Was Would-Be Saint Gay? - Mystery Of His Missing Remains - UPDATES

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Father Ambrose St.John is on the left









                                                       Was a Would-Be Saint Gay?






By JEFF ISRAELY
Mon Sep 1, 2008
 
The long-running battle between gay rights activists and the Vatican has moved into the realm of the dead. With 19th century Anglican convert Cardinal John Henry Newman, arguably the greatest Catholic thinker from the English-speaking world, moving ever closer to sainthood, trouble is brewing over where his final resting place should be. The London-born historian and theologian died in 1890 and, following the instructions in his will, was buried beside his lifelong friend and fellow convert Ambrose St. John, who had died 15 years earlier. Newman's deep expressions of grief after St. John's death, along with other writings, have led some historians to ask whether the two men, who lived together for many years, lived much like common-law spouses.
 
Newman, whose ideas on conscience and faith have influenced Christian theology ever since, is expected to be beatified next year following the Vatican's recent certification of a Newman miracle - when a Boston man's cure from a crippling spinal disease could not be explained medically. The final step of canonization - full Sainthood - will require proof of an additional miracle achieved through the intercession of Newman's spirit. The Vatican announced plans this month to move Newman's remains from a small gravesite in the central English town of Rednal to a specially built sarcophagus in the Oratory Church of Birmingham, where, officials say, they will be more accessible for venerating faithful.


But British gay rights activist Peter Tatchell sees ulterior motives in exhuming the Cardinal: "embarrassment" because of his relationship with St. John. "They were inseparable, they lived together for half a century, effectively like husband and wife," says Tatchell. "There were repeated allegations during [Newman's] lifetime about his circle of homosexual friends. It is uncertain whether their relationship involved sex. It is quite likely that both men had a gay orientation but chose to abstain from sexual relations. But abstinence does not alter a person's sexual orientation." Tatchell says that the two men's bond, and Newman's abiding wish to have his final resting place next to St. John's, make separating their remains "an act of dishonesty and betrayal by the homophobes in the Vatican."

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Father Paul Chavasse of Birmingham, who has led the cause for Cardinal Newman's beatification, said moving the remains has nothing to do with St. John. "Part of the established procedure prior to a beatification requires that, if the body of the new 'Beatus' exists, then it must be exhumed, inspected, and transferred to a place of honor befitting the person's new status," Chavasse told the Vatican-sponsored Zenit news agency. "As a great man of the Church and devoted to the saints himself, Cardinal Newman would have been the first to insist on obeying a request of the Holy See, and the last to insist that his own personal wishes be regarded as immutable."


To be sure, there is no evidence that Newman ever broke his vow of celibacy. British-based Catholic affairs writer Melanie McDonagh noted in the Times of London this week that Newman "would have regarded gay sex as an abomination."


But the brouhaha over Newman's burial place can also be seen as fallout from an increasingly hard line against homosexuality taken by traditionalist Catholic Church leaders. Before rising to the papacy, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger signed a Vatican document that said gay people have a "disordered sexual inclination which is essentially self-indulgent." Since his election, Pope Benedict XVI has repeatedly condemned gay marriage and said that no one should be admitted to the seminary who has deep-rooted homosexual tendencies.


Benedict, himself one of the top theologians of the modern era, was a student of Newman's writings. Knowing this, former Prime Minister Tony Blair brought three photographs of Newman to Benedict as a gift on his last visit to the Vatican, just months before announcing that he - like the English prelate - had converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism. In a 1990 address marking a century since Newman's death, Ratzinger spoke about the profound impact Newman's views had on young German seminarians in the wake of the Nazi regime. "For us at that time, Newman's teaching on conscience became an important foundation for theological personalism, which was drawing us all in its sway," Ratzinger said. "We had experienced the claim of a totalitarian party, which understood itself as the fulfillment of history and which negated the conscience of the individual. One of its leaders had said: 'I have no conscience. My conscience is Adolf Hitler.' The appalling devastation of humanity that followed was before our eyes." Benedict is unlikely to wade into the current debate. If he did, the Pope would no doubt point out Newman's belief that conscience only becomes complete when the faithful follow it to the higher calling of obedience.



View this article on Time.com

[Porscha Campbell]

It wouldn't surprise me, the Catholic Church has never been able to live up to the examples it wants everyone else to follow. It was like that from the start, with their founders.

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                                                Mystery of cardinal's missing bones 

 
                              Claims of a miracle attributed to Newman are being investigated






BBC NEWS
Oct. 29, 2008

A forensic archaeologist has raised fresh questions over why no remains were found in the grave of an English cardinal in line to become a saint.

It comes just days before artefacts owned by Cardinal John Henry Newman go on display ahead of his possible beatification.

