Newman’s long life in brief

A Perfect Peace: Newman Saint for Our Time

by Bishop Fintan Monahan (Veritas, €7.99)

Newman: A short Biography

by Michael Collins(Messenger Publications, €9.95)

The canonisation of John Henry Newman last Sunday had brought his life and spirituality before a great many people who were perhaps only vaguely aware of their true complexity.

Many of these people are interested in learning more about a man who contributed so much both to the Church and to the culture of his times.

Frustrated

This is especially true in Ireland, where his great gifts, however, were not fully appreciated by many of the hierarchy, or indeed the middle-class Catholics who had so many hopes for the Catholic university he came to establish, hopes which were frustrated largely by the government at the time, refusing the new university a charter to grant degrees.

Joyce’s degree, for instance, though he studied at Newman House, was granted by the Royal University of Ireland, a sort of umbrella body covering a variety of institutions who sent in their students to be examined.

These two short books will provide those many people who would like to know the essential facts about Saint John Henry. Indeed, these kind of short books and booklets – which only a handful of publishers offer these days – play an important part in the prayer life of many people, who would be quite flummoxed by say the likes of John Moriarty.

Fintan Monahan is the Bishop of Killaloe. He has over some 30 years devoted time to collecting the books of Newman (which in itself is a task, as these pages indicated last week) and thought to understanding their author, as a “saint for our time”.

Collins rightly emphasises another side of the saint, namely his great tenderness and compassion”

But Newman is rather like the true Christian St Paul alludes to, he is “all things to all men” – few kinds of people seem to be outside the circle of his understanding, from traditionalist to gay Catholics. This little book will help many people begin their own explorations of the new saint.

Fr Michael Collins, now retired for health reason from work in the diocese in Dublin, has spent many years in making aspects of the Catholic Church and its history and beliefs accessible to the very widest kind of modern audience .

As Newman was a pre-eminent scholar and teacher, Collins rightly emphasises another side of the saint, namely his great tenderness and compassion. He hopes, he says, that his book will provide “a window into the heart and mind of the shoe-shine boy who wound up a saint”.