Through the years I knew and referred to him as Cardinal Newman, but in 2019 he was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. I am posting this in honor of that outstanding churchman and scholar, who died 130 years ago in August 1890 and is now known as Saint Newman.
Statue of John Henry Newman on the campus of Newman University in Wichita, Kansas
Newman
Becomes a Catholic
John
Henry Newman was born in February 1801 in London, and he was baptized in an
Anglican church about six weeks after his birth. He converted to Evangelical
Christianity in 1816, but soon began to question some of the teachings and
emphases of Calvinism.
At
the age of 16, John Henry partook of his first communion in the Church of
England. About six and a half years later he was ordained as an Anglican deacon
and then was ordained a priest in May 1825.
Perhaps
my first very limited knowledge of Newman came from singing the hymn “Lead,
Kindly Light,” for which he wrote the words in 1833 and which long was one of
the most popular Christian hymns.
Here
is the first verse of that hymn, which Newman penned on a boat as he was trying
to get back to England after a period of sickness in Italy:
While the hymn was written specifically about
getting safely back to England, Newman felt led in his spiritual pilgrimage to find
his religious home in the Roman Catholic Church. In 1845 he left the Church of
England and his teaching post at Oxford University and became a Catholic.
Newman
Becomes a Cardinal
One of Newman’s achievements as a Catholic was in
1851 when he became the founding Rector of the Catholic University of Ireland. He
gave a series of lectures there emphasizing that knowledge should be pursued “for
its own sake.”
Newman described the university as a place of “universal
knowledge,” in which specialized training, while valid in itself, was
subordinate to the pursuit of a broader liberal education. Those lectures were
published in 1852 under the title The Idea of a University—and the book
is still in print.
In
1864, Newman published his spiritual autobiography under the Latin title Apologia
Pro Vita Sua. It became a bestseller, and it also remains in print today.
Interestingly, Margaret Atwood’s 2019 novel The Testaments, which I
enjoyed reading last year, has several references to that book by Newman.
Newman
authored numerous books, and as a result of his meritorious contributions by
both his scholarship and spirituality, he was elevated to the position of
Cardinal in 1879.
Newman
Becomes a Saint
In
spite of the odds, Pope Francis officially approved Newman’s canonization in February
2019 and the actual ceremony took place this past October.
I
say, “in spite of the odds,” for Newman was long embroiled in various controversies—and
he even described himself as a “controversialist.” And the popular Jesuit
priest James
Martin tweeted that same month, “It isn't a slur to suggest that Newman may
have been gay.”
Still,
Ryan J. Marr, the director of the National Institute for Newman Studies, published
a worth-reading 10/19 article titled “Five
reasons John Henry Newman is a saint for our times.”
I
asked two good Catholic friends about Newman. Former priest Larry Guillot made
this email response: “To me, his being named a saint has added little to his
reputation or exquisite intelligence. It is a welcome acknowledgment of his spirituality
and steadfastness amid controversies.”
And
Sister Marilyn Peot wrote, “As for Newman, what I recall was some of his quotes—and his
sincerity and humility.” She then shared these words of Newman: “Seeking Truth
was the only reason for living,” and “To live is to change and to be perfect is
to have changed often.”
Sister
Marilyn also said, “When I hear ‘Newman’
I immediately think ‘Lead, Kindly Light.’” Truly, those are words we all
need to sing/pray during these turbulent times.
