The Venerable John Henry Newman of the Oratory

Cardinal Newman

 The Cause of Cardinal Newman’s beatification is moving ahead in Rome. A copy of this famous image of him in his Cardinal’s robes hangs towards the back of the Holy Name, and his Meditations and Devotions are often used here during Holy Hour before Benediction on Saturday evenings throughout the year.

He is known and revered as a great scholar and man of letters, and one who bravely followed the Lord’s call in the ‘one fold of the Redeemer’. All through his life he faced difficulties and attacks, often from fellow clergymen, but in all this he remained a loving son of St Philip, trying to remain unknown and of no reputation, and bearing all the trials which God permitted as joyfully as possible.

Please remember to pray for his beatification

John Henry Newman was born on 21st February 1801 in the City of London, the eldest son of a banker. At Ealing School he underwent a spiritual conversion which set him on the quest for spiritual perfection. He entered Trinity College, Oxford, and was later elected to a coveted Fellowship of Oriel College.

In June 1824 Newman began his ministry in the Church of England working in the very poor parish of St Clement in Oxford. In February 1828, he was appointed Vicar of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, the University Church, where his spiritual influence on his parishioners and the memebrs of the university was enormous.

During 1833 Newman became the leader of the spiritual renewal known as the Oxford Movement, which was set up to combat the evils of state interference in the Church, doctrinal unorthdoxy and spiritual laxity. 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 Newman was received into the Catholic Church on the 9th October 1845 by Blessed Dominic Barberi at Littlemore, just outside Oxford, where he had retired to live a semi-monastic life with some of his friends.

His many Anglican friends refused to have anything to do with Newman after he became a Catholic, and many Catholics didn’t understand him, but undeterred he went to Rome and studied for the priesthood. He was ordained on Trinity Sunday, 30th May 1847.

Fr Newman returned to England, and on the evening of the Vigil of Candlemas,  1st February 1848, he set up the English Congregation of the Oratory of St Philip Neri at Maryvale on the outskirts of Birmingham. It briefly moved to Cotton in Staffordshire, and then to Alcester Street in the centre of Birmingham. Here the community opened a chapel in a former gin warehouse.

In 1851 Dr Newman was appointed as Rector of the proposed Catholic University of Ireland, and in February 1852 the Oratory community moved into a new house in Edgbaston where it has remained until the present day.

Fr Newman founded the Oratory School in Birmingham. In 1864 he published his famous Apologia pro Vita Sua, in which he vindicated his honesty in the Church of England and defended the Church of Rome.

Fr Newman 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. All through these time of difficult and persecution, he tried to remain loyal to St Philip, as one who loved to remain unknown and of no reputation.

In 1879 Pope Leo XIII created Fr John Henry Newman a cardinal to the joy of all of England. His titular church in Rome was San Giorgio in Valabro.

At his death on 11th August 1890, aged 89, it was said that Cardinal Newman more than any other person had changed the attitude of non-Catholics to Catholics.

On August 19th 1890 more than 15,000 people lined the streets of Birmingham as Cardinal Newman’s body was borne to the secluded little cemetery at the Oratory House at Rednal, more than eight miles away.

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.”

On 22nd January 1991 the Decree on Heroic Virtues was signed by Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Newman declared Venerable.

It is hoped that his beatification will be celebrated soon. A small shrine to him is due to be made in the Oratory church in Birmingham, which was erected as his memorial.

adapted from Fr Vincent Blehl, SJ (A Newman Prayer Book)

 When John Henry Newman was created Cardinal in 1879, he did not have his own crest designed, but adapted one from the 17th century, which he had inherited from his father. He did not formulate his motto, but altered a phrase from the 17th century - cor cordi loquitur - that seemed so familiar to him that he assumed he had it from the Bible or the Imitation of Christ (Letters and Diaries, vol. XXIX, p.108). He actually remembered it from a letter by Francis de Sales from which he had quoted it in 1855 in a public letter on university preaching (cf. The Idea of a University, p.408). It seems that Newman never explained his motto, cor ad cor loquitur, but it is obvious that in his coat of arms, motto and crest complement one another to form one illustration of a fundamental principle of the Christian faith that profoundly shaped Newman’s way of life, his theological thinking and his pastoral endeavours.