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· Newman’s quiet canonisation: no stigmata, please. We’re British.

By DIARMAID MacCULLOCH [Literary Review] – There is an industry of hagiography around [John Henry] Newman, which does not appear to be a great spontaneous upsurge among the Catholic faithful. In the past, saints emerged by acclamation: miracles happened, pilgrims flocked to their gravesides. Even lately, the same popular phenomenon happened in the case of Padre Pio, the charismatic Italian Capuchin who exhibited stigmata and who was already drawing crowds in his lifetime. Newman has not stirred comparable interest in the Catholic world, although one perceives vague gratification among English Catholics that an Englishman is now proceeding to sainthood. The description of him on the official website of the upcoming papal visit as ‘the much-loved Victorian theologian’ is an underwhelming encomium by the standards of St Patrick or St Francis of Assisi.

Newman’s partisans have been hard put to find the necessary miracle to prove his sanctity, even in an age when, thanks to Pope John Paul II’s enthusiasm, saints have rolled off the Church’s production line in quantities that would win the envy of Henry Ford. At last, in 2008, came a report of the healing of a chronic back condition for an elderly Catholic in Boston, Massachusetts, whose attention had been drawn to Newman through the wonders of modern technology: a well-known American television programme founded by the nun and Catholic televangelist Mother Angelica. The Postulator for Newman’s cause of sanctification appealed on the programme for evidence of miracles to help the work along, and that appeal struck home to Jack Sullivan, whose serious illness stood in the way of his ordination to the diaconate. Prayer with Newman in mind produced very considerable relief, and Sullivan has duly been ordained.

Miracle, or very unusual medical event? [John] Cornwell reports [in Newman’s Unquiet Grave] the circumstances in detail and with notable neutrality; indeed, the report forms the very last section of his biography, in a style that makes the book end with the opposite of a punchline or the final triumphant chords in a Beethoven symphony. This is symptomatic of a study which, from its rueful opening anecdote about Cornwell’s first visit as a seminarian to Newman’s then very quiet grave, strives to paint a full and fair picture of an extremely talented, driven, passionate human being. It gives guardedly sympathetic reference, for instance, to Frank Turner’s recent iconoclastic study of Newman, whereas Newmanolators would demand automatic condemnation of heretical Turnerism. The result is an absorbing story, absorbingly told.

Continued at the Literary Review | More Chronicle & Notices.

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