The Cause of the Canonisation of John Henry Cardinal Newman

The Bishops of England and Wales marked the end of their ad limina visit to the Holy See with a Mass in the Church where John Henry Newman was ordained a Catholic priest.
On 3 February, the Archbishop of Westminster and the rest of the English hierarchy, accompanied by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, visited the Vatican Congregation [...]

Clifford Longley has written an interesting and provocative article on Canonisation (The Tablet January 9, print edition).
A key passage reads as follows:
The idea that God would demonstrate that a saint is truly in heaven by instantly healing someone’s fatal illness because he has been asked to by the said saint – who is in [...]

We reproduce here on the Cause site the address given yesterday by Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops of England and Wales, at the end of their ad limina visit to Rome. In advance of his visit to England later this year, the Holy Father referred to Cardinal Newman as a model for all Catholics [...]

On 2nd February, the normal date for new appointments in the Oratory, Father Richard Duffield will become Actor for the Cause of Newman’s Canonisation and Provost of the Birmingham Oratory.

During his trip to Oxford, Jack Sullivan and his wife Carol were staying at Littlemore, in the ‘College’ where Newman lived from 1842 to 1845. Littlemore was part of the parish of the Oxford University church, so Newman had pastoral responsibilities there too. He built a school, a new church, and finally converted some stables [...]

Indeed, Pope Benedict may believe that the liturgical and spiritual tradition embodied in these Anglican communities has preserved things of importance which English-speaking Roman Catholicism, at the present time, typically repudiates or fails to understand. Perhaps Pope Benedict envisages that such impoverishment will be challenged, and even overcome, when exposed to the authentically Catholic elements which he is allowing former Anglican communities to maintain?

On Thursday evening Jack was the guest of honour at a dinner in Trinity College, given by College President Sir Ivor Roberts. Newman was an undergraduate at Trinity in 1817, before winning a Fellowship at Oriel College in 1822. In 1887 Trinity elected Newman to its very first honorary fellowship. Present at the dinner was Princess Michael of Kent, a Newman devotee and friend of the Birmingham Oratory. Among other guests were the Catholic Chaplain to the University, Father John Moffatt, S.J., and Father Paul Chavasse, Actor of Newman’s Cause and Provost of the Birmingham Oratory.

Jack Sullivan has visited the Birmingham Oratory in England, the focus of his week-long stay in England. On Wednesday morning, Jack, with his wife Carol, visited Rednal, where Newman was buried among his Oratorian brethren. Jack also visited the Oratory Primary School, where he was interviewed by some of the pupils. He then came to the Oratory, on the Hagley Road, where Newman lived from 1852-1890.