Last week, on a trip to North Central Ohio with friends, I visited a Parish where St. John Neumann had served as a priest for 3 months in 1841. Today in our Catholicism - Pivotal Players series at Church, we viewed the episode on Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman. I have found that many people confuse the two Johns - and understandably so. They have very similar names and were actually contemporaries - at least time-wise, they probably neither knew anything of the other. So my goal today is to clear up some of the confusion.
- I will start with the first born - John Henry Newman. Newman was born in 1801 in London, England the eldest of six children. As with most Englishmen, he was raised in the Anglican Church - the official Church of England. He had a profound conversion experience at the age of 15. He entered Oxford as a student and then stayed on as a tutor and then a Fellow.
Newman was ordained an Anglican Priest in 1825. He was well known for his writing and his sermons. He was also a founding member of what was called the Oxford Movement, a group of like-minded members of the Church of England (mostly associated with the University of Oxford) who argued for the reinstatement of some older Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy and theology.
Through his study, Newman began to question whether Anglican theology was consistent with the principles of ecclesiastical authority which he had come to accept. Eventually, he converted to Catholicism. This conversion was very controversial and caused him to lose his position at Oxford and everything that he had worked for his entire life. He was ordained as a Roman Catholic Priest in 1847 and was created a Cardinal in 1879. He died at the age of 89. His feast day is October 9.
- St. John Neumann (I've heard that the proper pronunciation is more like now-man rather than new-man), was born in the Kingdom of Bohemia - now the Czech Republic about 10 years after the birth of John Henry Newman. He attended Charles University in Prague, where he studied theology, though he was also interested in astronomy and botany. By the time he was twenty-four, he had learned six languages. His goal was to be ordained to the priesthood, and he applied for this after completing his studies in 1835. His bishop, however, had decided that there would be no more ordinations at that time, as Bohemia had numerous priests and difficulty finding positions for them all (imagine!). In 1836 Neumann traveled to the United States in the hope of being ordained.
Neumann arrived in New York with one suit of clothes and one dollar in his pocket. He was ordained three weeks later. After his ordination, he was assigned to work with recent German immigrants in the Niagara Falls area where there were no established parish churches. His first parish in western New York stretched from Lake Ontario to Pennsylvania. He traveled the countryside—visited the sick, taught catechism, and trained teachers to take over when he left.
Because of the work and isolation, Neumann longed for community. With the approval of his Bishop, he applied to join the Redemptorist Fathers and took his religious vows as a member of the congregation in Baltimore. After six years, he became the Provincial Superior for the United States.
In 1852, Neumann was appointed as Bishop of Philadelphia. During his administration, Philadelphia had a large and growing Catholic population and new churches were completed at the rate of nearly one a month. Bishop Neumann was the first bishop in the country to organize a diocesan school system. His fluency in several languages helped him to serve his largely immigrant flock and endeared him to them. The large diocese was not wealthy, and Neumann became known for his personal frugality. He kept and wore only one pair of boots throughout his residence in the United States. When given a new set of vestments as a gift, he would often use them to outfit the newest ordained priest in the diocese.
While doing errands, John Neumann collapsed and died on a Philadelphia street. He was 48 years old. His feast day is January 5. He is the patron of Catholic Education.
-- Research thanks to Wikipedia.
