Today in Birmingham, England, Pope Benedict XVI will beatify John Henry Newman. Beatification is a major step toward sainthood.
The following is from The Catholic News Service:
Cardinal Newman was an Anglican cleric who founded the Oxford Movement to bring the Anglican Church back to its Catholic roots. He became Catholic at the age of 44 after a succession of clashes with Anglican bishops and was made a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII. He died in Birmingham in 1890 at age 89.
Beatification by the Pope is unusual because "under Pope Benedict's own rules, a beatification is to be performed by a cardinal in the diocese where the candidate for sainthood died."
According to Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster, president of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales,"Pope Benedict has a particular attentiveness to the writings of Cardinal Newman...He is making an exception to his own rules to do this. ... This will be the first beatification he has carried out as pope."
For more information on John Cardinal Newman, go here, or go to the link to Campus Notes, the Blog of The Cardinal Newman Society which has been added to My Blog List on the right side of this Blog.
Have a Beautiful Sunday.
