John Henry
Newman was born in London on 21st February 1801, the eldest son of a London
banker. His family were ordinary church-going members of the Church of England,
without any strong religious commitments, although the young John Henry did
learn at an early age to take a great delight in the Bible. He was sent to
Ealing School in 1808, and it was there, eight years later, that he underwent a
profound religious conversion which was to shape the rest of his life as a
quest for spiritual perfection.
In 1817 he
entered Trinity College, Oxford. Five years later he was elected to a
Fellowship at Oriel College. He was ordained as an Anglican clergyman and
worked first as a curate in the poor Oxford parish of Saint Clement’s, and a
little later as Vicar of the University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin. His
spiritual influence there on parishioners and members of the University
was substantial. He worked as a College Tutor, and a little later began to
research the first of the many theological works which were to put him at the
forefront of religious writers.
In 1833 he
went on a tour of the Mediterranean with a friend who was in very poor health.
While in Sicily he himself fell desperately ill with fever. He recovered and
was convinced that God had spared him to perform some special work in England.
On his return home he eagerly set about organising what was to become known as
the Oxford Movement. That Movement was intended to combat three evils
threatening the Church of England: spiritual stagnation, interference from the
state, and doctrinal unorthodoxy.
When
studying the history of the early Church Fathers, Newman was shocked to realize
that the position of his own Anglican church bore a close resemblance to some
of the heretical positions that had emerged in the theological controversies of
the early centuries. He was still further disturbed when a few years later many
of the Anglican Bishops denounced some of his works; some of them not
merely denouncing him but actually espousing explicitly heretical positions. He
decided to withdraw from Oxford, in order to think and pray. Together with a
few companions he moved to modest lodgings in the nearby village of
Littlemore. For three years he lived a strict religious life there, praying for
light and guidance. By 1845 his mind was clear, and on 9th October he was
received into the Roman Catholic Church by Father (now Blessed) Dominic
Barberi. He had at last found what he called ‘the one fold of the Redeemer’.
Conversion
meant ostracism by many friends and some relatives. Undaunted, Newman went to
Rome to study for the priesthood. While there he became attracted by the idea
of the Oratory – a Congregation of priests and brothers founded by Saint Philip
Neri in the sixteenth century. He established the first English Oratory at
Maryvale near Birmingham in 1848, moving soon afterwards to Alcester Street near
the town centre, where he converted a disused gin distillery into a chapel. The
new community moved to a more permanent home in Edgbaston three years later.
In 1851
the Bishops of Ireland decided that a separate University should be established
for Catholics, and they invited Fr.Newman to become its founder and first
Rector. It was a demanding task for an older man, but despite the strain of
fifty six crossings to and from Ireland in seven years, he succeeded in
establishing what is known today as University College, Dublin.
When he
returned to England, Newman faced a life of misunderstanding and resentment,
even by some in authority, and was even suspected of unorthodoxy. Several
projects which he embarked upon met with rejection or failure, including a
magazine for educated Catholics, a projected mission at Oxford, and a new
English translation of the Bible.
During his
old age Newman continued in his Oratory in Birmingham, quietly writing,
preaching and counselling (from the age of twenty three he had been above all a
pastor, a father of souls). When he was seventy eight, as a tribute to his
erudition and devotion, Pope Leo XIII made the unprecedented gesture of naming
Fr.Newman, a simple priest, as a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. After a
life of trials the news came to him as a joyful relief. He declared ‘the cloud
is lifted for ever’.
Cardinal
Newman died in the Birmingham Oratory on 11th August 1890, and received
universal tributes of praise. The Times wrote: “whether Rome canonises him
or not he will be canonised in the thoughts of pious people of many creeds in
England.” The Cork Examiner
affirmed: “Cardinal Newman
goes to his grave with the singular honour of being by all creeds and classes
acknowledged as the just man made perfect.”
In 1991,
Cardinal Newman was proclaimed ‘venerable’ by the Sacred Congregation for the
Causes of Saints. In 2009 the miraculous cure of Deacon Jack Sulllivan through
the intercession in heaven of Cardinal Newman was confirmed by the
Congregation for the Causes of Saints, paving the way for his beatification. On
19th September 2010 Pope Benedict XVI presided at his Beatification at
Cofton Park, in Birmingham.
When John
Henry Newman’s coffin was exhumed from his grave in the Birmingham Oratory’s
cemetery at Rednal in 2010, prior to the beatification ceremony, it was
discovered that his body had completely decayed during the time since his
burial there in 1890. The very few relics of him that remain are lovingly
preserved in a small and modest casket in the chapel which has become his
national shrine, in the church of the Birmingham Oratory.
His Feast
is kept on the 9th of October each year, the anniversary of his reception into
the one fold of the Redeemer.
