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-
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