John Henry Newman
Cardinal Deacon of San Giorgio in Velabro
(1879-90)
The most illustrious and well known cardinal deacon of San
Giorgio in Velabro is Cardinal Newman. John Henry Newman began
his career as an Anglican churchman and scholar and ended it
as a Roman Catholic cardinal.
He was born on 21 February 1801 in London, England. At an
early age, he enrolled in Trinity College at Oxford, beginning
an association with that University which would last for nearly
thirty years. After graduating from Trinity College, Newman continued
work at Oxford as a tutor at Oriel College. Later he held other
academic and pastoral assignments. It was in his pastoral role
as vicar of St. Mary's that he attracted hundreds of students
and others with his scholarly and pastoral preaching.
"The high point of Newman's Anglican career was his influential
role in the Oxford Movement, a High Church effort to return to
the foundations of the faith--the sacraments, episcopal governance,
and apostolic succession--and to affirm the Church's status as
the via media, the middle ground between Roman Catholicism's
unfounded claims to authority and infallibility and the Dissenters'
equally unfounded emphasis upon spiritual liberty and private
judgment"
[from http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/newman/jhnbio2.html]
Newman later become disillusioned with the Oxford Movement
and in 1843 resigned his position at St. Mary's. On October 9,
1845, Newman was officially received into the Roman Catholic Church.
The next year he was ordained a priest. His work in the Church
included establishing the Birmingham Oratory (Oratory of St.
Philip Neri) and helping to create the Catholic University of
Ireland, which he served as Rector from 1854 to 1858.
He continued to write and correspond and produced some significant
works of theology in this his Catholic period. Some of these
works include: The Idea of University (1852); An Essay
in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (1870), a work on the philosophy
of religion; and Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864), his spiritual
autobiography.
John Newman's contribution to the Roman Catholic Church was
recognized by Pope Leo XIII when he made Newman a cardinal. After
a hazardous journey, and in broken health, Newman arrived in
Rome. He was created a cardinal deacon on 12 May 1879 and he
was given as his titular church in Rome the Basilica of San
Giorgio in Velabro.
Cardinal Newman lived his remaining years in England. He died
on 11 August 1890, and was buried in Warwickshire, England. His
epitaph reads Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem--out
of shadows and images into truth.
The centenary of his becoming a cardinal was celebrated at
San Giorgio in Velabro in 1979. That same year, Pope John Paul
II issued the a proclamation which read in part:
The elevation of Newman to the Cardinalate, like his conversion
to the Catholic Church, is an event that transcends the simple
historical fact, as well as the importance it had for his own
country... His inspiring influence as a great teacher of the
faith and as a spiritual guide is being ever more clearly perceived
in our own day... By insisting "that the Church must be
prepared for converts, as well as converts prepared for the Church",
he already in a certain measure anticipated in his broad theological
vision one of the main aims and orientations of the Second Vatican
Council and the Church in the post-conciliar period... I also
wish to express my personal interest in the process for beatification
of this "good and faithful servant" of Christ and the
Church. I shall follow with close attention whatever progress
may be made in this regard.
That same year, a plaque was erected in the Basilica to honor
this distinguished Cardinal Titular of San Giorgio in Velabro (photo of original Latin
below).
