John Henry Newman was the most celebrated English convert to Roman Catholicism of the nineteenth century and is still widely revered as one of the great Catholic scholars and theologians of all times. A complex personality, he caused huge controversy when he left the Anglican Church for Rome. His beatification, which is to be carried out by Pope Benedict XVI in Birmingham on 19 September, follows the Vatican’s recognition as a miracle of the healing of a US deacon, Jack Sullivan, from a severe back condition. In this series of Tablet articles writers explore his legacy, teaching and close friendships.
Newman’s diffident holiness
Cardinal Newman was one of the most notable Victorians. He is not only an historical figure, says his biographer, but a man for our time.
‘I solaced myself with verse-making’
Newman wrote poems – sometimes three a day – as an alternative way of recording the thoughts he would otherwise have expressed in prose. But the author of the grave and ghostly “Dream of Gerontius” was equally skilled at light verse, too
Ideas of a modern university
The pursuit of knowledge was always at the centre of Cardinal Newman’s ideal of higher education, a pursuit that acknowledged the importance of connections between different disciplines. Could contemporary academia learn from him?
Wisdom of the future
Newman recognised that great church councils have always caused tectonic plates to shift under the Church, often leading to acrimony. Their work, he said, needs explaining, completing and interpreting – a job better done by posterity than by contemporaries
These and many more at:
http://www.thetablet.co.uk/page/cardinalnewman
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