Catholicism This article is more than 14 years oldUS deacon claims miracle cure by 19th century British cleric
This article is more than 14 years oldPrayers to Cardinal Newman brought me recovery, Jack Sullivan tells Archbishop of Westminster at start of UK tourThe following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Friday 13 November 2009
In the article below we said that if Cardinal Henry Newman were to be canonised he would be the first non-martyred British saint since St Thomas de Cantilupe of Hereford, who died in 1282. The last non-martyred British saint was not St Thomas de Cantilupe of Hereford, but St John Twenge (also known as St John of Bridlington) who died in 1379 and was canonised in 1401.
In 2001 a Boston man turned to the late Cardinal Henry Newman to help him overcome a crippling spinal condition. Today the same man turned to the archbishop of Westminster to help him overcome impenetrable English accents.
Deacon Jack Sullivan, whose miraculous recovery will lead to the beatification next year of Newman, a 19th century theologian, began a six-day tour with a press conference at Archbishop's House.
With the Most Rev Vincent Nichols repeating questions from the floor so Sullivan could hear and understand them better, 71-year-old Sullivan told his audience about his illness and subsequent cure.
He told the journalists, nuns and priests present: "Wonderful things can happen to an ordinary guy. You don't have to be anybody special. This gives us all hope."
In his case the "wonderful things" came in the form of an inexplicable and sudden recovery from severe spinal disc and vertebrae deformities. One night Sullivan saw a TV documentary on Newman and prayed for his intercession. Next morning he got out of bed and began to walk. He remembered the announcer asking viewers to contact the postulator for the Newman cause should they receive some "divine favour" and called Birmingham Oratory, which was founded by Newman.
"Something very special had happened to me from a very special person," he said. "This thing is real, it's reality."
Medical experts convened by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the Vatican body charged with investigating miracles, concluded his recovery resulted from prayer. Sullivan said his own doctor could offer no medical explanation.
During his first visit to England, Sullivan will go to the Oratory, where he will visit Newman's room, his private chapel and his library. He will also travel to Rednal, where Newman was buried in 1890, and Littlemore, Oxford, where he was received into the Roman Catholic church in 1845. The Vatican must approve two miracles before making someone a saint. Having declared Sullivan's healing to be one, officials in Rome have turned their attention to a teenager in New Hampshire who recovered from severe head injuries after praying to Newman.
Newman is frequently cited as a source of fascination for Pope Benedict XVI and former prime minister Tony Blair, but has yet to arouse the same excitement as St Thérèse of Lisieux, whose relics drew crowds of 286,000 in a recent tour.
Relics from his grave were put on display in Birmingham last year. The church had been confident there would be pieces of bone to be divided among Catholic shrines, but only wood and brass fittings were found when the grave was excavated in 2008.
His path to sainthood has generally faced greater obstacles than St Thérèse, from failure to prove miraculous cures of ulcers to demands by gay campaigners that his body be left in peace in a grave shared – at Newman's express wish – with his lifelong friend, the Rev Ambrose St John.
When asked whether interest in Newman would increase following his beatification, the archbishop of Westminster replied: "Cardinal Newman is a very particular character in a very particular time of English history and English life.
"When he died there was huge and popular support and devotion. It is said 20,000 people lined the streets. I do believe that in the next 15 to 20 years, given the fact of his beatification and an awareness in our society that self-sufficiency is not enough, there will be growing interest in him as a man who lived a very holy life."
Except for the martyrs, Newman would be the first English saint to be canonised since well before the Reformation.
Blessed Britons
The Forty Martyrs of England and Wales are a group of Christians canonised in 1970 by Pope Paul VI to represent the Catholics martyred in England and Wales between 1535 and 1679. They include Edmund Campion, an English Jesuit priest who was executed by Queen Elizabeth I for refusing to reject the Catholic faith, and Ambrose Barlow who was hanged, dismembered, quartered and boiled in oil during the reign of Charles I. His head was later displayed on a pike. If Newman were to be canonised it would make him the first non-martyred British saint since St Thomas de Cantilupe of Hereford, who died in 1282.
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