The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture celebrates the July 31, 2025, news that Pope Leo XIV will soon declare St. John Henry Newman the newest Doctor of the Church, recognizing his personal sanctity and influential contribution to Catholic theology and doctrine. Jennifer Newsome Martin, director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and the John J. Cavanaugh Professor of the Humanities at the University of Notre Dame, was a member of the committee of scholars that prepared the positio in support of Newman’s elevation to the honor.

“Contributing to St. John Henry Newman’s cause for Doctor of the Church has been the single most edifying task of my vocation as a professional theologian,” said Martin. “I am grateful to have had occasion to petition the Vatican in the positio alongside other theologians and Newman scholars, especially all my friends and colleagues affiliated with the National Institute for Newman Studies.”

Martin continued, “The eminence of Newman’s teaching—particularly with respect to the development of doctrine, conscience, the operation of human reason, the nature of tradition, liberal education, and the role of the laity in the Church—is absolutely incontrovertible, and the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture is proud to have played a role in elevating the thought and witness of Newman both in the broader Church and in the public sphere.”

“Doctor of the Church” is an official title designated by the pope in recognition of the outstanding contribution that a person of eminent sanctity has made to the interpretation and understanding of Sacred Scripture and the body of Christian doctrine. From the Latin docere (“to teach”), the designation indicates that the saint’s teachings, whether spiritual, theological, moral, or intellectual, can still instruct the Catholic faithful. With Newman’s addition, there are now 38 recognized Doctors of the Church, a list that includes St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Hildegard of Bingen, and St. Catherine of Siena.

John Henry Newman (February 21, 1801–August 11, 1890) was ordained a priest in the Church of England in 1825. He served as a curate engaged in pastoral work and as a tutor at Oriel College, Oxford. He was well respected as a preacher and writer, eventually becoming an influential leader in the Oxford Movement within the Church of England.

Newman’s reading and reflection on the writings of the Church Fathers, especially in the process of writing his now classic Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, led to his being received into the Catholic Church in 1845. He was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1847 and the next year established a monastic community of the Congregation of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri outside of Birmingham. In 1854, he traveled to Dublin and served as rector of the newly established Catholic University of Ireland (the predecessor to what became University College Dublin), where he delivered his influential lectures on liberal education later published as The Idea of a University. Pope Leo XIII named Newman a cardinal in 1879; he was declared venerable by Pope St. John Paul II in 1991, beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, and canonized by Pope Francis in 2019.

Newman’s sermons and written works are lauded by Catholics and non-Catholics alike for engaging a broad cultural milieu with erudition, candor, and wit. In addition to poetry and novels, he published a number of enduringly influential tracts and essays, including Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England, The Idea of a University, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, and an autobiography, Apologia Pro Vita Sua.

In March 2025, the de Nicola Center hosted a symposium on Newman, which included a collaborative, ecumenical lecture by Martin and Frederick D. Aquino (Southern Methodist University) titled, “Between Basel and Birmingham: John Henry Newman, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and the Present Theological Moment.” The symposium brought together an international, interdisciplinary group of scholars in philosophy, theology, and literature—from Universidad de Navarra, Universidad Eclesiástica San Dámaso, University of Oxford, Fordham University, the University of St. Thomas, St. Louis University, the National Institute for Newman Studies, and the University of Notre Dame—to present research on how Newman (and theologians influenced by him) could still speak to the modern moment.

In addition to the symposium, the de Nicola Center hosted a visiting scholar in Spring 2025 whose work deeply engages Newman’s. Lauren Spohn, a Rhodes Scholar and doctoral candidate in philosophical theology at Oriel College, Oxford—Newman’s alma mater—participated in the symposium and hosted a weekly lunchtime reading group for the de Nicola Center’s undergraduate and graduate Sorin Fellows. Spohn led the group through Newman’s Oxford University sermons, saying that "Newman talks a lot about moving from the notional, the abstract, the propositions, to the real, the concrete, the person. The Newman group has been like moving from the notional (my dissertation) to the fully realized, concrete personal interaction.”

Since 2016, the University of Notre Dame has administered the Notre Dame–Newman Centre for Faith and Reason at University Church in Dublin, Ireland, established by Newman during his time as rector of the university. The church was designed “as a chapel and convocation space for the university,” said Rev. William R. Dailey, C.S.C., founding director of the Notre Dame–Newman Centre and the St. Thomas More Fellow at the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture.

“It was a great honor every day to wake up and celebrate liturgy, to prepare my own homilies with Newman's by my side, and to stand literally in his own footsteps,” said Dailey. “There was a palpable sense of grace in that Church, and still is whenever I'm blessed to make a return visit.”

“Pope Benedict XVI noted that naming a saint as a Doctor of the Church ‘implies the recognition of a charism of wisdom bestowed by the Holy Spirit for the good of the Church,’” Dailey continued. “While some of Newman's writings may be more abstract or challenging in their prose, this designation by the Church assures us that our effort to understand him will be rewarded by wisdom. And, of course, his homilies and poetries are a trove of accessible wisdom (available online at NewmanReader.org).”

“A great professor and scholar of Newman for many years at University College Dublin, Teresa Iglesias, once told me that perhaps the most essential wisdom she learned from Newman came from his poem ‘The Pillar of the Cloud,’ which is popularly known by its opening phrase ‘Lead, Kindly Light,’” said Dailey. “There, Newman prays in humility that, surrounded by gloom, he does not ask to see the whole picture; rather, ‘I do not ask to see the distant scene; one step enough for me.’”