St. John Henry Newman will be the newest Doctor of the Church later this year, as announced by the Vatican Press Office on July 31, 2025.  He joins St. Therese of the Child Jesus as the most recent doctors, both from 19th century.  He lived entirely within that century (1801 – 1890).  From his early conversion as a teenager to his conversion to Roman Catholicism, he grappled with many of the same religious and intellectual issues of the current day.  That coupled with his tremendous scholarly and devotional corpus of works make him an excellent Doctor of the Church for years to come. 

First Conversion

John Henry was the oldest of six children, born in London.  His family did not take their Anglicanism with much seriousness.  As a teenager, Newman drifted into a sort of agnosticism: “I should like to be virtuous but not religious.  There was something in the latter idea I did not like.  Nor did I see the meaning of loving God” (Autobiographical Sketches, pg. 169).  Was he a teenager in the 19th century or today? 

He read a church history book and was quickly hooked on the Church Fathers.  Studying the Church Fathers includes theology and its philosophical influences.  This played to two of Newman’s strengths, and it was a subject area that he continued to pursue for decades to come.  

Newman attended Oxford as a student and, after graduation, became a fellow of Oriel College in 1822.  Besides the fellowship, Newman was ordained an Anglican priest in 1825.  He took a post at the university church at Oxford, St. Mary’s, in 1828.  

Tractarian Movement

After King Henry VIII severed ties with the papacy and the Universal Church, the Church of England was at times progressively Protestant, briefly Roman Catholic (under Queen Mary), and after Queen Elizabeth I, decidedly Protestant.  But not too Protestant—Newman wrote about the great, Anglican via media (‘middle way’) that theoretically struck a balance between the two.  By the 1800s, a general dissatisfaction with the state church pervaded England.  In these early years at Oxford, Newman wrote one of his first historical works, The Arians of the Fourth Century.  He dove in depth to the Arian heresy and illustrated many common problems between the 4th century Christian Church and 19th century Anglicanism: an ambiguous church/state relationship, a malaise in the believers, and a monarch seemingly more interested in the societal orderliness than religion.  

Enter Parliament!  In 1833, Parliament suppressed 10 Anglican Irish bishoprics (technically the Church of Ireland) and merged some dioceses.  Ireland was an overwhelmingly Catholic country at the time; the Anglicans in Ireland had claim to but a fraction of the population.  For Parliament, it was a mere business decision. 

This seemingly administrative matter was the spark that lit the fire of the Oxford Movement.  John Keble, professor of poetry, preached what became known as the “National Apostasy” sermon in July 1833.  He argued especially for the apostolic connection of the office of bishop; the bishop as a state employee was contrary to the Gospel, apostolic tradition, and the Christian faith.  

A group of excited professors, tutors, clerics, and in Newman’s word describing himself, ‘nobodies’ gathered to do continue the momentum from Keble’s sermon.  But what to do?  They wrote. The Tracts for the Times appeared in newspapers, trying to remind Anglicans of the apostolic roots of their church.  A total of 90 tracts were published, written by many members of the movement; Newman wrote 27 and assisted in several others.  This was a blessed and happy time of Newman’s life.  He worked alongside not just friends, but friends who shared and lived the Christian faith together.  He was given more opportunities to further his scholarly career, which included translating the works of the Church Fathers. 

Cracks in the Dam 

While the writings of the “Tractarians” became very popular, they also aroused a sense of nervousness.  More specifically, they started to sound rather Papist.  There still existed a tremendous amount of hatred toward Roman Catholicism in England.  

In 1839, Newman experienced the first crack in the dam of Anglicanism.  In examining the Monophysite heresy, he was stunned to find the “church of the via media” in the position of the heretics, and the Roman Catholic church in the orthodox position.  

For two years, Newman fought for a reason to stay Anglican.  He chose to publish Tract 90 in 1841, which tried to read the Anglican 39 Articles of Faith in a Roman Catholic mindset—both to ease his own conscience and that of many followers of the Oxford Movement.  That is, Newman was trying to prevent conversions to Roman Catholicism.  Rather than securing a foothold in Anglicanism, Tract 90 had the opposite effect.  It was received as an attack on the very roots of Anglicanism.  The local bishop put a stop to the movement’s publications.  Seven Anglican bishops condemned Tract 90 right away; after a few years, the number grew to 24.  This was a second crack for Newman, with a dose of cruel irony: the movement was shut down by the very office it tried to support the most, the bishops.  

