VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — England’s famous saintly cardinal St. John Henry Newman, C.O. is to be a Doctor of the Church, joining just 37 others in the Catholic Church’s entire history.
As published by the Holy See Press Office on July 31, Pope Leo XIV has decided to make Newman a Doctor of the Universal Church. The formal announcement came after a morning meeting between the Pope and Cardinal Marcel Semeraro, who is prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of the Saints.
Newman will be the 38th Doctor of the Church, joining figures such as Saints Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Pope Leo the Great, Catherine of Siena, and Thérèse of the Child Jesus.
He will be the first Doctor of the Church named by Pope Leo XIV, thus making an interesting occurrence given that Newman was made cardinal in Pope Leo XIII’s first consistory – the pope whom Leo XIV has cited as the inspiration for his own name. Newman will also become just the second English Doctor of the Church: the first being St. Bede the Venerable, who was named as such by Leo XIII.
Beatified in England in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI and later canonized by Pope Francis in Rome in 2019, Newman’s writings and life have held a particular significance for those in the Anglosphere. As a founder and member of England’s St. Philip Neri Oratory, the cardinal’s links to the Catholic scene in his native England, but also to St. Philip Neri’s Rome, are key.
Born in 1801 as a member of the Church of England, Newman grew up in a time during which Catholicism was still widely scorned and treated with suspicion in England. Blessed with an eminently keen mind and a bent for the clerical life, Newman initially was adamantly opposed to the notion of papal authority and by extension the Catholic Church.
He studied at the prestigious Trinity College Oxford before then being made a Fellow of Oxford’s also prestigious Oriel College.
Ordained as a cleric for the Anglican Church in 1825, Newman’s mind gave promise of a glistening career, with his intellectual abilities forming a key pillar of the “Oxford Movement” of young, Anglican intellectuals.
While strongly eschewing the Catholic Church even after an 1832 visit to Rome, Newman’s convictions were nevertheless continuing on a lengthy process of conversion from the tenets of his early years. This led him to propose the famous “media vita” or “middle way” of dialogue between Catholicism and the Church of England.
In 1845, the now highly famous and influential Anglican cleric and academic was received into the Catholic Church by Blessed Dominic Barberi – at great personal cost for Newman, being widely reviled by those in the Anglican establishment who could not comprehend his conversion to Catholicism.
But his public conversion, causing huge waves amongst the Protestant church, subsequently aided greatly to shift the public opinion from the heavily anti-Catholic stance which it had previously been.
He was ordained a Catholic priest in Rome in 1847, and received personal support from Pope Pius IX to establish an Oratory in England, after the style of St. Philip Neri’s Oratorian Congregation.
Newman’s Oratory was established in Birmingham, before subsequent foundations spread to London and to this day have continued further afield throughout Great Britain.
The priest continued his wealth of writings, which proved immensely influential in swinging public opinion away from the Anglican opposition to Catholicism. These included his:
- Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England
- A Grammar of Assent
- On the Development of Christian Doctrine
- Idea of A University
- The Dream of Gerontius
- Letter to the Duke of Norfolk
- Apologia pro Vita Sua
So great is Newman’s influence and widespread the respect for him that King Charles III wrote in the Vatican’s newspaper praising the cardinal upon the occasion of his canonization. “Through the whole process of Catholic emancipation and the restoration of the Catholic Church hierarchy, he was the leader his people, his church and his times needed,” wrote Charles, who now leads the Church of England as King and Supreme Governor.
Newman also was heavily involved in seeking to spearhead the revival of Catholic education, particularly in Ireland, where he was for four years the rector of the newly established Catholic University of Ireland. In his native England he established the Oratory School in Reading, thus providing a rigorous education for boys which rivaled the Anglican schools of the intellectual establishment.
He was created cardinal in 1879, though never consecrated a bishop – a rare occurrence, but one which continues to this day with Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe, O.P. Newman chose as his cardinal’s motto the phrase “cor ad cor loquitur” or “heart speaks to heart.” This became the theme of Pope Benedict’s visit to England for Newman’s beatification in 2010.
After offering a final public Mass on Christmas Day 1889, he fell ill and died in August 1890.
