Cardinal Newman to be made a saint after miracle approved

CARDINAL JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, a prominent figure in British Catholicism, is to be made a saint after Pope Francis approved a miracle attributed to him.

Newman, a theologian and scholar who was one of the highest-profile Anglicans to convert to Catholicism in the Victorian era, is the first Briton to be canonised since 1976.

Pope Benedict XVI beatified Newman during the papal visit to Britain in 2010 after ascribing a first miracle to the clergyman. Pope Francis has now credited Newman with a second miracle, clearing the way for him to be declared a saint.

The purported miracle involved the recovery of a pregnant American from a life-threatening illness. The Church claims the recovery had no scientific explanation and attributed it to Newman’s intercession.

“An expectant mother was suffering from unstoppable internal bleeding which threatened the life of her child in the womb,” the diocese of Westminster said on its website.

“She had long been a devotee of Blessed John Henry, and in prayer she directly and explicitly invoked Newman’s intercession to stop the bleeding. The miraculous healing was immediate, complete and permanent.”

Born in London in 1801, Newman was ordained as a Church of England priest and founded the Oxford Movement, representing the High Church wing of Anglicism, before converting to Catholicism in 1845. He was named a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in 1879 and died in 1890 at the age of 89.