Your chance to find a Newman pew

From The Tablet

An Anglican church in Oxford is urgently looking for takers for Victorian pews installed by St John Henry Newman. Due to a major refurbishment of the church he founded, St Mary and St Nicholas in Littlemore, sixteen oak pews face the scrap heap unless a new home is found quickly.

The pews are being replaced by modern stackable seating.

Local historian Dr Philip Salmon, who is closely involved with the refurbishment, is charged with finding them new owners.

He said: “I have been trying to find suitable homes, ideally in a proper religious setting where Newman’s legacy and vision is appreciated. This has been complicated though by the fact that one end of each pew is roughly carved, where it used to butt up against a wall. So a little carpentry is required on each, but it’s not difficult to fix.”

More here-

https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/12496/your-chance-to-find-a-newman-pew

‘John Henry Newman’ Review: A Heart That Speaks to Hearts

From The Wall Street Journal-

John Henry Newman was and is an exceptional figure. This October he was declared a saint by the Catholic Church, the first English saint created in half a century. For much of Newman’s life, he struggled with unpopularity, misunderstanding and vilification from his various opponents. He was the most distinguished and the most original English theologian since the Middle Ages, but he was disliked and distrusted by many in the Catholic Church, as well as by the English Protestants and unbelievers whom he had horrified by his defection, in 1845, from the Church of England. Yet when he died, aged 89 in 1890, in an England still generally anti-Catholic, he had become, as Eamon Duffy says in this splendid book, an unlikely “national treasure” to whom Tennyson and Matthew Arnold —by no means Catholics—had written polite but puzzled tributes.

Newman wrote a great deal. He published half a dozen books, a number of essays that are central to the understanding of Catholic thought, three good hymns (including “Lead, Kindly Light”), a bad long poem (“The Dream of Gerontius,” later transformed by Edward Elgar’s music) and 32 volumes of letters and diaries. Anyone daunted by more weighty biographies, the best being Ian Ker’s (1988), should read Eamon Duffy’s short, fresh account. The Cambridge scholar of religion’s calm judgment expertly illuminates every aspect of Newman’s life, work and—until he was very old—unceasing mental and spiritual attention.

More here-

https://www.wsj.com/articles/john-henry-newman-review-a-heart-that-speaks-to-hearts-11576857796

How an Anglican priest became a Catholic saint

From England-

From tending to the sick during a cholera outbreak in the 19th century Black Country to healing an expectant mother in modern-day Chicago, John Henry Newman has left an indelible impression on the Catholic Church.

And the one-time temporary assistant priest in the West Midlands this week became Britain’s newest saint. 

In front of tens of thousands of pilgrims at St Peter’s Square in the Vatican, the Pope Francis elevated the English theologian to sainthood. 

The Prince of Wales, who represented the UK at the ceremony, praised the legacy of the cardinal, saying in a speech after the ceremony, saying it was a cause for celebration Anglicans, Catholics and simple admirers of Newman. 

“He was a priest, a poet and a thinker ahead of his time,” said the Prince. “Above all, perhaps, he was a fearless defender of truth, whose impact on the world was as profound as it is enduring.”

More here-

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/2019/10/15/how-an-anglican-priest-became-a-catholic-saint/

One man, two churches: John Henry Newman’s legacy lives on for both Catholics and Anglicans

From American Magazine-

The Rev. Dr. Will Adam is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Ecumenical Adviser and Director of Unity, Faith and Order for the Anglican Communion. Dr. Adam was ordained in 1994 and served in several parishes, most recently in London, before joining the senior staff at Lambeth Palace in early 2017. A graduate of the Bossey Ecumenical Institute, he oversees the Anglican Communion’s relations with the Catholic Church and other Christian communions.

In preparation for Pope Francis’ Oct. 13 canonization of Blessed John Henry Newman in Rome, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has announced sending a delegation to represent the Church of England, Newman’s former faith community. On Oct. 9, I interviewed Dr. Adam, a member of the delegation, by email about Newman’s legacy in the Anglican tradition and for ecumenical relations.

