St. John Henry Newman

St. John Henry Newman was born on 21 February 1801 in London, and died on 11 August 1890 at Birmingham. An Anglican priest and Oxford scholar, he became a leading figure of the Oxford Movement, which sought to recover the ancient catholic roots of the Church of England. His long and honest study of the early Church gradually convinced him where the true Church subsisted, and in 1845 — at great personal cost, losing friends and standing — he was received into the Catholic Church.

Ordained a Catholic priest, he founded the Oratory in England and was created a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in 1879, taking as his motto Cor ad cor loquitur ('Heart speaks to heart'). One of the most influential religious thinkers of his century, he wrote enduring works including the Apologia Pro Vita Sua, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, and The Idea of a University. Beatified in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI and canonized in 2019 by Pope Francis, he is a saint especially esteemed for uniting deep faith with rigorous intellect.