Pope Leo XIV on Thursday determined to declare St. John Henry Newman a “physician” of the church, bestowing one of many Catholic Church’s highest honors on the deeply influential nineteenth century Anglican convert who stays a unifying determine in each the Anglican and Catholic church buildings.
The Vatican stated Leo confirmed the opinion of the Vatican’s saint-making workplace throughout an viewers Thursday with its prefect, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, and would make the choice official quickly.
The designation is likely one of the most vital selections of Leo’s younger papacy and in addition carries deep private which means: Newman was strongly influenced by St. Augustine of Hippo, the inspiration of Leo’s Augustinian non secular order.
The title of physician is reserved for folks whose writings have tremendously served the common church. Solely three-dozen folks have been given the title over the course of the church’s 2,000-year historical past, together with St. Augustine, St. Francis de Gross sales and St. Teresa of Avila.
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Newman beatified in 2010, canonised in 2019
Newman’s path to being declared a physician has been exceptionally fast, after Pope Benedict XVI beatified him throughout a go to to Britain in 2010. Pope Francis made him a saint in 2019, with then-Prince Charles in attendance.
Newman, a theologian and poet, is admired by Catholics and Anglicans alike as a result of he adopted his conscience at nice private price. When he defected from the Church of England to the Catholic Church in 1845, he misplaced associates, work and even household ties, believing the reality he was looking for may solely be discovered within the Catholic religion.
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Newman led Oxford Motion to revive Catholic custom in Anglicanism
Newman was one of many founders of the so-called Oxford Motion of the 1830s, which sought to revive sure Roman Catholic doctrines within the Church of England by trying again to the traditions of the earliest Christian church.
However he gave up an excellent educational profession at Oxford College and the pulpit of the college church to transform to Catholicism. As a Catholic, he turned probably the most influential theologians of the period, bringing parts of the Anglican church into his new religion custom. He died in Britain in 1890.
