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by Patricia O'Leary (Author)
When London born John Henry Newman was canonised in Rome in October 2019 he became the first English saint since Reformation times. Best known as 'Cardinal Newman', many people are familiar with at least one of his beautiful, soul-rending meditations. This eminent theologian, philosopher, educationalist and poet doesn't fit the usual model we have come to expect of saints; he himself wrote 'academics don't become saints'. St John Henry has broken that mould, for this academic has become a saint whose life presents a challenge to an age immersed in consumerism and a slave to the dogma of relativism. 'He was a man whose whole life was a journey, a journey in which he allowed himself to be transformed by truth in a search marked by great sincerity and great openness...' Pope Benedict XVI writes, providing the inspiration for our pilgrim journey in the footprints of St John Henry Newman. We begin with a cursory look at little John Henry's childhood and the life of the Newman family. We then travel on through those soul-searching years at his beloved Oxford that ultimately led to his entry into what he termed, 'The One Fold of Christ' and the consequent heartbreak of having to leave that University. We will then follow him on his many journeys across the Irish Sea-56 in all-as he takes on the mammoth task of setting up a Catholic University in Dublin, now UCD, and building the beautiful church of Our Lady Seat of Wisdom. Ultimately we follow Newman's intermittent four journeys to Rome that marked the major stepping stones in his life.
