Updated to reflect that this actually happened yesterday, rather than being “about to happen.” Dang Google alerts. It would be nice if they flashed messages that said “By the way, this alert is actually from an article three days ago, coffee-deprived blogger.”
I can’t imagine that this has never happened before, but hey, NPR says it’s news:
On Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI will beatify John Henry Newman, bringing the 19th century British cardinal one step closer to sainthood.
Newman was a prolific writer and towering intellectual who converted from the Anglican Church to Catholicism — but one part of his life is something of a mystery.
His possible gayness!
“It’s not unreasonable to think he might have been homosexual,” says the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author of My Life with the Saints. “His letters and his comments on the death of one of his close friends are quite provocative.”
That friend was Ambrose St. John, a fellow convert and Catholic priest. Newman described St. John as “my earthly light.” The two men were inseparable; they lived together for 32 years. According to John Cornwell, author of a forthcoming biography called Newman’s Unquiet Grave, St. John helped Newman
[...]
When St. John died in 1875, Newman was devastated. “I have always thought no bereavement was equal to that of a husband’s or a wife’s,” he wrote, “but I feel it difficult to believe that anyone’s sorrow can be greater than mine.”
Awww, they loved each other.
The article points out that Newman is the namesake for the Newman Centers which serve Catholic students at non-Catholic universities, so he was a very significant figure in the faith.
He may or may not have been gay but the Catholic church has begun the “spin” that he was really a devoted Catholic conservative. The powers that be will deny and bury any inkling that he was gay.
I think we may have found something to take Bill Donohue’s mind off news that Hitler was catholic.
Benedict XVI is not about to beatify Cardinal Newman; he has already done so, yesterday in Birmingham. Whether or not Newman was gay, and whether or not his friendship with Ambrose St John was a platonic gay relationship, are things that we shall now never know for certain. What I would like to remark about Newman is this:
In his spiritual autobiography, “Apologia pro Vita Sua”, Newman said that he became convinced at the age of fifteen “that it would be the will of God that I should live a single life.” “There can be no mistake about the fact,” he wrote.
A Protestant writer (I can’t remember which one) commented that perhaps, on the contrary, it was the will of God that he should spend more time in the fresh air and sunshine. Although that suggestion came too late for Newman – he was, I think, already dead by the time that it was written – it may still be useful advice for those gay people who feel inclined to listen to those who try to persuade them that it is the will of God that they should not enter into gay relationships.
Oops, good call, William! It was in my Google alerts, but I didn’t notice that it was a day or two old.
If my understanding of RC dogma is correct, the fact that he was gay is irrelevant, as long as he was celibate, it’s kosher, and he won’t be cast into a fiery hell by the God of Unconditional Love and Mercy. When it comes to RC clergy, they’re automatically presumed gay until proven otherwise.