Revisiting the writings of St. Athanasius and the Monophysite heresy in 1841 only made things worse for Newman.  Also in 1841, the Anglicans began talks with Prussian Lutherans and Calvinists to establish a bishopric in Jerusalem.  It was another blow, hearkening back to the beginnings of the Oxford Movement 8 years prior.  Was a bishopric an office such that it could be created so capriciously, among stakeholders who held different creeds?  Backed into a corner, Newman avoided patristics and theology, and turned to sanctity: should not the Universal Church (which could not be the Roman Catholic Church, of course) be noticeable by her fruits?  This provided a welcome distraction from doctrinal questions that all coincidentally led to Rome.  

In 1843, Newman publicly retracted all his negative statements against Roman Catholicism.  He felt obliged to do so for reasons of intellectual honesty, but from a public relations standpoint, it was an utter disaster.  Shortly after, he resigned from his priestly office at St. Mary’s church in Oxford and any obligations at the university.

The Final Straw

The bishop of the England mission (the Catholic hierarchy had not been reestablished yet) asked Italian Passionists to come to England.  Bl. Dominic Barberi went to Littlemore, and Newman met the simple, holy man.  The question of sanctity was no more.  John Henry asked to be received into the Roman Catholic Church on October 9, 1845.  His pursuit of the truth had cost him his job, clerical career, social standing, friends, and family.  As he stepped away from everything he ever knew, the lines of his famous poem “Lead, Kindly Light” took on new meaning:

Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th’encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

Life as a New Catholic

Newman went to Rome to “study” for the priesthood shortly after his conversion.  He was ordained in 1847.  While in Rome, he was exposed to the Oratory of St. Philip Neri—and discovered not only a great saint, but a community of priests that he wished to live in.  In 1848, Pope Pius IX approved the establishment of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Birmingham, England.  One of Newman’s fellow converts from the Oxford Movement, joined the Oratorians in Birmingham and after a year, was sent to London to found a second Oratory.  That was Frederick William Faber, who penned poems and hymns—the most famous of the latter being “Faith of Our Fathers” and “Jesus, My Lord, My God, My All.”

University Ideas

In 1852, Newman was asked to give a series of lectures on a university in Dublin, Ireland.  Those lectures became his next great work, The Idea of a University.  Two years later, Newman was invited back to Ireland; this time, he was given the position of rector of the brand-new Catholic University of Ireland.  The university still exists today, as University College Dublin.  

While the position was an interesting one and made good use of Newman’s many gifts, it took him away from the Birmingham Oratory.  It was very demanding as well; even among Catholics, relationships between the Irish and English were not easy at the time.  Travel was one of the things that got the better of Newman: he crossed the Irish Sea 56 times over seven years!  In 1858, he submitted his resignation and returned to Birmingham.  

Public Controversy and Writings

For the rest of his life, Newman continued publishing.  Just as when he was an Anglican, he found himself in hot water—sometimes justified, and other times not; sometimes external to the Church, and sometimes internal.  At one point, one of the bishops reported him to the Vatican for suspected heresy.  An Anglican cleric called him a fraud, which gave the Catholic world a tremendous work: Newman’s defense of character, which was a story of his life, Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864).  Catholics in England were seen in a more legitimate and positive light after that.  By then, the view of Newman in the Vatican had changed.  Multiple bishops asked him to attend the First Vatican Council as a theological advisor, but he turned them down to finish The Grammar of Assent (1868).  The prime minister’s attack on Catholics after the declaration of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council prompted Newman to reply with the Letter to the Duke of Norfolk (1874).  

While Newman likely gained some gray hairs, generations to come gained his great writings.  

Surprise Honors

The first honorary fellow of Trinity College was none other than Fr. John Henry Newman, given the title in 1877.  He had not been back to Oxford since he left more than three decades earlier—giving us a glimpse into his heart.  What he felt, he felt deeply.  

Pope Leo XIII was elected in 1878 and appointed Newman a cardinal in 1879.  This was a very big deal in England, seen positively even among Anglicans.  Newman asked to not be made a bishop, and to continue living in Birmingham.  Pope Leo granted both requests.  

While his publications slowed in his later years, Newman kept regular correspondence.  He died in 1890.  As his coffin was transported through Birmingham, tens of thousands lined the streets to pay their respects. 

St. John Henry Newman, Doctor of the Church, pray for us!