The morning of 13 October 2019 found me with two of my closest friends in St Peter’s Square in Rome. We were there for the canonisation of St John Henry Newman, the first Englishman to be declared a saint in almost fifty years. We had arrived at dawn to pass through the security checkpoints with time to spare. Now, with the Italian sun beating down and another couple of hours to go before Mass began, I passed the time by reading one of Newman’s best known sermons, The Second Spring, on my phone.