What is the significance of the Anglican Communion including John Henry Newman on its liturgical calendar?

More here-

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/10/11/one-man-two-churches-john-henry-newmans-legacy-lives-both-catholics-and-anglicans

and here-

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2019-10/biography-cardinal-john-henry-newman-anglican-catholic.html

and here-

https://religionnews.com/2019/10/11/newman-poised-to-be-saint-of-friendship-in-todays-polarized-church/

Pittsburgh institute expects rise in Newman interest, visits after sainthood

From Pittsburgh-

The Catholic Church’s newest saint may soon be attracting people to Pittsburgh.

Cardinal John Henry Newman, an Anglican churchman who converted to Catholicism in 1845, will be canonized in Rome on Sunday.

Among those attending the canonization Mass will be Ryan Marr, director of the Oakland-based National Institute for Newman Studies, and institute co-founders the Rev. Drew Morgan and Catharine Ryan.

Founded in 2002, NINS is now the largest curator of digital archives for Newman and the foremost center for Newman studies and research in North America. In August, the institute launched the NINS Digital Collections, an interactive, online platform that is home to more than 250,000 Newman archives. Marr said interest in Newman is booming and is likely to bring Newman-related tourism to Pittsburgh.

More here-

https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-allegheny/pittsburgh-institute-expects-rise-in-newman-interest-visits-after-sainthood/

Cardinal John Henry Newman might well be the patron saint of ecumenism

From Ireland-

Theologian, scholar, educationalist, poet, novelist, convert, cardinal and blessed are some of the outstanding titles of John Henry Newman we can celebrate on the occasion of his canonisation in Rome next Sunday (October 13th).

Yet, 174 years after he converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism, it is his conversion that we remember as the great watershed moment of his life.

Newman, the convert, created a huge stir at the time as did those of his contemporaries who became Catholics in the Oxford Movement. There is no doubt but that the church then, and oftentimes since, saw Newman’s conversion as a boost to Catholicism that evoked a measure of triumphalism in the church.

But there should be no hint of triumphalism in his being declared a saint by the church. It is not the final “one in the eye” for Anglicanism that shows Newman’s conversion as the natural high point of his life. On the contrary, I see him as a saint of Christian traditions Catholic and Anglican.

More here-

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/cardinal-john-henry-newman-might-well-be-the-patron-saint-of-ecumenism-1.4042906

Prince Charles plans to attend Cardinal Newman’s canonization

From England-

Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, plans to attend the October 13 canonization of Blessed John Henry Newman, the prince’s office announced Friday.

Charles will travel to Rome for the event and, following the ceremony, attend a reception at the Collegio Urbano, part of the Pontifical Urban University, and the institution where Newman studied to become a Catholic priest.

Queen Elizabeth, 93, no longer travels abroad, so the Prince of Wales is the highest royal available to be on hand for the ceremony in St. Peter’s Square.

Expected to become king upon his mother’s death or abdication, Charles also will become head of the Church of England. The soon-to-be St. John Henry Newman is one of the highest profile converts from the Church of England to the Catholic Church. He will become the first English non-martyr saint since the Reformation.

More here-

https://aleteia.org/2019/09/14/prince-charles-plans-to-attend-cardinal-newmans-canonization/

Cardinal Newman becoming a saint puts Oxford church on pilgrims' trail

From Oxford-

WHEN Cardinal John Henry Newman becomes a saint it will put a Littlemore church on the pilgrims’ trail. 

The Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory have announced that Pope Francis will canonise Blessed John Henry Newman in St Peter’s Square, Rome, on Sunday, October 13. 

This will make Cardinal Newman the first English person who has lived since the 17th century officially recognised as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. 

The news is being welcomed in Littlemore as Cardinal Newman built St Mary and St Nicholas Church, in Sandford Road, Littlemore, while still an Anglican in 1835.

