The Cause of the Canonisation of John Henry Cardinal Newman

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Bishops of England and Wales in Rome: Newman, Catholic Priest and Oratorian pioneer

Categorised as News and published Saturday, February 6th, 2010
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The Bishops of England and Wales celebrate Mass in the Chapel of Propaganda Fidei, Rome, February 2010 (Credit: Mazur/catholicchurch.org.uk)

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 for the Evangelisation of Peoples, and its head Cardinal Ivan Dias. The Congregation, along with offices of Catholic missionary agencies, stands in the Palazzo di Propaganda Fidei, the same building by the Spanish Steps where Newman lived from 1846-7. The Vatican department oversees missionary territories, in which England was included until the bishops and dioceses were restored in 1850.

Newman wrote shortly after arriving: “There are more than thirty languages in this house, and it was quite an affecting sight at the Missa Cantata this morning to see … Indians, Africans, Babylonians, Scots and Americans, embracing each other at the Pax.”

In his sermon, Archbishop Nichols talked of the nature of Christian conversion, and of Newman as “a remarkable convert”, adding that it was “moving for us to be in this place, where we come so close to him.” Newman’s was ordained priest in the Propaganda Church on Trinity Sunday, 30^th May, 1847.

Others present included representatives from the International Centre of Newman friends, and Archbishops and Cardinals based in Rome.

The Bishops also visited the chapel, containing the bones of the martyr St Hyacinth, which has been recently restored and is where Newman celebrated his first Mass. Newman had written in a letter of November 1846: “[Rome] is a place to make one a good deal better, if one is properly disposed, were it only to be at the shrines of so many martyrs. There are relics of one in this house, close to my room – St Hyacinth’s, which were found in the catacombs with his grave stone over him not long ago.” The chapel also had a stone engraving from the catacombs of Christ as the ‘Good Shepherd’, carrying the lost sheep back to the flock.

Cardinal Ivan Dias with the Archbishop of Birmingham, Bernard Longley, outside the Cappella Newman (Credit: Mazur/catholicchurch.org.uk)

This chapel, now known as the ‘Cappella Newman’, has become a centre of prayer for those who see Newman’s life, teachings and ministry as a true example of ecumenical endeavour. Newman’s own path from religious scepticism to the fullness of Catholic faith, as well as his emphasis on conversion of life as the means to bring Christians closer together in the truth, makes him a strikingly important figure for realising the aspirations of the ecumenical movement.

Newman concludes his famous Apologia pro Vita Sua (1864): “And I earnestly pray for this whole company, with a hope against hope, that all of us, who once were so united, and so happy in our union, may even now be brought at length, by the Power of the Divine Will, into One Fold and under One Shepherd.”

During his stay in Rome Newman moved towards a decision to bring the Oratory of St Philip Neri to England. He met with Pope Pius IX, who gave him a precious image of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Mater Dolorosa, the ’sorrowful mother’). Newman also visited the Chiesa Nuova, the first Oratory, and made a Novena (nine days) of prayer in daily pilgrimages to St Peter’s Basilica from 18th-25th January 1847, seeking divine guidance. Then on Newman’s birthday, 21st February, the Secretary of Propaganda gained the Pope’s approval of his Oratorian plan. Newman founded the Birmingham Oratory in February 1848.

Father Richard Duffield, Provost of the Birmingham Oratory, and Actor of the Cause for Newman’s Canonisation said: “In a year dedicated to the priesthood that will also see John Henry Newman’s beatification, the English bishops’ visit to the Propaganda church where Newman was ordained is a tremendous sign of his importance as a priest, not only for England, but for the whole world. It was a place where he found his vocation in the Catholic Church as an Oratorian. Like the Oratory’s founder St Philip Neri, Newman didn’t travel much. But he was a missionary and evangelist through his writing and his influence and remains so to this day.”

The Cappella Newman (Credit: Mazur/catholicchurch.org.uk)