PROFILE: CARDINAL JOHN HENRY NEWMAN:Originally an Anglican minister, John Henry Newman converted to Catholicism and became a cardinal at the age of 78. The founder of UCD will be beatified during the pope's visit to the UK next week, writes Rosita Boland
‘THERE IS SUCH a thing as legitimate warfare: war has its laws; there are things which may be fairly done, and things which may not be done.” The man who wrote this measured observation about the nature of conflict died 130 years ago. Next weekend, Pope Benedict XVI, at the end of his four-day visit to Britain, will beatify him.
Cardinal John Henry Newman, who was born in 1801 in London, the son of a wealthy banker, spent four years in Dublin in the 1850s. He came to Ireland at the invitation of the Irish clergy to act as rector of the newly-established Catholic University of Ireland, now known as University College Dublin (UCD). He is recognised as being the founder of UCD. Writing in the London Review of Booksthis month, the academic Terry Eagleton states crisply: "Newman was everything your average Irish cleric was not: erudite, ascetic, patrician, cultivated, liberal-minded."
Newman founded the university’s Literary and Historical Society, a debating society that still endures, usually known informally as the LH. The flagship building, Newman House on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin, carries his name.
A striking element of his pending beatification is that Newman was one of the Catholic Church’s most high-profile converts. He had been ordained as an Anglican priest in 1825 at Oxford, where he was based for many years, first as student and then as intellectual. A prominent scholar, theologian, writer, tutor and thinker, Newman converted to Catholicism in 1847, and was made a cardinal in 1879. He founded the Oratory school in Birmingham, the city where his beatification will take place.
While in Ireland, he wrote his famous collection of essays, The Idea of a University. Among his many other publications were his autobiography, Apologia Pro Vita Sua; the long poem The Dream of Gerontius; and An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent. James Joyce was a prominent and vocal admirer of his prose style, noting: "nobody has ever written English prose that can be compared with that of a tiresome footling little Anglican parson who afterwards became a prince of the only true church".
Among Newman’s most famous quotes are these: “To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often”; “A great memory does not make a mind, any more than a dictionary is a piece of literature”; and, “We should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend.”
BEATIFICATION IS THE third of four stages towards canonisation and sainthood. The late Pope John Paul II beatified close to 1,500 people; a number that exceeded the combined total of all his predecessors since the 16th century. To be considered for beatification, the Church has to recognise a miracle as a result of the intercession of the deceased.
In 2001, Jack Sullivan, a deacon in Boston, Massachusetts, was diagnosed with a debilitating spinal condition. As Sullivan recounts on the official papal visit to Britain website, thepapalvisit.org.uk: “One surgeon told me that I was on the brink of complete paralysis . . . For days after the surgery, I was still suffering incredible pain with no end in sight . . . I was completely helpless and the situation seemed hopeless. But it was this state of mind that led me to prayer. I called upon my very special intercessor and faithful friend: “Please Cardinal Newman, help me to walk.”
As the website states, “Almost immediately Deacon Sullivan was able to walk. His doctors were unable to provide any medical explanation for the change in his condition.”
In 2008, prior to the expected recognition of the miracle, Newman’s grave was exhumed. He had been buried in 1890 in a cemetery at Rednal, near Birmingham. On his explicit instructions – “my last, my imperative will” – Newman was buried with Fr Ambrose St John, who had been his close friend for more than three decades. Fr St John had died five years previously, and on his death, Newman declared: “I have always thought no bereavement was equal to that of a husband’s or a wife’s but I feel it difficult to believe that anyone’s sorrow can be greater than mine.”
The exhumation was carried out in the hope that there may be some remaining bones, which could be distributed as relics, as is the Catholic practice. Nothing was found: dampness in the wooden coffin had caused total disintegration of the body. The subsequent “removal” of the non-existent remains to a grand sarcophagus inside Birmingham Oratory provoked much controversy, as the remains of Fr St John stayed behind, in violation of Newman’s wishes.
In his London Review of Booksessay, Terry Eagleton notes: "The postmodern interest in Newman, surprisingly enough, is less in the intricacies of the Arian heresy than in the question of whether he was gay. The answer is probably yes."
In July last year, the pope recognised the extraordinary recovery of Sullivan in 2001 as a miracle “resulting from the intercession of the Venerable Servant of God John Henry Newman”.
The beatification of Newman will be the final event of the Papal visit next week. Originally scheduled to take place at Coventry Airport, the ceremony will now take place at Cofton Park in Birmingham. Commemorative postage stamps that were printed featuring Coventry are already collectors’ items.
In common with the two other main public gatherings during the Papal visit, at Glasgow and London, people who attend are being asked to pay a “pilgrim contribution” in advance. For Glasgow, it’s £20, London is £5 and the beatification ceremony in Birmingham, at which upwards of 70,000 people are expectedwill cost £25. These mandatory “contributions” to attend ceremonies have proved controversial, as attendance was free for events at the previous Papal visit in 1982. This Papal visit will cost in the region of £20 million; a cost which will be shared by the Church and State. All the ceremonies require prior allocations of passes, available through local parishes.
At Birmingham, pilgrims will receive a "pilgrim pack". In this drawstring bag will be a CD of tracks by Liam McNally, a 14-year-old finalist in Britain's Got Talent, who sang Danny Boy. (Another famous finalist on the talent show, Susan Boyle, is due to sing at the Glasgow Mass.) In the bag will also be a "pilgrim passport" – essentially, an admission ticket – and a postcard. The bag itself is intended to be used to sit or kneel on, presumably without the contents.
In the past, the custom was that the beatification ceremony took place at the Vatican. However, the current pope has removed this custom, hence the on-site beatification. It seems likely that the Church has an eye to the eventual canonisation of Newman.
Newman was 89 when he died of pneumonia. Before he died, he wrote: “After the fever of life – after wearinesses, sicknesses, fightings and despondings, languor and fretfulness, struggling and failing, struggling and successing – after all the changes and chances of this troubled and unhealthy state, at length comes death – at length the white throne of God – at length, the beatific vision.”
And now, 130 years after his death, beatification itself, and the title of “Blessed”.
CV Cardinal Newman
Who was he?A cardinal, scholar, writer and intellectual (1801-1890) who spent four years in Dublin as rector of University College Dublin
Why is he in the news?He will be beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in Birmingham next weekend
Number of people expected to attend his beatification ceremony70,000
Key achievementsCredited with founding what is now University College Dublin, author of
Apologia Pro Vita Sua, and influential scholar and theologian of the 19th century
