THE DAILY TELEGRAPH in London recently reported that the Vatican had accepted the cure of a Massachusetts man, who had suffered from spinal stenosis, as a miracle attributed to the prayers of John Henry Newman, the Victorian-era cardinal, theologian, and writer.Jack Sullivan, a Catholic deacon in Marshfield, later told the Globe of his overnight cure.
"The next morning I woke up," he said, "and there was no pain."
Sullivan's dramatic healing would fulfill the church's requirement for Newman's beatification, which could take place as early as this fall. (Another miracle is required for canonization.)
Born in 1801, Newman would make both a fascinating and controversial saint.
An eminent clergyman, Newman spent much of his life in the orbit of Oxford University, where he studied and later taught. Ordained in 1824, the brilliant scholar instantly became one of the glittering stars of the Anglican Church.
Over the next decade, he spearheaded the "Oxford movement," which sought to return Anglicanism to more traditional roots. Newman's ultimate decision, in 1845, to convert to Catholicism came on the heels of research that led him to conclude that the Catholic Church had a greater claim to orthodoxy. His conversion horrified much of England.
Even after "crossing the Tiber," however, Newman retained his intellectual independence, freely toggling between traditional and progressive theologies.
Despite his conservative theological leanings, he championed such radical ideas as the rights of the individual conscience at a time when that notion was held in low regard in the Vatican.
("Error has no rights" was the prevailing line of thought.) When he was named cardinal in 1879 by Pope Leo XIII, it was joked that perhaps Rome hadn't read all that he had written.
Because of his protean mind and voluminous writings, then, he is beloved by groups that are often at loggerheads. More traditional Catholics admire Newman's elegant apologias for Catholicism.
Progressives embrace his work on conscience and the "development of doctrine," the idea that church belief on some matters can change over time - for the better. And ironically, many Catholics suspicious of clericalism often quote this prince of the church, who once quipped about the laity, "[T]he church would look foolish without them."
Indeed, one of his most famous articles was called "On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine."
The greatest controversy over the soon-to-be-saint, however, may be his intense relationship with his long-time friend Ambrose St. John. "As far as this world was concerned, I was his first and last . . . he was my earthly light," wrote Newman.
Before his death in 1890, Newman made an unusual and strongly worded request.
"I wish, with all my heart, to be buried in Fr Ambrose St. John's grave - and I give this as my last, my imperative will," he wrote. As a result, he is beloved among some in the gay community, who often claim him as one of their own.
Last year, church officials announced that they would unearth Newman's remains from a small rural cemetery in Worcestershire in order to transfer them to a marble sarcophagus in the Birmingham Oratory church.
But diggers found little left of the cardinal. Some charged that the church wanted to move Newman to whitewash his friendship with St. John.
Church officials replied, accurately, that the remains of many saints are often moved to sites that are more appropriate for "public veneration."
Admired by conservatives and liberals, cradle Catholics and converts, as well as anti-clericalists and gays, Cardinal John Henry Newman is destined to be a popular but controverted saint.
Who is the "real" Newman?
It's a bit like the popular quest for the "historical Jesus."
Which one you find depends a great deal on which one you're searching for.
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