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The British Press is at it again: 'Why Cardinal Newman is no saint"
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LotusCarsLtd
Guest
I’m kinda curious…the article seemed to raise interesting suspicions as to whether the healing was truly miraculous given that surgery was done beforehand. Can anyone clarify?
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Non_Serviam
Guest
It would appear that one would need both a copy of the document on Cardinal Newman and someone with expertise in the causes of saints to make an independent investigation of it.
Lacking those one can only choose between the Pope’s acceptance of the report and this fellow’s questioning of it. He does seem to go off topic toward the end, and that would make me somewhat dubious regarding his claims.
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Santi2
Guest
It is John Cornwell…with a book to promote. If I’m not mistaken, he also wrote “Hitler’s Pope”. No one other than the Catholic Church is in a position to clarify your query. The authority to proclaim the authenticity of a miracle is exclusive to Her. If there is anything a reader ought to raise questions on, it must be on the author’s reference to “a rare kind of book”. Is it likely that the author truly possessed it at one time or another? I seriously doubt it.
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kimmielittle
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pnewton
Guest
Pay no heed to the times or seasons, especially the Times. Once again they show their bias. They have never been shy about blatant anticatholicism yet they dare think they know more about sainthood. They had to finesse it into the text but they still managed to call the Bride of Christ the Whore of Babylon.
The legacy of the adulterous King Henry VIII lives on in the hatred of Catholics today. If and when a great persecution begans again with Catholics, look to England to lead the way.
The legacy of the adulterous King Henry VIII lives on in the hatred of Catholics today. If and when a great persecution begans again with Catholics, look to England to lead the way.
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Another_Mary
Guest
Isn’t he a graduate of the Dan Brown School of
Non-Fiction Writing? Or am I thinking of someone else?
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anode
Guest
The case to me seems very unpersuasive. The pain suddenly remits, which it can in all cases where pain is a symptom, especially involving the spine or arthritic joints, but* then returns and responds to surgery. It’s much better to reply on objective findings* rather than on subjective pain. Newman should have made an amputated limb grow back. Now there’s a miracle! Benedict is doing what JPII did, canonize some of the locals when he visited a country.
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Santi2
Guest
Same league. And, both do not seem to have a knack with facts. John Cornwell presents that Cardinal Newman is going to be canonised, which is not the case. Cardinal Newman is going to be beatified.
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Guyonthestreet
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Why?
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Timothy17
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And there you have it
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MercyMia
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Do these people really get paid to write this?
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amsjj
Guest
I saw Fr. Ker’s article on another Cornwell piece last month*. And now this “Times” piece; frankly to me it’s same ole, same ole Cornwell. Between him and the Holy Father, I know who I’m believing.
I do find it interesting, however, that the deacon has been described as “doubled” because so was the Cardinal described in his later years: “I slept at the Oratory and the Cardinal came in to see me for twenty minutes. I hardly knew him again: doubled up like a shrimp and walking with a stick longer than his body.”** (Herbert Vaughan, then Bishop of Salford in 1889). But a few days before his death the next year, the Cardinal surprised his caregiver, Fr. Neville, by returning to his rooms “unbent, erect to the full height of his best days in the fifties; he was without support of any kind.”*** If he felt kinship with Deacon Sullivan, I could understand why he’d want to help.
Anyway, I also wish we could see how the committee of doctors came to their conclusion. They knew the gentleman had had surgery for his back; when one has a procedure done, one hopes it’ll solve the difficulty. So I am curious as to what made this situation different? I don’t doubt the miracle, but having great devotion to the Ven. John Henry – and thus nosy! – I wouldn’t mind reading the positio and the other documents!
The “Times” article really lost it for me (if possible) when Cornwell went on to talk about “Newman’s progressive Catholicism”. Is he aware of the situation in 19th Catholic England? It is not like today, but a different set of circumstances, where the leading group was extremely conservative (which is putting it mildly), where not agreeing with the Extremist party opened one to charges of being a liberal or even not a true Catholic. The Letters and Diaries of JHN show his experience of the Ultramontanes coming to the ascendant and being for a time very powerful in their actions against who they considered their opponents. I also wonder… has Cornwell even glanced at the Ven. John Henry’s Biglietto Speech?****
Finally, I’m not sure what Cornwell means by Newman being changed into an “official plaster saint”. How can that be done? We have over 30 volumes of his correspondence alone spanning his long life (about 20,000 letters), and sermons, poetry, prayers, theological works, etc. We can read the works themselves, we can know the person. And fascinating reading they make too!
take care,
amsjj
Cites:
Jesus, God and man,
imprisoned by love in Thy most holy Sacrament,
have mercy upon us.
