150 Years of St Aloysius’ Church: (3) Shrine of St John Henry Newman
Near the font we find the shrine to St John Henry Newman, our Cardinal. Newman was a fellow of Oriel College and the Vicar of the University Church but became a Catholic in 1845 having become increasingly dissatisfied with Protestantism. His studies lead him to see that the real “Church of the Fathers” was much richer and wider, and was to be found in the “One Fold of the Redeemer”, the Catholic Church.
Newman expressed with great clarity how complementary faith and reason are to one another, not enemies. He realised that we do not come to faith through argument, but once we have faith we can put it to rigorous examination and find it consistent with reason and our human experience.
John Henry Newman brought the Oratory of St Philip Neri from Rome to England in 1847, and whilst he longed to establish an Oratory in Oxford it was not to be in his lifetime (nor for almost 150 years). This Oratory in Oxford was founded from his community in Birmingham in 1990, and so we are his spiritual children. Newman was declared “Blessed” by Pope Benedict XVI in Birmingham in 2010 when this shrine was erected in his honour. He was canonised as a saint of the Church by Pope Francis in 2019. We seek the intercession of St John Henry that we may see another “second spring” of the faith in our day as he did in his.