Does the canonisation of St John Henry Newman mean approbation for something more than a single, splendid, sanctified life? Does it celebrate a particularly English way of being Catholic? On the evening of the Holy Mass of thanksgiving at the London Oratory, Cardinal Vincent Nichols suggested as much, noting that Newman both symbolised and helped to bring about a flowering of English Catholicism.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, preaching at vespers in Westminster Cathedral to celebrate the canonisation, proposed that Newman exemplified the best of English Christianity, in both of its Anglican and Catholic expressions.
