“Littlemore, October 8th, 1845. I am this night
expecting Father Dominic, the Passionist, who, from his youth, has been led to
have distinct and direct thoughts, first of the countries of the North, then of
England. After thirty years’ (almost) of waiting, he was without his own act
sent here. But he has had little to do with conversions. I saw him here a few
minutes on St. John Baptist’s day last year.
"He is a simple, holy man; and withal gifted and
remarkable powers. He does not know of my intention; but I mean to ask of him
admission into the One Fold of Christ…”—John Henry Cardinal Newman, in a letter
sent out to 30 friends, quoted in his Apologia pro Vita Sua (1864)
The day after he wrote these words, John Henry Newman, a leading figure in
the Church of England, was received into the Roman Catholic Church by Fr. Dominic Barberi, an Italian missionary
of broken English but extraordinary faith.
For the last dozen years, as a major member of the
Oxford Movement, Newman had challenged notions of the truth as completely
subjective. More recently, he had come to believe that the Roman Catholic
Church was, in fact, the closest link among churches to the one that Christ had
established. Two years after his conversion, Newman became a Roman Catholic
priest.
Newman’s conversion led to his ostracism by many
family and friends, and for a while he was distrusted not just by Protestants
but even many in the new Catholic faith he had embraced. But he continued on his
path. Thirty-four years after his conversion, at age 78, Newman’s extraordinary
witness to the faith was recognized when the Vatican named him a cardinal. He died
in 1890.
Five years ago, the Roman Catholic Church beatified
him. Long before that, he was recognized as one of the leading intellectuals of
the Victorian Era and a master of English prose through his memoir Apologia pro Vita Sua, influential tracts such as The
Idea of a University, and volumes of sermons and poems.
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