NOW: Pope Leo XIV has proclaimed St. John Henry Newman a Doctor of the Church.
Cdl. Marcel Semeraro (prefect of Dicastery for the Causes of the Saints) repeated the formal request at Mass, prior to @Pontifex's declaration. pic.twitter.com/wasxejQk9b
— Michael Haynes ?? (@MLJHaynes) November 1, 2025
Let’s have a poll. Pick your best answer (don’t pick on the answers). Anyone can vote. Only registered and approve members can comment, and I hope you will, especially if your answer is “yes”.
Loading ...
John Henry Newman on Worship, Reverence and Ritual is a lovely collection of writings (edited by P Kwasniewski) of Anglican Newman moving into Catholic Newman.
I have read a few of the Parochial and Plain Sermons, which are quite good, and other bits and pieces from the usual Catholic sources. My current favorite, however, is his sermon on January 30, the date of the execution of King Charles I, which was, until 1854, specified in the Book of Common Prayer (the English version, from 1662) as a day of prayer and fasting. He speaks therein of the need for national repentance for the sin of murder of the king, to avoid collective punishment for it, as had happened to, how shall we say, others. In process, he refutes the liberal idea that divine chastisement can only fall on those directly responsible. This sermon (given in essentially the same form on two different years) is only available in one of the OUP collections of his Anglican sermons, and not online to my knowledge, and there is also a note, presumably appended after his conversion, saying that he didn’t necessarily agree with all of it now, but still quite interesting.
First book I read about Our Lady was Mystical Rose by John-Henry Newman.
I read some of his Idea of a University because it was assigned for a class when I was briefly in college seminary.
I much more recently, thanks to your mentioning it on this blog, came across his Dream of Gerontius. I had never even heard of it. I found it fascinating and deeply moving.
I was raised protestant. in 1999 i read Humanae Vitae looking for the errors in it. instead i found (1) the error was in me and (2) here is a teacher who teaches with authority. over the next several months i read a great many things about the Church including Tract 90 and Apologia pro Vita Sua. i was received into the Church in 2001. time to head out for confession.
A long time ago I read some of his sermons, I think they were from his Church of England days, but they were very consistent with the Catholic faith if I remember er correctly.
I have a compilation of Newman’s “Meditations and Devotions”which I read frequently; it is a treasure trove of his thoughts and prayers which are both profound and surprising at times. I also have read numerous times “The Dream of Gerontius”, which has proved to be a great solace when family or friends have passed away.
St. John Henry Newman has long been a fascination of mine, being one of the few liberal Catholics whose liberalism fit in well with the Church. His idea of knowledge being both a means and an end has been one I’ve long thought about. English Catholics hold a unique place within the Church because their liberalism was not a challenge to Catholic orthodoxy but rather Protestant heresy and schism. My favorite two are John Henry Newman and Thomas Moore. Both saints well worth studying!
I don’t remember why I bought his beautiful Pastoral and Plain Sermons in college, but I have read many of them, and have gifted them to my adult children. Would that we were man enough, as the Church, to preach and to listen to such sermons now! Our Lady of Walsingham, Ora pro nobis!!!
Very much so. When Tom Howard was received into the Church, he was asked who had influenced him. He replied with a list of authors, including Newman. Since I was then Evangelical, but had just started considering Catholicism, I took his advice. Apologia pro Vita Sua was the first of Newman’s books I found, and a few months later his Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent was the final push I needed to make an appointment with a Priest. (I wrote Dr. Howard a thank you note.)
I’ve reread the Apologia many times, always finding something new. I am so glad to have him named a Doctor of the Church! I just hope that those praising him now actually read what he wrote.
Lead Kindly, Light and versions of this prayer in song.
Every night before bed, we would pray one of his many beautiful prayers and the kids loved it!
His exhortations regarding papal infalibility.
I read his Apologia Pro Vita Sua and An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine early in my own journey from the Episcopal Church to the Catholic Church. And, in seminary, for Epistemology class, I chose his An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent to read and write a term paper on.
As a student long ago I read his spiritual autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua, and The Grammar Of Assent (I did Philosophy at Uni). I read his novella Loss And Gain which is very entertaining. I did look up core sections of his Essay On The Development Of Doctrine and was very struck by this passage in the introduction where he writes about his own day how
“The assailants of dogmatic truth have got the start of its adherents of whatever Creed. Philosophy is completing what criticism has begun; and … apprehensions are not unreasonably excited lest we should have a new world to conquer before we have weapons for the warfare. Already infidelity has its views and conjectures, on which it arranges the facts of ecclesiastical history; and it is sure to consider the absence of any antagonist theory as an evidence of the reality of its own.” How right he was, and, tragically, still is.
