October 2025
“I am pleased to announce that on November 1, within the context of the Jubilee of the Educational World, I will confer the title of Doctor of the Church on Saint John Henry Newman, who made a decisive contribution to the renewal of theology and to the understanding of Christian doctrine in its development.”
These were the words of Pope Leo XIV at the Angelus on Sunday, September 28, 2025.
The figure of John Henry Newman will therefore be elevated to Doctor of the Universal Church. With this decision, the Catholic Church publicly recognizes the importance of his thought and the spiritual legacy that makes him such a meaningful figure for our time.
A 19th-century thinker who still speaks to us today
Newman (1801-1890) – first an Anglican priest, later a Catholic convert, and then created cardinal in 1879 by Pope Leo XIII – was canonized in 2019 by Pope Francis.
His message remains relevant because he emphasized the relationship between faith and reason, showing that believing does not mean abandoning the intellect but placing it on a path toward truth. He affirmed that personal conscience and inner dialogue with God are essential dimensions of Christian life, and he lived his conversion as both an intellectual and spiritual journey, taking Tradition and the Fathers of the Church as his horizon of faith.
A title that also speaks to our own time
As Cardinal Diarmuid Martin said at the Meeting in 2010, “The issue of the relationship between faith and reason was a particularly sensitive one in that period, as skepticism toward religion was increasing. Newman wanted to show his contemporaries that faith and reason were not in conflict, but also that reason was not the sole arbiter of every truth.”
Moreover, his ecumenical commitment – and his capacity to cross boundaries and divisions – makes him a witness to a way of living the Church as communion, not merely as an institution.
The exhibition “Cor ad cor loquitur. Newman’s Certainty, Conscience and Reality”
Newman’s figure has often been remembered at the Meeting, for example on August 24, 2010 during the conference Defending Reason: John Henry Newman with Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, introduced by Onorato Grassi.
The following day, August 23, the Meeting featured a more original event, Angli or Angeli? From Newman to Chesterton: itineraries through English culture in literature and music, with Paolo Gulisano (speaker and narrator) and musicians Carlo Pastori, Giovanni Scarpanti, Ermes Angelon, Franco “Furbo” Svanoni and Francesco De Chiara.
Above all, Newman was the focus of the 2011 Meeting exhibition “Cor ad cor loquitur”. The certainty of Newman: conscience and reality, curated by Giuseppe Pezzini, Samuele Busetto, Paul Hitchings, Chris Morgan and Stefano Rebeggiani. That same year an event bearing the same title was held with Edoardo Aldo Cerrato (Procurator General of the Confoederatio Oratorii Sancti Philippi Nerii), Ian Ker (Fellow in Theology, Oxford University) and moderator Javier Prades López.
The exhibition “Cor ad cor loquitur. The certainty of Newman: conscience and reality” is now available as a traveling exhibit. Divided into three sections that trace Newman’s three major “conversions”, it consists of 24 panels and requires around 30 linear meters of display space. It includes digital resources that accompany each section.
The exhibition retraces his path of conversion through a biographical and thematic journey. Conscience, as emerges from the panels, was the driving force in Newman’s search for the certainty of truth. That same journey shaped his vocation as an educator and as a man who loved beauty. Newman testifies that faith is not limited to an intimate dialogue with God but becomes an intelligence of reality.
