Saint John Henry Newman, Priest and Doctor of the Church

John Henry Newman was born in London in 1801. An Oxford don and vicar of the university church, he became a leader of the Oxford Movement, which from 1833 called the Church of England back to its ancient roots; that year, becalmed at sea, he wrote the hymn “Lead, Kindly Light”. His study of the early Church led him to become a Catholic: on 9 October 1845 he was received at Littlemore by the Passionist Dominic Barberi. He founded the Oratory in Birmingham, was the first rector of the Catholic University in Dublin and wrote the Apologia pro Vita Sua and The Dream of Gerontius. Made a cardinal in 1879, he died in Birmingham on 11 August 1890. Canonized in 2019, he was declared a Doctor of the Church in 2025.