Catholic Church > Events > Cause of John Henry Cardinal Newman > Biography of Cardinal Newman
Cardinal Newman 1801-1890
John Henry Newman was born on 21 February 1801 in the City of London. At Ealing School he underwent a spiritual conversion which set him on the road to perfection. After undergraduate study at Trinity College, Oxford, he was elected Fellow of Oriel College.
In June 1824, Newman was ordained deacon in the Church of England. In February 1828, he was appointed Vicar of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, the University Church, where his spiritual influence on his parishioners and the undergraduates was enormous.
During 1833, he became the leader of the spiritual renewal known as the Oxford Movement. His studies of the Fathers of the Church led him to the conclusion that the Roman Catholic Church was the “One Fold of Christ.”
After a long interior struggle John Henry Newman was received into the Catholic Church on the 9 October 1845 by Blessed Dominic Barberi at Littlemore, where he had retired to live a semi-monastic life.
Several of his Anglican friends refused to have anything to do with him after he became a Catholic, but undeterred he went to Rome and studied for the priesthood. He was ordained on Trinity Sunday, 30 May 1847.
Fr Newman returned to England and on 1 February 1848, he set up the English Congregation of the Oratory of St Philip Neri at Mayvale on the outskirts of Birmingham. The following year the Oratory divided into two. Fr Newman remained in Birmingham and Fr Faber moved to London, now the Brompton Oratory.
In 1851, Fr Newman was appointed Rector of the proposed Catholic University of Ireland.
In February 1852, the Oratory community moved into a new house in Edgbaston where it has remained until the present day.
Fr Newman founded the Oratory School in Birmingham and in 1864 he published his famous Apologia pro Vita Sua, in which he vindicated his honesty in the Church of England and defended the Church of Rome.
Fr Newman worked tirelessly for the poor of his parish, and carried on an enormous correspondence, helping countless persons both Catholic and non- Catholic with their religious difficulties. He suffered much from the misunderstandings, suspicions and opposition of some ecclesiastical authorities.
In 1879 Pope Leo XIII created Fr John Henry Newman a cardinal to the joy of all of England.
At his death on 11 August 1890, aged 89, it was said that Cardinal Newman more than any other person had changed the attitude of non-Catholics to Catholics.
On 19 August 1890, more than 15,000 people lined the streets of Birmingham as Cardinal Newman’s body was borne to the secluded little cemetery at the Oratory House at Rednal, more than eight miles away.
The Cork Examiner affirmed: “Cardinal Newman goes to his grave with the singular honour of being by all creeds and classes acknowledged as the just man made perfect.”
On 22 January 1991, the Decree on Heroic Virtues was signed by Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Newman was declared Venerable.
This short biography of Cardinal Newman is taken from “A Newman Prayer Book” by the late Fr Vincent Ferrer Blehl, SJ.