– Venerable John Henry Newman, December 22, 1851
(LD, XIV, 511).
I do find it interesting, however, that the deacon has been described as “doubled” because so was the Cardinal described in his later years: “I slept at the Oratory and the Cardinal came in to see me for twenty minutes. I hardly knew him again: doubled up like a shrimp and walking with a stick longer than his body.”** (Herbert Vaughan, then Bishop of Salford in 1889). But a few days before his death the next year, the Cardinal surprised his caregiver, Fr. Neville, by returning to his rooms “unbent, erect to the full height of his best days in the fifties; he was without support of any kind.”*** If he felt kinship with Deacon Sullivan, I could understand why he’d want to help.
Anyway, I also wish we could see how the committee of doctors came to their conclusion. They knew the gentleman had had surgery for his back; when one has a procedure done, one hopes it’ll solve the difficulty. So I am curious as to what made this situation different? I don’t doubt the miracle, but having great devotion to the Ven. John Henry – and thus nosy! – I wouldn’t mind reading the positio and the other documents!
The “Times” article really lost it for me (if possible) when Cornwell went on to talk about “Newman’s progressive Catholicism”. Is he aware of the situation in 19th Catholic England? It is not like today, but a different set of circumstances, where the leading group was extremely conservative (which is putting it mildly), where not agreeing with the Extremist party opened one to charges of being a liberal or even not a true Catholic. The Letters and Diaries of JHN show his experience of the Ultramontanes coming to the ascendant and being for a time very powerful in their actions against who they considered their opponents. I also wonder… has Cornwell even glanced at the Ven. John Henry’s Biglietto Speech?****
Finally, I’m not sure what Cornwell means by Newman being changed into an “official plaster saint”. How can that be done? We have over 30 volumes of his correspondence alone spanning his long life (about 20,000 letters), and sermons, poetry, prayers, theological works, etc. We can read the works themselves, we can know the person. And fascinating reading they make too!
take care,
amsjj
Cites:
- catholicherald.co.uk/features/opinion/o0000363.shtml
** Meriol Trevor, Newman: Light in Winter, p. 639
*** Meriol Trevor, Newman: Light in Winter, p. 644
**** newmanreader.org/works/addresses/file2.html#biglietto
Jesus, God and man,
imprisoned by love in Thy most holy Sacrament,
have mercy upon us.
– Venerable John Henry Newman, December 22, 1851
(LD, XIV, 511).
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Tybourne
Guest
Excellent stuff, Amsjj. We would need access to the positio document and to the relevant medical literature to answer your question. I’m assured that the Church is very careful in proclaiming saints or beati these days. Whatever She declares bound on earth is bound in heaven.
As Father Ker points out, Cornwell is no Newman scholar. His point seems to be to use the Venerable JHN as a foil to score points against the current papacy. These internal enemies of the truth are more dangerous and damaging than those outside the “one true fold of the Redeemer” who attack out of ignorance and bigotry.
To shed some “kindly light” on this story, the one point I agreed with Cornwell about is that moral and psychological miracles may be just as important as physical miracles. However, when She proclaims a person to be blessed or canonized, the Mystery of the Church meets the incredulity of the world. As in the Resurrection, it’s important that there should be a physical manifestation of God’s creative power which seals, symbolizes and embodies the moral victory of the saint in question.
Background: I was received into full communion with the Church while studying at Oxford, by a convert priest who had been Newman’s successor as the Vicar of St Mary’s and who ascribed his conversion to the prayers of the good Cardinal there. Shortly before my father committed suicide, I had a dream in which a hand (I couldn’t see who it belonged to) handed me a copy of Newman’s Apologia, which I had yet to read. I did read it then and when my father took his own life, the *Apologia *consoled me greatly. Why so? Because it showed me that a life lived in integrity and fidelity to God is impervious to any hardship, however difficult.
Venerable John Henry Newman, pray for us!
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AmbroseSJ
Guest
Thanks for the Ian Ker link amsjj! His assessment of Cornwell is spot on!
It does actually surprise me that the Times is so Anti-Catholic, in this age of infidelity, when all religions are regarded as largely irrelevant, or only relevant in a socio-political sense. And maybe that is the reason they are Anti-Catholic. Catholicism continues to “scandalize” the world with its divine morality, which is impervious to the world’s shifting and self-congratulatory morality. But the world never sees this antagonism as anything ancient and unchanging, but rather sees it as something new and outrageous!
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