VaticanNews portal reports that “Pope” Leo XIV has proclaimed John Henry Newman as a Doctor of the Church and co-patron of Catholic education alongside St. Thomas Aquinas, with Cardinal Arthur Roche celebrating Newman’s “search for truth” and liturgical implementation on October 9th. The article quotes Roche’s praise of Newman’s “Cor ad cor loquitur” spirituality and Leo XIV’s description of him as an antidote to “pessimism and fear” in education. This canonization effort culminates decades of neo-modernist attempts to rehabilitate a figure whose theological deviations paved the way for Vatican II’s apostasies.
Subversion of Thomistic Theology Through Equivocation
The blasphemous equating of Newman with the Angelic Doctor constitutes sacrilege against Catholic tradition. St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica (I, Q.1, Art.8) establishes theology as “sacred doctrine essentially treats of God viewed as the highest cause – not only so far as He can be known through creatures just as philosophers knew Him… but so far as He is known to Himself alone and revealed to others.” Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845) undermines this objective revelatory foundation by subjecting dogma to historical evolution – precisely condemned in Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors (1864): “Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to a continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the advancement of human reason” (Error #5).
Roche’s claim that Newman exemplifies bringing forth “things new and things old” (Mt 13:52) perverts Scripture to justify doctrinal corruption. The Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566) clarifies that Christ’s reference concerns “the truth of the Gospel” hidden in Old Testament figures now made manifest – not license for theological novelty. Newman’s admission that his conversion resembled “a ship coming into port after a rough sea” (Apologia pro Vita Sua) reveals the subjectivism Pius X condemned in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907): “To the laws of evolution everything is subject – dogma, Church, worship, the Books we revere as sacred, even faith itself” (#26).
Modernist Roots of Newman’s “Heart Speaks to Heart” Spirituality
The promotion of Newman’s “Cor ad cor loquitur” motto exemplifies the heresy of immanence denounced in St. Pius X’s Lamentabili Sane (1907): “Revelation was merely man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God” (Error #20). This subjective pietism contradicts the Church’s teaching that grace operates ab extra through sacramental channels. The Roman Catechism insists: “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom 10:17) mediated by the Magisterium – not private emotional dialogues.
Leo XIV’s invocation of Newman’s hymn “Lead, Kindly Light” as educational guidance confirms the abandonment of objective truth. Pius IX’s Qui Pluribus (1846) condemned those “who place their own personal judgment above the Church” – precisely Newman’s methodology when he abandoned Anglicanism not due to doctrinal clarity but “personal probability” (Apologia). His lifelong correspondence with Anglican apostates like Charles Kingsley and desire for “reunion without conversion” prefigured the false ecumenism anathematized in Pius XI’s Mortalium Animos (1928).
Illegitimate Canonization by Antichurch Machinery
The “decree” from Roche’s conciliar sect’s worship dicastery lacks all canonical validity. Pope Leo XIII’s Apostolicae Curae (1896) declared Anglican orders “absolutely null and utterly void” – yet Newman spent his formative decades in this pseudo-ecclesial structure, being re-ordained conditionally in 1846. His scandalous request to be buried with Fr. Ambrose St. John – described in Newman’s letters as “my first and last” love – mocks the Church’s teaching on holy purity (1 Thess 4:3-5).
Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis (1943) established that “only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed.” The conciliar sect’s canonization factories operate outside this mystical body, having embraced the very errors Newman pioneered: religious indifferentism (Syllabus Error #15), doctrinal evolution (Lamentabili Error #22), and subjectivist piety (Lamentabili Error #25).
Educational Apostasy Masked as Intellectual Honesty
The blasphemous pairing of Newman with St. Thomas Aquinas as education patrons inverts true Catholic pedagogy. Aquinas’ De Magistro establishes that “the teacher leads the disciple from things known to knowledge of the unknown” through immutable first principles. Newman’s Idea of a University (1852) reduces education to “enlargement of mind” and “philosophical habit” detached from dogmatic certainty – the exact relativism condemned in Pius IX’s Syllabus (Errors #13-14).
This canonization continues Bergoglio’s assault on Thomism, following his suppression of the John Paul II Institute for marriage studies. As St. Pius X warned in Pascendi: “Modernists continuously and openly reproach the Church with being so intransigent that she refuses to submit to the demands of modern times” (#3). By enshrining Newman – whose works were once on the Index – the conciliar sect confirms its apostasy from Catholic truth.
Source:
Cardinal Roche: St. John Henry Newman, an example of the search for truth (vaticannews.va)
Date: 03.02.2026