Detail from "Portrait of Newman" (1881) by
John Everett Millais [Wikipedia]
Vatican City, Sep 28, 2025 / 06:25 am (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV announced on Sunday that he will proclaim St. John Henry Newman a doctor of the Church on Nov. 1, the Solemnity of All Saints.
“I will confer the title of doctor of the Church on St. John Henry Newman, who gave a decisive contribution to the renewal of theology and to understanding Christian doctrine in its development, in the context of the Jubilee of the world of education,” the pope said after celebrating Mass for the Jubilee of Catechists in St. Peter’s Square.
With the proclamation, Newman will become the 38th doctor of the Church, joining a select group of saints recognized for their enduring contribution to Catholic theology and spirituality. He is especially noted for his insights on the development of doctrine and the role of conscience.
A 19th-century English theologian, Newman was first a renowned Anglican priest before entering the Catholic Church in 1845 under the guidance of Blessed Dominic Barberi. Ordained a Catholic priest two years later, he founded the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in England and was created a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in 1879.
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Pope Francis greets a crowd of an estimated 25,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square in Rome for his Regina Caeli address on May 22, 2022. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, May 22, 2022 / 07:33 am (CNA).
In his Sunday Regina Caeli address, Pope Francis reflected on Jesus’ words to the disciples at the Last Supper in the Gospel reading from John: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”
Speaking to an estimated 25,000 pilgrims gathered on a bright day in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, the pope noted that Jesus also makes a point to add, “Not as the world gives do I give it to you” (John 14:27).
“What is this peace that the world does not know and the Lord gives us?” Pope Francis asked.
“This peace is the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit of Jesus. It is the presence of God in us, it is God’s ‘power of peace,'” he explained. “It is He, the Holy Spirit, who disarms the heart and fills it with serenity. It is He, the Holy Spirit, who loosens rigidity and extinguishes the temptations to attack others. It is He, the Holy Spirit, who reminds us that there are brothers and sisters beside us, not obstacles or adversaries.
“It is He, the Holy Spirit, who gives us the strength to forgive, to begin again, to set out anew because we cannot do this with our own strength. And it is with Him, with the Holy Spirit, that we become men and women of peace,” Pope Francis said.
“This is the source of the peace Jesus gives us,” he added. “For no one can leave others peace if they do not have it within themselves. No one can give peace unless that person is at peace.”
Pilgrims at St. Peter’s Square in Rome on May 22, 2022. In his Regina Caeli address, Pope Francis spoke about the peace of Christ. Vatican Media
Pope Francis said, “Let us learn to say every day: ‘Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.’ This is a beautiful prayer. Shall we say it together? ‘Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.’”
Again encouraging the crowd to pray with him, he said, “I didn’t hear it well. One more time: ‘Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.’”
Focusing on the context of Gospel reading, Pope Francis observed that Jesus’ words to his apostles are “a sort of testament.”
The pope said, “Jesus bids farewell with words expressing affection and serenity. But he does so in a moment that is anything but serene,” referring to Judas’ unfolding betrayal and Peter’s imminent denial that he even knows Jesus.
“The Lord knows this, and yet, he does not rebuke, he does not use severe words, he does not give harsh speeches,” Pope Francis said. “Rather than demonstrate agitation, he remains kind till the end.”
He continued, “There is a proverb that says you die the way you have lived. In effect, the last hours of Jesus’ life are like the essence of his entire life. He feels fear and pain, but does not give way to resentment or protesting. He does not allow himself to become bitter, he does not vent, he is not impatient. He is at peace, a peace that comes from his meek heart accustomed to trust.”
In so doing, “Jesus demonstrates that meekness is possible,” the pope observed.
“He incarnated it specifically in the most difficult moment, and he wants us to behave that way too, since we too are heirs of his peace,” he said. “He wants us to be meek, open, available to listen, capable of defusing tensions and weaving harmony. This is witnessing to Jesus and is worth more than a thousand words and many sermons. The witness of peace.”
Pope Francis invited all disciples of Jesus to reflect on whether they behave in this way.
“Do we ease tensions, and defuse conflicts? Are we too at odds with someone, always ready to react, explode, or do we know how to respond nonviolently, do we know how to respond with peaceful actions? How do I react?” he asked.
“Certainly, this meekness is not easy,” while adding ,“How difficult it is, at every level, to defuse conflicts!”
Jesus understands this. He knows “that we need help, that we need a gift,” the pope explained.
“Peace, which is our obligation, is first of all a gift of God.”
Pope Francis said that “no sin, no failure, no grudge should discourage us from insistently asking for this gift from the Holy Spirit who gives us peace.”
“The more we feel our hearts are agitated, the more we sense we are nervous, impatient, angry inside, the more we need to ask the Lord for the Spirit of peace,” he said.
