Finally… Newman’s Feast Day!

Today is the feast of the newly beatified John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), and it’s also the day he was received into the Roman Catholic Church. Through the Oxford Movement, Newman was a leading figure in reforming the Church of England. Therefore his departure was a pretty significant event that wasn’t always well received (to put it mildly). Both as an Anglican and a Catholic, Newman was one of the leading religious thinkers of his time. In the United States, fellow convert and religious thinker Orestes A. Brownson (1801-1876) had this to say:

“Mr. Newman has stood for several years before the public as a man of rare gifts and acquirements; he was at the head of a very influential party in the Anglican communion, and appears to have enjoyed a personal esteem, and exerted a personal influence, which seldom fall to the lot of any but the master minds of their age or country. We may well, then, look upon his conversion with more than ordinary gratitude to the great Head of the Church, and as an event of more than ordinary significance.”

Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us!