John Henry Newman was born on 21st February 1801 in London. At Ealing School he underwent a spiritual conversion which set him on the road to perfection. After undergraduate study at Trinity College, Oxford, he was elected Fellow of Oriel College. Ordained in the Church of England, he became Vicar of St. Mary’s, Oxford, when his spiritual influence on his parishioners and the undergraduates was enormous.
After 1833 he became the leader of the spiritual renewal known as the Oxford Movement. His studies of the Fathers of the Church led him to the conclusion that the Roman Catholic Church was the ‘One Fold of Christ.’ After a long interior struggle he was received into the Catholic Church on the 9th October 1845 by Blessed Dominic Barberi at Littlemore, where he had retired to live a semi-monastic life.
Ostracized by relatives and friends he was ordained priest in Rome and returned to England to found in Birmingham the first Oratorian Congregation in England. This was followed by a second Oratorian House in London. He became Rector of the Catholic University in Ireland and founded the Oratory School in Birmingham. In 1864 he published his Apologia Pro Vita Sua, in which he vindicated his honesty in the Church of England and defended the Church of Rome.
He worked tirelessly for the poor of his parish, and carried on an enormous correspondence, helping countless persons both Catholic and non-Catholic with their religious difficulties. He suffered much from the misunderstandings, suspicions, and opposition of some ecclesiastical authorities.
In 1879 Pope Leo XIII made him a cardinal to the joy of all of England. At his death in 1890 it was said that he more than any other person had changed the attitude of non-Catholics to Catholics. From 15,000 to 20,000 persons lined the streets as his body was born to Rednal, eight miles away, for peaceful burial. The Cork Examiner affirmed, “Cardinal Newman goes to his grave with singular honour of being by all creeds and classes acknowledged as the just man made perfect.
He was declared Venerable by Pope John Paul II on 22nd January 1991.
Fr.Vincent Blehl SJ, is First Postulator of Newman’s cause for sainthood.
Courtesy of The Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory
www.birmingham-oratory.org.uk
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