Cardinal Newman Photo: Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory

On July 3, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI signed the decree allowing for the beatification of Cardinal Newman later this year. The healing miracle of Deacon John Sullivan of Massachusetts has been recognized as the result of praying for intercession of the beloved Cardinal. (Sullivan was cured of a debilitating back injury.) There is one more miracle yet to be approved in order to pave the way for the canonization of Cardinal Newman.

John Henry Newman was born in London, England in 1801. At the age of 23, he became an Anglican priest and went on to found the Oxford Movement.  Newman attempted to bring the Church of England back to its Catholic roots.  His studies of the history of the Catholic Church resulted in his choosing, at the age of 44, to convert. In 1846, he was formally received into the Catholic Church.

In 1854, at the request of the Irish Bishops, he went to Ireland to become the rector of the Catholic University of Ireland (now University College Dublin).

He is known for his religious autobiography, “Apologia Pro Vita Sua“, but his seminal work is the “An Essay In Aid of A Grammar Of Assent“. He wrote many influential works over the 40 year period of his Catholic faith.

Cardinal Newman celebrated his last mass on Christmas Day in 1889. He died on August 11, 1890 at the Birmingham Oratory and was buried at the related cemetery in Rednal Hill.

In 1991, after the move to beatify him was made public, an attempt to exhume his body was made. No remains were discovered and this was attributed to the damp conditions and the wood of the casket in which he was originally buried.

Below, are a few of his famous quotations:

Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but ratherfear that it shall never have a beginning.

Let us take things as we find them: let us not attempt to distort them into what they are not. We cannot make facts. All our wishing cannot change them. We must use them.

If we are intended for great ends, we are called to great hazards.

A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault.

Learn to do thy part and leave the rest to Heaven.

We should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend.

You must make up your mind to the prospect of sustaining a certain measure of pain and trouble in your passage through life.

Evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance.