The best-known English churchman of the 19th century moved a step closer to sainthood Friday when Pope Benedict XVI approved the publication of a miracle attributed to him.The pope's rubberstamp means Cardinal John Henry Newman is to be beatified, one move away from becoming England's first saint from the last four centuries.
An English deacon said he recovered from an incurable back ailment in 2001 thanks to Newman's intercession. No date has been set for the beatification, which the Catholic Church in England has been eagerly awaiting.
English bishops recently suggested the pope could attend the beatification when he takes up British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's invitation to visit the United Kingdom.
At a February audience with Benedict, Brown invited him to make what would be the first papal visit to Britain in almost 30 years.
In 1982 Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II, became the first pope to visit since Henry VII broke from Rome in 1534. Cardinal Newman, an Anglican priest and thinker who caused immense controversy in Victorian England by converting to Catholicism, was once described by John Paul as ''that great man of God''.
Newman, who died in 1890, started on the long process leading to sainthood in 1958. He achieved the first stage of being declared venerable in 1991 but then things ground to a halt.
Despite his fame, and the reverence in which he was held by English-speaking Catholics, Newman's promoters were unable to find a credible case to present to the Vatican - until a deacon in Newman's long-time home of Birmingham, Jack Sullivan, came forward.
According to Catholic doctrine, miracles happen when a prospective saint, who is in heaven, intercedes with God and asks for a special favour to be granted. Most miracles in sainthood causes are medically inexplicable cures.
Pope Benedict is believed by some to be in favour of hastening Newman on the path to sainthood.
''The cause is likely to be close to Benedict's heart because he has been a fan of Newman since his student days,'' said an author of a recent book on Newman and Benedict, Peter Jennings. Jennings cited a speech given by the then Cardinal Ratzinger in 1991.
In the speech the cardinal recalled starting his seminarian studies in 1946 and discussing theology and philosophy with a close friend. ''Newman was always present to us,'' he said.
John Henry Newman, the son of a banker, was born in 1801 in London and was ordained as a Church of England priest in 1825. He rapidly became one of the country's leading intellectuals.
In 1833, after a trip to Sicily in which he fell gravely ill, he returned to England and started the Oxford Movement, which aimed to breathe new life into the Church of England.
His ideas caused controversy in the late 1830s and he retired from public life. In 1845 he converted to Roman Catholicism and lost many friends as a result.
After his ordination in Rome, Newman founded the Birmingham Oratory, a Catholic community and school in the English Midlands, through which he helped the poor.
He later moved to Dublin, where he founded University College. In 1879, he was made a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII, as a tribute to his work and devotion to his faith.
Apart from a group of English Catholic martyrs, who were canonised in 1970, Cardinal Newman would be the first English saint from the time after the Reformation, the 16th century movement which resulted in the birth of Protestant churches.
Two Englishmen, Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher, were declared saints in 1935 but they both lived in the 16th century.
Aside from his beatification prospects, Newman has claimed headlines lately after Birmingham religious authorities ordered his grave in a suburb of the city to be opened so he could be moved to the Oratory.
The media reported controversy about Newman being ''taken away'' from his long-time friend, fellow convert Ambrose St.John, who was buried with him.
But no remains were found in the decayed wooden coffin.
The Catholic church has reacted angrily to claims that Newman was gay. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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