More here-

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/17760728.cardinal-newman-becoming-saint-puts-oxford-church-pilgrims-39-trail/

Catholics, Anglicans welcome news of Card. Newman’s canonization date

From Vatican News-

Catholics and Anglicans have welcomed Monday’s announcement that Pope Francis will declare English Cardinal John Henry Newman a saint on Sunday, October 13, at a Mass in St. Peter’s Square in Rome.  

The day of canonization was established on July 1, as the Pope held an Ordinary Public Consistory of cardinals to formally approve the canonization of Card. Newman along with four others: Giuseppina Vannini, Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan, Irmã Dulce Pontes and Marguerite Bays.

Newman, a former Anglican priest who became a Roman Catholic in 1845 and eventually a Cardinal, is regarded as one of the most influential figures from his era for both Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism, noted the Church of England in a press release on July 1.

More here-

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2019-07/cardinal-newman-canonization-date-catholics-anglicans.html

Pope Francis to Canonize Blessed John Henry Newman, Declares Cardinal Mindszenty Venerable

From NCR-

Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman is to be canonized following a Vatican announcement on Wednesday that the Pope had formally approved a miracle attributed to his intercession.

Oratorian Father Ignatius Harrison, postulator for Blessed John Henry’s cause, told the Register Feb. 13 that he heard the news with “enormous elation.” 

Everyone at the Birmingham Oratory, which Cardinal Newman founded, is “absolutely delighted that the heroic sanctity has been recognized,” Father Harrison said, “and we look forward to many more graces with his help.”  

The papal decree comes after the Vatican last year judged the healing of a woman to be miraculous. 
The case relates to a law graduate in the archdiocese of Chicago who had been inexplicably healed in 2013 after praying for Blessed John Henry’s intercession while suffering from a “life-threatening pregnancy.” 

More here-

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/blessed-newman-to-be-canonized-cardinal-mindszenty-declared-venerable

Vatican approves second miracle for Blessed John Henry Newman

From CNA-

Washington D.C., Nov 28, 2018 / 12:47 pm (CNA).- A second miracle attributed to Blessed John Henry Newman has reportedly been approved by the Vatican, fueling expectation that his canonization could occur as early as next year.

Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom wrote in email newsletter to his diocese last week that he had received a copy of the relatio, or official report, about the second miracle needed for Newman’s canonization.

“It looks now as if Newman might be canonised, all being well, later next year,” wrote Egan in the newsletter. 

According Fr. Ignatius Harrison, the postulator of Newman’s cause for canonization, there are now two more steps to be taken before Newman can be canonized. First, a commission of bishops has to approve of the canonization, and then Pope Francis must declare him a saint.

More here-

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/vatican-approves-second-miracle-for-blessed-john-henry-newman-87278

A Pittsburgh Group Dedicated To A 19th Century Cardinal Digitized His Life's Work

From WESA Pittsburgh NPR-

A Pittsburgh research center devoted to the works of a theologian, who later became a Catholic cardinal, has finished the first part of a project to digitize his manuscripts.

Archivists in Birmingham, England worked for four years to take high-quality images of John Henry Newman’s unpublished writings on theology, education and philosophy. It will take another year to upload the nearly 30 terabytes of material to a website operated by the Pittsburgh-based National Institute for Newman Studies in Oakland.

“As funding sometimes gets thinner at universities, it’s really helpful for scholars in different parts of the world, as scholarship becomes international, that they can access the original material that the thinkers they are working on were using,” said institute director Bud Marr. “To see those things in quality, high-definition images will really be important.”

More here-

http://wesa.fm/post/pittsburgh-group-dedicated-19th-century-cardinal-digitized-his-lifes-work#stream/0

JOHN WESLEY, CATHOLIC FORERUNNER?

From The Living Church-

In 1840, John Henry Newman reviewed The Life and Times of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon for the British Critic (W.E. Painter, 1839), the quarterly journal he edited. Regarding the life of one of the great leaders of the 18th-century evangelical revival, Newman praised Selina Hastings’s devotion and that of her fellow Methodists, amid the “imbecile policy of the Establishment of the day.” Newman claimed that he would much rather say, “Sit anima mea cum Westleio” (“My soul is with Wesley”), than “cum Luthero” or “cum Calvino” or many other possible clever Latin tags. As for the Establishment, Newman wrote elsewhere,

Who would not rather be found even with Whitfield and Wesley, than with ecclesiastics whose life is literary ease at the best, whose highest flights attain but to Downing Street or the levee?

