Pope Benedict Wants to Make Cardinal Newman a Doctor of the Church

It's hard to understand why they want to canonize, and give more honors to this man who was met with so much legitimate suspicion in his own day, ideas which were spirited into the Church at the expense of a sense of purpose on the part of many of its priests and laity.

ROME, SEPT. 23, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI called Blessed John Henry Newman a figure of a doctor of the Church. The newly beatified Englishman's biographer affirmed that an official declaration in this regard could take place soon.

ZENIT spoke with Father Keith Beaumont, Australian priest of the Oratory of France, who said, "On this subject I received a confidence about which I cannot be explicit; but it seems that, in Newman's case, his canonization and declaration as a doctor could take place in a very short time."

The priest, who wrote the official biography of the cardinal beatified Sunday by Benedict XVI, noted that "all the Popes since Pius XII hoped to see Newman canonized and declared a doctor of the Church."

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