Pilgrims gather at St. Peter’s Square in Rome on May 22, 2022, for Pope Francis’ Regina Caeli address. Vatican Media
Pope Francis invited the crowd to pray with him, “Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.” He added, “And let us also ask this for those who live next to us, for those we meet each day, and for the leaders of nations.”
After praying the Regina Caeli at noon, Pope Francis commented on the beatification in Lyon, France, later on Sunday of Pauline Marie Jericot, who founded the Society of the Propagation of the Faith for the support of the missions in the early 19th century. The pope called her “a courageous woman, attentive to the changes taking place at the time, and had a universal vision regarding the Church’s mission.”
Pope Francis continued: “May her example enkindle in everyone the desire to participate through prayer and charity in the spread of the Gospel throughout the world.”
Pope Francis also noted that Sunday marked the beginning of “Laudato Si’ Week,” a weeklong reflection inspired by his 2015 encyclical on the environment. He called the observance an opportunity “to listen ever more attentively to the cry of the Earth which urges us to act together in taking care of our common home.”
Pope Francis also mentioned that May 24 marks the Feast day of Mary Help of Christians, who is “particularly dear to Catholics in China.”
He added that Mary Help of Christians is the patroness for Chinese Catholics and is located in the Shrine of Sheshan in Shanghai in addition to many churches and homes throughout the country.
“This happy occasion offers me the opportunity to assure them once again of my spiritual closeness” to believers in China, he said.
“I am attentively and actively following the often complex life and situations of the faithful and pastors, and I pray every day for them,” he said.
“I invite all of you to unite yourselves in this prayer so that the Church in China, in freedom and tranquility, might live in effective communion with the universal Church, and might exercise its mission of proclaiming the Gospel to everyone, and thus offer a positive contribution to the spiritual and material progress of society as well.”
Pope Francis also greeted participants in Italy’s annual pro-life demonstration, titled Scegliamo la vita, or in English, “Let’s Choose Life.”
“I thank you for your dedication in promoting life and defending conscientious objection, which there are often attempts to limit,” Pope Francis said.
“Sadly, in these last years, there has been a change in the common mentality, and today we are more and more led to think that life is a good at our complete disposal, that we can choose to manipulate, to give birth or take life as we please, as if it were the exclusive consequence of individual choice,” the pope said.
“Let us remember that life is a gift from God! It is always sacred and inviolable, and we cannot silence the voice of conscience,” he concluded.
Pope Francis presides over a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome on July 23, 2023, for the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly. / Credit: Pablo Esparza/EWTN
CNA Staff, May 14, 2024 / 12:47 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis on Tuesday urged families around the world to remain close to grandparents and elderly family members, imploring loved ones to spend time with older relatives who may be facing “solitude and abandonment.”
Francis noted that the Bible contains numerous examples of the “fear of abandonment, particularly in old age and in times of pain.” The theme for this year’s observance is “Do Not Cast Me Off in My Old Age,” a reference to Psalm 71.
“All too often, loneliness is the bleak companion of our lives as elderly persons and grandparents,” the pope said.
He noted that when serving as archbishop of Buenos Aires he “would visit rest homes and realize how rarely those people received visits. Some had not seen their family members for many months.”
War often leads to high rates of elderly abandonment, the pope said. “How many of the elderly are left alone because men — youths and adults — have been called to battle, and women, above all women with small children, have left the country in order to ensure safety for their children.”
Another prejudice against the old, the Holy Father argued, is the claim that they “rob the young of their future.”
“There is now a widespread conviction that the elderly are burdening the young with the high cost of the social services that they require, and in this way are diverting resources from the development of the community and thus from the young,” the pope wrote.
“This is a distorted perception of reality. It assumes that the survival of the elderly puts that of the young at risk, that to favor the young, it is necessary to neglect or even suppress the elderly.”
Citing the biblical example of Ruth remaining by Naomi’s side in the latter’s old age, the Holy Father urged families: “Let us show our tender love for the grandparents and the elderly members of our families.”
“Let us spend time with those who are disheartened and no longer hope in the possibility of a different future,” he wrote.
“In place of the self-centered attitude that leads to loneliness and abandonment, let us instead show the open heart and the joyful face of men and women who have the courage to say ‘I will not abandon you’ and to set out on a different path.”
In announcing the observance in 2021, Pope Francis said that grandparents and elderly family members “remind us that old age is a gift and that grandparents are the link between generations, to transmit to young people an experience of life and faith.”
“Grandparents are often forgotten, and we forget this wealth of preserving and passing on the roots,” the pope said at the time.
“How much we need a new bond between young and old,” Pope Francis said at the time, “so that the sap of those who have a long experience of life behind them will nourish the shoots of hope of those who are growing.”
In an audience with the Illinois Municipal League, the pontiff said that Gospel values can be applied to city government to the benefit of the most vulnerable and for the common good. […]
5 Comments
About our “understanding of Christian doctrine in its development”–and freeing ourselves of mutant signaling and insinuations during the past decade–in “The Development of Christian Doctrine” Newman appeals, in part, to a biological analogy whereby growth (“development”) is one thing, while corruption is another.
