Saint Who?
Saints Who Established Schools
Saint John Henry Newman
Priest († 1890)Feast: October 9
“From first to last…education has been my line.” John Henry Newman was born in 1801. He attended Oxford, gaining a coveted position as tutor in Oriel College. He eventually began the intense study of the Church Fathers that ultimately lead him into the Catholic Church.
Newman felt the need for good Catholic education keenly, and helped to found the Catholic University of Ireland. His famous work The Idea of a University is composed of lectures delivered as a prelude to the school’s founding and essays written mostly while he was its rector. He claimed to enjoy teaching so much that he would, if he had believed it to be God’s will, have given up all his writing to return to the classroom.
Newman died in 1890. At his beatification in 2010, Benedict XVI praised his vision for education: “What better goal could teachers of religion set themselves than Blessed John Henry’s appeal: ‘I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech…but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it.’”
Almighty Father, through the prayers of
Saint John Henry Newman, grant the renewal
of Catholic education and bless your Church
with saintly teachers.
