Pope Leo is soon to declare St John Henry Newman a Doctor of the Church: one of the great theologians whose writings have been formally recognised as reference points of Christian tradition; a perennial source of wisdom, instruction and inspiration for future Catholic theology.
Newman thought, preached and wrote on the history of doctrine, on the goals of Christian education, on the philosophy of belief, on the nature of the Church: the range and depth of his work was extraordinary, and he illuminated every field he touched. But for more than half of his 45 years as a Catholic, he was viewed in many quarters with extreme suspicion, sidelined or ignored.
