John Henry Newman has been made a Doctor of the Church. But who is he and what does it mean?

St John Henry Newman, one of the most influential English theologians of the 19th century, is to be made a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo. Jack Chisnall, who lived in Newman’s room at Oxford, explains what it means - and the impact Newman had on his own life and faith 

As an undergraduate, John Henry Newman would look from his bedroom window and consider the flowers. White snapdragon, in particular, which adorned the wall that divided Newman’s student digs at the University of Oxford from the neighbouring building.  

The stability of the plant gave him dreams of academic glory – “the emblem of my own perpetual residence even unto death in my University”, he recollected. He became a Church of England priest but, after his conversion to Catholicism in 1845, he was all but hounded out of a university which, in those days, could only receive worshippers of the Established Church.  

Instead, Newman now awaits the exalted role of ‘Doctor of the Church’, which Pope Leo recently announced he would bestow upon him. It follows his canonisation in 2019.