More here-

http://livingchurch.org/covenant/2017/05/24/john-wesley-a-catholic-forerunner/?platform=hootsuite

Is Invoking the Saints Dangerous?

From Catholic Culture-


While still an Anglican, Blessed John Henry Newman had some trouble coming to a Catholic appreciation of the role of the saints in Christian life. He seems to have understood from the first that the saints were wonderful witnesses to Divine realities and a superb inspiration to us all, but he balked at invoking their intercession for fear of diluting the honor due to God.

Newman emphasized this concern in a letter to the Anglican Bishop of Oxford in 1841, some four years before his conversion. He expresses what was then the common high Anglican attitude on the subject, including a notable disdain for the spiritual perception of what we might call the “common man”:

More here-

http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otc.cfm?id=1077

Newman In a New Light

From NCR-

Why a new biography of Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman? Perhaps because, as two disparate thinkers, William Golding (Lord of the Flies) and C.S. Lewis, believe, saints are the most interesting and unique kinds of people to read about. Tyrants, as Lewis wrote, are all boringly the same.

Another reason, for Father Juan Vélez, an Opus Dei priest, physician and Newman scholar, is “to highlight Newman’s constant search for religious truth and lasting happiness … to show the spiritual and intellectual path that led Newman from evangelical Protestantism through Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism.” The main source for his work is Newman’s correspondence, from which he quotes extensively.

Newman grew up in a solid Anglican family. After his father’s bank’s failure and his own illness — and a period of what he thought of as rebellion against God, when he read skeptics Thomas Paine, Voltaire and David Hume — he underwent, at age 15, a religious conversion. This took the form of a Calvinist and evangelical devotion to “God as a personal Being, not an abstract truth.”

Read more:

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/newman-in-a-new-light/#ixzz24YS19QJr

Newman biographer highlights cardinal's insights amid Anglican turmoil

From CNA-

A biographer of Blessed John Henry Newman says the noted 19th-century Catholic convert can offer guidance to Anglicans in the midst of their denomination's current moral and doctrinal crisis.

Cardinal Newman “saw the importance of knowing one's faith, and the truths revealed by God through the Church – and the importance of living according to those truths, not according to opinions,” said Father Juan Velez, author of “Passion For Truth: The Life of Blessed John Henry Newman” (St. Benedict Press, $18.75).

While stressing the call to holiness for both laity and clergy, Newman also came to recognize the gift of the teaching authority held by the bishops in union with the Pope.

This visible apostolic authority contrasts sharply with the modern Anglican practice of “putting the beliefs of the Church up for a vote,” the biographer observed.

“Passion For Truth” is the first major biography of Bl. Newman to be published since his beatification in 2010. Its author discussed the late cardinal's life and thought in an Aug. 10 interview, two days after the biography became available as an e-book.

More here-

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/newman-biographer-highlights-cardinals-insights-amid-anglican-turmoil/

Claims of second Newman miracle as Pope lands in U.K.

From England

Pope Benedict XVI will beatify Cardinal Newman at a huge open-air Mass in Birmingham's Cofton Park Sept. 19, the last day of his four-day visit to England and Scotland. However, a second miracle is needed to name the 19th-century cardinal as a saint.

"I am about to leave for Mexico City precisely because that could be the miracle for his canonization," Ambrosi said in the documentary -- "Newman: Saint or Sinner?" -- excerpts of which were released by the BBC Sept. 9.

"We are in a very preliminary phase," he added. "I cannot say anything yet, but this shows how the cardinal answers these prayers."

Former British government minister Ann Widdecombe -- who, like Cardinal Newman, was Anglican before becoming Catholic -- will present the television program. She told Catholic News Service Sept. 13 that the alleged healing occurred after prenatal scans revealed that the unborn baby was "severely deformed."