Cardinal Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua is the efficient cause that I converted to Catholicism. My friend (who became my Godfather) who was working diligently to get it to happen 40 years ago, gave me that book. God granted me the grace to read it and admit there was simply no reasonable argument against what Newman was saying, and I absolutely had to have it if I were going to be saved. I have read all of Parochial and Plain Sermons, Essay on the Development of Doctrine, the Mother of God and Newman to Converts.
Cratchit: Do you know Edward Elgar’s (an English Catholic composer) oratorio based upon The Dream? Moving!
I’ve read some of Newman on Lent and I shall pick it up again in Lent next year. Newman was a friend of my Grandmother’s uncle.
I have not read any of his books, but I have read, over and over again, his magnificent poem The Sign of the Cross
WHENE’ER across this sinful flesh of mine
I draw the Holy Sign,
All good thoughts stir within me, and renew
Their slumbering strength divine;
Till there springs up a courage high and true
To suffer and to do.
And who shall say, but hateful spirits around,
For their brief hour unbound,
Shudder to see, and wail their overthrow?
While on far heathen ground
Some lonely Saint hails the fresh odor, though
Its source he cannot know.
Three of his works were instrumental to my conversion: An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, A Letter to the Rev. E.B. Pusey, D.D. on his Recent Eirenicon, and Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification. The second was especially important for helping me understand and begin to know and love Our Lady.
The fourth century Arian book is awesome!!
But before that, I did a podcast audiobook of The Development of Christian Doctrine, way back in the day.
I answered “no” with an asterisk. I keep a running list of books to read. Two of his books – The Idea of the University and Everyday Meditations – are on my list.
The Grammar of Assent (not complete, but I want to finish )
Apologia pro vita sua (twice)
Calixta (mucg better that Loss and Gain that I found a bit boring )
The essay on development of Doctrine
And other sermons and small writings.
Yes! Apologia Pro Vita Sua is very very dear to me, and both his Plain and Parochial Sermons and Meditations and Devotions are a great comfort, always.
The mental suffering of Jesus during the passion.
O, Lord, support us,
all the day long of this troublous life
Until shades lengthen,
And evening comes,
And the busy world lies hushed,
And the fever of life is over,
And our work done.
Then, in thy Mercy,
Grant us a safe lodging,
And a holy rest,
And peace, at last.
Amen
St. John Henry Cardinal Newman
Funny story. I found this on a bulletin board in the reception hall of an Episcopal church. Attributed to “anonymous”.
I think C S Lewis made me an Anglican and Newman made me a Catholic. The Apologia Pro Vita Sua and Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine were instrumental in bringing me from Anglicanism to Catholicism. I have recently been reading both works.
The copy of the Apologia that I borrowed from the library 27 years ago was in a volume that also contained Newman’s novel Loss and Gain: Newman as a gentle satirist.
“Loss and Gain” his autobiographical novel about his conversion.
I think the first whole work I read (not counting assorted hymn-texts and probably the version of The Dream of Gerontius set by Elgar) after the prose selections in our undergraduate textbook was Callista – in a paperback reissue with an introduction by Alfred Duggan – which also got me reading various of his novels. Spurred on additionally by the late Father John Hunwicke, I keep looking for second-hand copies of Loss and Gain – probably foolishly instead of reading it online first! (I’ve also enjoyed translations by him of Lancelot Andrewe’s Greek and Latin Preces Privatae.)
Like many others I have read his “Apologia”. Reading Newman renews my assurance that our Church is a great and holy community of great and holy people in which I am blessed to be a profoundly unworthy member.
The Apologia Penguin Classics edition after having read Fr. Bouyer’s Newman His Life and Spirituality, both in the last year.
To this day I will browse the “newmanreader” website for spiritual reading if I am ever without my current book. The sermons and the meditations are excellent: I actually think they are rather better than Apologia and Tract 90. The following are life-changing reading:
“Waiting for Christ”
“Preparation for Judgment”
“The Religion of the Pharisee, The Religion of Mankind”
“The Mental Sufferings of Our Lord in His Passion”
“Dispositions for Faith”
Pingback: MONDAY MID-EVENING EDITION - BIG PVLPIT