The Cause of the Canonisation of John Henry Cardinal Newman

The American Cardinal, President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications from 1984 to 2007, spoke of his long standing interest in Newman and enthusiastic support for his Cause for Canonisation. He said: “Cardinal Newman believed that Faith and reason are compatible and complementary. I too believe that effective apologetics – the explanation of our Catholic faith to the modern world – has to be based on reason.

O my dear and holy Patron, Philip [Neri], I put myself into thy hands, and for the love of Jesus, for that love’s sake which chose thee and made thee a saint, I implore thee to pray for me, that, as He has brought thee to heaven, so in due time He may take me [...]

O Thou who wast so gentle and familiar with us, who didst converse with us by the way, and sit at meat with us, and didst enter the vessel with us, and teach us on the Mount, and bear the malice of the Pharisees, and feast with Martha, and raise Lazarus, art Thou gone, and [...]

The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano published this week (on 20th May) a substantial article on Newman, to mark the 130th anniversary of his Cardinalate. Inos Biffi, a well known Italian theologian based in Milan, looked at the background and history of the 1879 May Consistory in which Pope Leo XIII famously honoured the man he [...]

What is nobler, what is more elevating and transporting, than the generosity of heart which risks everything on God’s word, dares the powers of evil to their worst efforts, and repels the illusions of sense and the artifices of reason, by confidence in the Truth of Him who has ascended to the right hand of [...]

It must not be supposed, because the doctrine of the Cross makes us sad, that therefore the Gospel is a sad religion. The Psalmist says, “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy;” [Psalm 126] and our Lord says, “They that mourn shall be comforted.” [cf. Matthew 5:4]
From the sermon ‘The Cross of Christ [...]

The Solemnity of the Ascension of Christ is in some places celebrated today, and in others this coming Sunday. We publish here an extract from John Henry Newman’s 1838 sermon ‘Warfare the Condition of Victory’. In the sermon, he talks of the Apostles, their state and mind and spiritual condition, after Christ had ascended into [...]

When our Lord was lifted up on the Cross, then, too, He presented to us the same example of a soul raised heavenwards and hid in God, with the tumultuous world at its feet.
From the sermon ‘Rising with Christ’ (1836/7) Click here for the full text (leaves site)