Bondings Vol28-No 3.P65
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BONDINGS Volume 28, No. 3 A Publication of New Ways Ministry Summer/Fall 2008 Cardinal Newman is set to become Britain’s newest saint First he must be exhumed from the grave he shares with another man - the greatest love of his life By Geoffrey Wansell only be disinterred, but opened so that ‘rel- with all my heart, to be buried in Father logia Pro Vita Sua - which contains a defence Daily Mail – United Kingdom ics’ from Newman’s body, which may be Ambrose St John’s grave... I give this as my of Newman’s sensitive view of ‘masculinity’. August 29, 2008 bones from his fingers or fragments of cloth last, my imperative will.’ Cardinal Newman pictured in his study from his priestly vestments, may be taken in And for the past 118 years, that is ex- chapel at the Birmingham Oratory in 1889 The precise time and details are still a order to distribute and display in other Catho- actly how it has been, with the two men’s The softly spoken Newman was also at- closely guarded secret, but the plans are al- lic churches. But that’s not what’s provoking bodies sharing the one simple grave. Now, tacked by other 19th century contemporaries ready well under way. At some stage - possi- such outrage. though, if the Roman Catholic church gets for a ‘lack of virility’ and a ‘feminine nature’, bly before the end of the No, what offends its way, the two men will be separated for and in 1933 author Geoffrey Faber portrayed year - a small party of many campaigners is eternity in what some protesters have claimed him as a homosexual - ‘with feminine char- priests, gravediggers and that this process of ex- is an act that amounts to blatant homophobic acteristics’. officials from the Vatican humation will take place persecution. Newman had several friendships with will arrive at the small contrary to the explicit On Sunday, Peter Tatchell, the gay rights women, but none of them could be regarded cemetery at Rednal, near wishes of Newman him- campaigner, waded into the debate, claiming: as close. And there is no real evidence that Birmingham, to conduct self, whose dying wish ‘The Vatican’s decision to move Cardinal he ever consummated a heterosexual union - their sombre business. was to be buried in the Newman’s body from quite the reverse. There they will simple grave at Rednal its resting place is an act From the age of 15 make their way to a head- - alongside the body of of grave robbery and re- he was convinced it was stone bearing the Latin his lifelong friend, Fa- ligious desecration. the will of God that he inscription ‘Ex umbris et ther Ambrose St John. ‘It violates should lead a single life. imaginibus in veritatem’ For more than three Newman’s repeated While he was an under- - ‘out of shadows and decades, the two men wish to be buried for graduate, and later a phantasms into the truth’, were inseparable - liv- eternity with his life- priest in Oxford, he which marks the resting ing almost as a married long partner Ambrose St taught that celibacy, for place of the Venerable couple - in what many John. It’s a shameful, the priesthood, was ‘a John Henry Cardinal now believe to have dishonourable betrayal high state of life, to Newman, the revered been a homosexual re- of Cardinal Newman by which the multitude of Catholic priest, thinker lationship. the gay-hating Catholic men cannot aspire’. and writer, who died in Just how close the Church.’ Few deny, however, 1890. And then they will John Henry Newman two men were can be His argument has that his deepest emo- start digging. judged from Newman’s been bolstered by a re- tional relationships were For in a decision that has provoked con- statement shortly after Father St John’s death cent poll in the Church with young men who be- troversy in the Catholic church and beyond, in 1875. Times newspaper, came his disciples, in- Cardinal Newman is due to be exhumed and He declared: ‘I have always thought no which found that 80 per cluding the flamboyant his body moved to a far grander sarcophagus cent of respondents Richard Hurrell Froude, bereavement was equal to that of a husband’s Ambrose St. John inside Birmingham Oratory as part of the fi- or a wife’s, but I feel it difficult to believe were opposed to Newman’s who died in 1836, and nal preparations before the London-born that anyone’s sorrow can be greater than exhumation. Ambrose St John, who priest is beatified by Pope Benedict - a pro- mine.’ But the Catholic church is insistent the lived with Newman from 1843 until his death. cess that will set him on course to become Subsequently, the Cardinal repeated on move is part of the standard process in prepa- What undoubtedly made matters more the first English saint for more than four de- no fewer than three occasions his firm desire ration for beatification, and has nothing to awkward for Newman was that the other most cades. to be buried with his friend. do with Newman’s private life. significant 19th century English churchman, By any reckoning, it will be a somewhat He wrote the following just weeks be- They accuse the gay rights lobby of hi- Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, embodied macabre process. The coffin itself will not fore his death in the summer of 1890. ‘I wish, jacking the debate to suit their own agenda. the very antithesis of Newman’s character and Austen Ivereigh, former adviser to Cardinal outlook. Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, head of the Although Manning was similarly a con- Catholic Church in England and Wales, told vert from Anglicanism, who ascended to the BBC’s Radio 4 Sunday programme at the heights of the Catholic Church’s hierarchy, weekend: ‘I don’t think anyone disputes that he delighted in the outdoors and championed Cardinal Newman loved Ambrose St John... the working man. But it is simply wrong to read back from There were certainly no doubts over his today’s categories into the Victorian periods sexuality - Manning became a priest after his when these very intense, passionate, but to- wife’s death, quite unlike the bookish tally celibate relationships among the Anglo- Newman who remained forever cloistered in Catholic community were very common.’ an all-male world. But the very act of exhumation - and the Ultimately, the precise nature of removal of Newman’s body from his friend’s Newman’s close relationship with St John is side - will add fuel to the controversy over impossible to prove one way or the other, the role of homosexuality in both the Angli- though many see the inscription above their can and Roman Catholic Church. shared resting place - ‘out of shadows and So what is the truth about Newman? Was phantasms into the truth’ - as a posthumous he gay, or were his close friendships with male ‘coming out’. colleagues simply deep friendships of an in- In an ideal world, of course, it shouldn’t nocent nature distorted through the prism of matter either way. The controversy should not time? be allowed to diminish Newman’s great con- Born in London in 1801, the son of a tribution to the Catholic Church in this coun- baker, Newman was ordained into the Angli- try. can Church in 1823, but converted to Catholi- British Christians of all denominations cism in 1844 and went on to found the first should be proud that he is set to be beatified. Gay Rights Pioneer Visits New Ways Ministry English Oratory in Birmingham, as well as By December this year, Pope Benedict XVI - establishing what is now known as Univer- a keen supporter of Newman’s work and be- Frank Kameny, one of the pioneers of the gay rights movement in the US, stopped sity College, Dublin. liefs - is expected to confirm that a miracle by New Ways Ministry for lunch this past summer, and posed at the front door with Subsequently, he became a figurehead can be attributed to Newman. staff members Francis DeBernardo and Matthew Myers. for all Catholic converts everywhere and was This represents the first formal step to- In 1957, Dr. Kameny, who lives in Washington, DC, was dismissed from his fed- made a Cardinal in 1879. wards his beatification, and will mean that eral government position as an astronomer when it was disclosed that he was gay. He Even in his own lifetime, though, he will be called the ‘Blessed’ John Henry began the Mattachine Society of Washington, and in 1965, he and his supporters pick- Newman’s sexuality attracted controversy. Newman. eted in front of the White House in first public protest against U.S. government em- The novelist and historian Charles Kingsley The miracle in question involves the fate ployment discrimination The Smithsonian Institution has included his picket sign from launched a famous attack on him in 1864, that event in their standing civil rights exhibit. which provoked Newman to write his Apo- NEWMAN continued on page 5 Page 2 BONDINGS Vol. 28, No. 3 Catherine Pinkerton to offer prayer B NDINGS at Democratic National Convention Summer/Fall 2008 Vol. 28, No. 3 Francis DeBernardo, Editor By Sabrina Eaton Plain Dealer – Cleveland, Ohio Board of Directors August 19, 2008 Mary Byers Frank O’Donnell, SM An 86-year-old nun from Cleveland who works for a who has really been an inspiration to women everywhere,” Rev. Paul Thomas Catholic anti-poverty lobbying group has been selected to said spokesman Tom Reynolds.