He writes:
“I venture to set down seven notes of varying cogency, independence, and applicability to discriminate healthy developments of an idea from its state of corruption and decay, as follows: “There is no corruption if it retains:
(1) One and the same TYPE [doctrine/natural law v. a disconnected degree of pastoral “accompaniment” devolving into accommodation],
(2) The same PRINCIPLES [the non-demonstrable first principle of non-contradiction v. neo-Hegelian interpretations of the ambivalent “time is greater than space”],
(3) The same ORGANIZATION [the received Barque of Peter as from a supernatural source v. natural religions more as expressions of unaltered human searching]
(4) If its beginnings ANTICIPATE its subsequent phases [the Incarnation/Creed/ Catechism/Veritatis Splendor v. normalization of “choices” in place of moral judgments, as in the homosexual lifestyle, etc.];
(5) Its later phenomena PROTECT and subserve its earlier [Veritatis Splendor/ Familiarus Consortio v. social science (?) as the source of alternative truths];
(6) If it has a power of assimilation and REVIVAL [Evangelization and inculturation v. incongruous amalgamation as with Amazonia/der Synodal Weg], and
(7) A vigorous ACTION from first to last…” [lively steadfastness v. the mess of constant change as the deepest rut of all].
By definition, we cannot prove “illative” knowledge, but it helps make sense of why we know that another person, even the Divine Persons, love us. We know the truth of this interpersonal love on many mysterious levels.
Try reading the Bible and everywhere there is the word “faith” replace it with “relationship.”
Faith or belief in the love of another person is more than math. Think also of the revealed fact that the Holy Angelic Persons love us. Happy Feast!
Thank you for remembering my Feast Day. Certainly faith, and beyond that, mystical knowledge, can provide men with certitude regarding religious matters. But Henry Neman’s illative knowledge was viewed as a natural human faculty.As such, it’s not faith or mysticism. It could be regarded as another human means of strengthening faith, but it would be fatal to the Faith to confuse it with a supernatural thing in itself. I think such ideas had a lot to do with the romantic atmosphere of the nineteenth century which, by confusing natural faculties with the supernatural, risked emptying the latter of its real, very distinct, reality.
About our “understanding of Christian doctrine in its development”–and freeing ourselves of mutant signaling and insinuations during the past decade–in “The Development of Christian Doctrine” Newman appeals, in part, to a biological analogy whereby growth (“development”) is one thing, while corruption is another.
He writes:
“I venture to set down seven notes of varying cogency, independence, and applicability to discriminate healthy developments of an idea from its state of corruption and decay, as follows: “There is no corruption if it retains:
(1) One and the same TYPE [doctrine/natural law v. a disconnected degree of pastoral “accompaniment” devolving into accommodation],
(2) The same PRINCIPLES [the non-demonstrable first principle of non-contradiction v. neo-Hegelian interpretations of the ambivalent “time is greater than space”],
(3) The same ORGANIZATION [the received Barque of Peter as from a supernatural source v. natural religions more as expressions of unaltered human searching]
(4) If its beginnings ANTICIPATE its subsequent phases [the Incarnation/Creed/ Catechism/Veritatis Splendor v. normalization of “choices” in place of moral judgments, as in the homosexual lifestyle, etc.];
(5) Its later phenomena PROTECT and subserve its earlier [Veritatis Splendor/ Familiarus Consortio v. social science (?) as the source of alternative truths];
(6) If it has a power of assimilation and REVIVAL [Evangelization and inculturation v. incongruous amalgamation as with Amazonia/der Synodal Weg], and
(7) A vigorous ACTION from first to last…” [lively steadfastness v. the mess of constant change as the deepest rut of all].
Let us hope it is Newman’s WRITINGS that will inspire the Church Peter.
A great saint and example for non-catholics. Not so sure about his notions concerning “illative”, intuitive knowledge though.
By definition, we cannot prove “illative” knowledge, but it helps make sense of why we know that another person, even the Divine Persons, love us. We know the truth of this interpersonal love on many mysterious levels.
Try reading the Bible and everywhere there is the word “faith” replace it with “relationship.”
Faith or belief in the love of another person is more than math. Think also of the revealed fact that the Holy Angelic Persons love us. Happy Feast!
Thank you for remembering my Feast Day. Certainly faith, and beyond that, mystical knowledge, can provide men with certitude regarding religious matters. But Henry Neman’s illative knowledge was viewed as a natural human faculty.As such, it’s not faith or mysticism. It could be regarded as another human means of strengthening faith, but it would be fatal to the Faith to confuse it with a supernatural thing in itself. I think such ideas had a lot to do with the romantic atmosphere of the nineteenth century which, by confusing natural faculties with the supernatural, risked emptying the latter of its real, very distinct, reality.