Tens of thousands of mourners lined the streets of Birmingham in 1890 as Cardinal John Henry Newman's body was carried eight miles to its final resting place.

Some 118 years later the Vatican ordered his remains be dug up.

Roman Catholic leaders in Birmingham were asked to exhume his body by the Vatican as part of the process which could lead to the cardinal's beatification.



"An expectation that Cardinal Newman had been buried in a lead lined coffin proved to be unfounded"

Peter Jennings, Church spokesman



The Vatican is investigating claims of a miracle attributed to him.

But when Church officials opened his grave, they found no skeleton.

They said it was "unsurprising" the remains had decomposed leaving only a few relics, including brass fittings.

These, along with some of the cardinal's former possessions already held by the Church, will be placed
on show in a glass-side casket in Birmingham Oratory on Friday and Saturday, ahead of a mass on Sunday.

But a leading forensic archaeologist, with 20 years of experience excavating graves, has raised new questions over the disappearance of Newman's remains.

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'Very unusual'



Professor John Hunter, from the University of Birmingham, tested soil samples from close to the grave site
in Rednal, Worcestershire.

He said the soil would not, in normal circumstances, have led to the complete decomposition of Newman's
skeletal remains.

"It would be, in my opinion, extremely difficult to explain the absence of skeletal material if this is the same
soil as that of Newman's grave," Professor Hunter said.

He said soil needed to be highly acidic with a lot of ground water washing through it in order for a body to
fully decompose in about 100 years.

But his tests appear to show the soil near the grave is not highly acidic.

And he added remains, such as teeth, could have been missed if no archaeologists had been present
at the exhumation.

"It's very, very unusual for a body to vanish completely.

 
Professor Hunter has tested soil samples near to Newman's grave

"[The remains] were either not being looked for hard enough or, dare I say it, they weren't there in
the first place."

So what has happened to Cardinal Newman's body?

Ian Panter, principal conservator at York Archaeological Trust, is examining the fragments of textiles recovered from the grave.

He said it was possible Newman's skeleton could have entirely decomposed and added he had come across a similar case in York.

"We have got three boxes of textile remains recovered from [Newman's] coffin and we may actually
find remains of the body," he said.

"We've got what we think might be a small fragment of bone. We need to carefully unravel the vestments and
see what we've got. It will be a slow process."

Peter Jennings, spokesman for The Fathers of the Oratory in Birmingham, which was tasked with
digging up the remains, said the "utmost care" had been taken during the exhumation.

He said representatives from Birmingham Health Authority, the Ministry of Justice, a doctor and a pathologist
had been present.

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Decomposition 'unsurprising'



And he added the firm which had carried out the dig was one of the most experienced in the UK.

"An expectation that Cardinal Newman had been buried in a lead-lined coffin proved to be unfounded," he said
in a statement after the exhumation.

"In the view of the medical and health professionals in attendance, burial in a wooden coffin in a very damp site makes this kind of total decomposition of the body unsurprising."

Newman is in line to become the first non-martyred English saint since before the Reformation.

In order for him to be canonised a miracle needs to be credited to him by the Vatican.

It is investigating a claim that Jack Sullivan, a deacon from Boston, Massachusetts, was cured of a serious
spinal disease after praying to the cardinal.

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                          Professor probes mystery over missing bones of Cardinal Newman






Nov 5 2008
Birmingham Post

The remains of a 19th century Birmingham Cardinal tipped for sainthood are unlikely to have been destroyed by soil acidity in a Worcestershire grave, an expert has said.

 
Professor John Hunter, from the University of Birmingham, cast doubt on the theory after testing soil from an area near to the Rednal cemetery from which Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman was exhumed.

The ancient history and archaeology professor said it would be "unusual" to find a body buried in 1890 so decayed that no human remains were left.

He said the soil tested was "not particularly acidic" and that he found it "difficult to believe" soil conditions near the grave were so extreme.

Professor Hunter said: "It is very interesting from a forensic point of view to find a body that has completely decayed within this amount of time. It is very unusual and very unlikely. If we have extreme soil conditions that take away human bones, they would also take away coffin handles, which are still there.

"I am not making any claims or accusations. I am merely looking at it from a (forensic) point of view."

Prof Hunter said he chose to investigate out of curiosity and was only able to obtain a sample from ground near to the cemetery, not from the grave itself.  He said there were three options: either the soil environment of the grave was different to the sample tested, bones were missed when the grave was exhumed or the body was never there in the first place.

Relics that remain of the Cardinal - including locks of hair, a wooden crucifix and one of the coffin handles - were on display over the weekend at the Birmingham Oratory. They will rest in the Chapel of St Charles Borromeo as the process towards his beatification continues in Rome.