birmingham in 2010 at Newman’s beatification, Pope Benedict XVI stated: “The definite service to which Blessed John Henry was called involved applying his keen intellect and his prolific pen to many of the most pressing “subjects of the day”. His insights into the relationship between faith and reason, into the vital place of revealed religion in civilized society, and into the need for a broadly-based and wide-ranging approach to education were not only of profound importance for Victorian England, but continue today to inspire and enlighten many all over the world. I would like to pay particular tribute to his vision for education, which has done so much to shape the ethos that is the driving force behind Catholic schools and colleges today. Firmly opposed to any reductive or utilitarian approach, he sought to achieve an educational environment in which intellectual training, moral discipline and religious commitment would come together.”In addition, Benedict also reflected on Newman’s pastoral achievements: “He lived out that profoundly human vision of priestly ministry in his devoted care for the people of Birmingham during the years that he spent at the Oratory he founded, visiting the sick and the poor, comforting the bereaved, caring for those in prison.”Newman’s example led others to convert to Roman Catholicism and his writings stand today as testimony to a complex and brilliant writer about religious doctrine and the faith that it inspires. Pope Benedict XVI much admired Newman and that connection likely influenced the pope to establish an Anglican rite within the Roman Catholic Church which adopted an Anglican Use Liturgy. The rite is used by former members of the Anglican Communion primarily in England and Wales, the United States, and Australia following Pope Benedict’s Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus(2009). References: |