The doctors, she said, were convinced they could do nothing to help the fetus, but the mother, a devout Catholic, insisted on going through with the pregnancy.

"The child was born perfect following the mother praying to Newman, and scientists can't explain it," said Widdecombe.
Father Richard Duffield, provost of the Birmingham Oratory, confirmed in an e-mail to CNS that "an investigative tribunal into a further miracle ... is about to open in the Archdiocese of Mexico City."

More here-

http://bcc.rcav.org/the-news/229-claims-of-second-newman-miracle-as-pope-lands-in-uk

The complicated cardinal

From The Philadelphia Inquirer-

Anyone with overly pious views about who is suitable for canonization will be puzzled by the pope's beatification of John Henry Newman this weekend. Newman wasn't a lifelong Catholic, and he wrote against the Catholic Church well into his 30s.

About a decade after he left the Anglican Church and became a Catholic, Newman's writings on the church's duty to consult the laity brought him into disfavor with the Vatican. In the 1860s, he drew criticism from England's highest-ranking Catholic prelate, Archbishop Henry Edward Manning, who wrote of Newman to a Vatican source, "I see much danger of an English Catholicism, of which Newman is the highest type. ... In one word, it is worldly Catholicism, and it will have the worldly on its side, and will deceive many."

Newman was determined to resist any imposition on English Catholics of what was then called an ultramontane attitude, or what we would today call ultraconservative. The infallibility question provides a good illustration.

Read more:

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20100914_The_complicated_cardinal.html#ixzz0zVbQLoj2

Pope breaks own rule to beatify Anglican convert

From AP-

Pope Benedict XVI will break his own rule this weekend when he beatifies Cardinal John Henry Newman, the renowned 19th Century Anglican convert who greatly influenced the Roman Catholic Church.

Newman remains a complicated figure within the Anglican church he abandoned, and the pope's glorification of him during a state visit to Britain could unleash new tensions between churches already divided over issues like the ordination of women and gay bishops.

Benedict will move Newman a step closer to possible sainthood when he presides over his beatification Sept. 19, the main reason for his four-day trip. It's the first time Benedict will celebrate a beatification; under his own rules popes don't beatify, only canonize.

For the German-born, by-the-book professor, such an exception to his own rule is significant. It's a calculated gesture that underscores Benedict's view that Newman is a crucial model for all Christians at a time when Christianity is on the wane in an increasingly secularized Europe.
"His personality and teachings could be a source of inspiration for ecumenism in our times from which all of us can draw," Benedict said on the eve of his trip. "It is my hope and prayer that more and more people will benefit from his gentle wisdom and be inspired by his example of integrity and holiness of life."

More here-

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h0d3eadw7me-DPxzYPdcofSKUZxwD9I70E0O0

Beyond the Beatification of Cardinal Newman

From The Wall Street Journal-

This month Pope Benedict XVI will travel to England for an unprecedented state visit to the United Kingdom, meeting with the Queen at Balmoral Castle and giving an address to Parliament. The occasion for this historic event, however, is not church or international politics—although political issues will doubtless be touched upon—but the beatification (the penultimate step towards sainthood) of John Henry Cardinal Newman.

Newman, whose long life spanned most of the 19th century, was perhaps the greatest religious figure of the last 200 years of British history. Converting from Anglicanism to Catholicism at the age of 44, he wrote cogently and beautifully under both religious affiliations, and was a lightning rod in the passionately argued religious controversies of his time, such as infallibility of the Pope or the legitimacy of Anglicanism as the state church.

Valuing his religious influences as a thinker and evangelizer of the highest caliber, Pope Benedict has made an exception of his thus-far universal practice of not participating in beatification ceremonies. Hence his trip to Great Britain.

En route to this honor were the standard ecclesial steps: the examination of Newman's life and writings; a declaration that he had lived a life of extraordinary virtue; and official approval by doctors and theologians of a miraculous cure after prayers that Newman would intercede with God on the sufferer's behalf.

More here-

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111704575355321702751364.html