Research » The John Henry Cardinal Newman Lecture Series » Profile of the Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman
The John Henry Cardinal Newman Lecture Series
The Venerable John Henry Newman was born in London in February 1801 and died almost 90 years later, in Birmingham in August 1890. Exactly half-way through his career, in October 1845, he left the Anglican church into which he had been born and became a Roman Catholic. During his Anglican days he had been a fellow and tutor of Oriel College, Oxford. Undergraduates, like Gladstone the future Prime Minister, crowded into St. Mary's the University Church to hear his Sunday sermons. As leader of the Tractarian movement, he wrote pamphlets urging the reform of the Church of England; he exercised an ever-increasing influence on his contemporaries and on the young minds around him. His spiritual odyssey led him to Rome; several hundred educated English men and women followed his example. Ordained in Rome, he became the superior of a group of priests in Birmingham living together in a community called the Congregation of the Oratory. About five years after his ordination, the Irish bishops who, on the advice of the pope, were planning the establishment of a Catholic University, turned naturally enough to this famous convert and invited him to become its first rector.
Though John Henry Newman may not be the official patron saint of college students, his deep and active faith, as well as his devotion to scholarship and to truth, makes him a natural model for emulation. Through his life and writing, he demonstrated that academic integrity and religious faith go hand in hand. He impacted the modern conception of education and the University. He looked to tradition and history for understanding, yet remained open to change. His encouragement of lay people to more active roles anticipated the modern understanding of the role of the laity in the Church and in the world. Indeed, he has been called the “Father of Vatican II.” We consider that this influential, orthodox, and far-thinking scholar is an excellent patron of our lecture series.