Another St John?

Well, he finally made it.  Word from Rome is that John Henry Newman is to be canonised.  You can read the story here:

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=12435

I love Newman's writings -- he was perhaps the greatest prose stylist of the Victorian era; and in his clash with the evangelical and social reformer, Charles Kingsley, he clearly beat his opponent up very, very badly.  A bad mismatch, that one but fun to read.  Yet the account of the proposed canonisation shows how, in Catholicism, intellectual brilliance so often stands side-by-side with what can only be described as folk religion.   It is great to hear of miraculous cures and survivals; but to attribute them to a dead cardinal??  To quote the great British theologian, Victor Meldrew, `I don't BELIEVE IT!'   If Newman is significant, it's because of his writings, not some superstitious nonsense.