The Tomb Was Empty!

On Thursday, having won the battle to exhume Cardinal John Henry Newman's body for its transfer to the Oratory in Birmingham, those paying their respects at the graveside had a bit of a shock. There was no body to exhume, nothing at all. Not a trace of bone, hair, human remains or anything except this plate. It means that he was not buried in the lead coffin that many supposed he had been but a simple wooden affair. It is not apparently unusual for remains to disintegrate totally in this fashion. A few fragments of hair preserved elsewhere will now be placed in a casket for veneration in the Birmingham Oratory, but of course there can be no 'lying in state' for a real body. At least it solves the Peter Tatchell problem. A non-existent body cannot be exhumed. As the spokesman for the Cause, Peter Jennings , has just told me, rarely can there have been a more vivid reminder of the truth of what the priest says at the Ash Wednesday Mass: 'Remember Man, thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return.' As our capitalist world crumbles about us, it seems that Newman is a saint for our times in more ways than we could previously have imagined.

Comments

[Malcolm+]

I'm actually inclined to agree with Alan that it is probable that Newman's intimate emotional relationships with other men were not expressed sexually.

However, neither case can be made with any confidence - although both sides seem to pretend otherwise.

[Dr Alan Marsh]

It is both current teaching, and the teaching of the Church in the 19th century when there was far greater moral rectitude than today.

Newman would have been deposed by either of the churches in which he served had he been found to have engaged in what was then a serious criminal as well as moral offence.

Because Christian teaching is not cafeteria-style but a set menu, those who teach the Christian faith must be beyond reproach. If they teach one thing but do another, they are not only guilty of hypocrisy, but the revelation that they do not accept the authority of the Church's teaching inevitably calls into question what they might say about everything else.

It is a matter of integrity. I would not have such a high regard for Newman if I thought he had led a double life.

Equally, today's RC Church, and most others, would not permit someone with such a lifestyle to serve as an official teacher of the Christian faith, or remain as a member of a religious order in a sinful relationship with another member of the order.

[j]

True, Dr Marsh (anyone know why we are all in italics?).

I do accept that this is current teaching. What I meant to say is, given the enormous contribution that thi man made, would he now be condemned if it turned out he were gay? or would people recognise that his contribution is quite unchanged and is still just as great?

I realise that to say yes would undermine the current teaching on what a priest must be. If- just for the sake of argument- it did turn out that he had been transgressing on this, would it spoil the rest of his mission for you? would you think less of him in consequence?

[Dr Alan Marsh]

J, a priest (let alone a Cardinal) is called to live an exemplary life, in which there is no room for division into "public" and "private".

Someone who is required to teach, as the Church does, that homosexual practice is sinful, and in modern terminology "intrinsically disordered", can not have a private life which is in direct contradiction of his teaching office. The common term is hypocrisy.

Newman was one of the outstanding theologians and teachers of the 19th century in both the churches which he served. I have read his work extensively, and I have no reason to doubt that he understood the nature of his calling to serve God according to the teaching of Holy Scripture and the tradition of the Church, as a celibate priest.

His character as a priest and teacher would be utterly ruined if it were true that he did things in private which the Church required him to treat as sin both in the pulpit and in the confessional.

The current campaign to "re-imagine" - anachronistically - the nature of his relationship with friends is wholly misplaced, being founded on a modern assumption that everyone is having sex with someone.

Newman chose not to marry and leave Oxford for a comfortable existence in a country parsonage, but to set about recalling the Church of England to its Catholic heritage; and as a Roman Catholic he established a religious order, the Oratory, as a means of furthering his vision.

Very few things are mathematically impossible, but the attempt by Peter Tatchell to claim Newman as a gay icon comes very close to mathematical impossibility.

[j]

Dr Marsh, its a lovely poem but you know as well as I do, he was quoting it to get her into bed while she was young.

Its meant to be a fairly specious argument by a randy young man to get his wicked way with a virtuous young girl.

I dont think we can really use it to guess at Cardinal Newman's private life, poor man. Given his lifetime of service to his church I wish the faithful could agree that either way would be just fine.

[Malcolm+]

The fact of the matter is, we don't know either way. It is speculative to say that Newman's relationship with St. John extended to physical intimacy. But, particularly in light of his burial arrangements, it is more than passing strange to argue categorically the other way.

It is true to say that, IF the relationship had gone beyond the what would have been regarded as proprer in those days, that both parties would have taken steps to ensure that they were not "found out."

That said, perhaps the best argument against a sexual relationship is, ironically, the burial arrangements, in that Newman (no fool he) would have realized that it would fuel any speculation.

But at the end of the day, we just don't know. Either way.

And anyone who pretends otherwise - either way - is being either silly or dissembling.

[Dr Alan Marsh]

Newman was undoubtedly attached emotionally to a number of his Oxford friends, such as Hurrell Froude, and later to fellow Oratorians, especially his friend ASJ.

Contrary to Mr O'Leary's assertion, there is no evidence at all that he permitted this to develop into an erotic relationship, which as a conservative Anglican priest and then as a Roman Catholic priest he would have abhorred.

Those who read more than is justified into the florid expressions of affection found in the literature of the time are simply rewriting history to buttress their own contemporary world view - a very far cry from the prudish and disciplined world of the Victorian church.

It is unlikely in the extreme that Newman ever shared a bed with any of his friends. It is not to say that he did not love them, chastely, as brothers. The grave is probably as close as he ever came to Ambrose St John.

To quote Andrew Marvell,

The grave's a fine and private place
But none, I think, do there embrace.

[homer]

Is this a miracle? Newman wanted to be buried with St. John forever and it looks like that is what will happen.

[Joseph S. O'Leary]

If gays have been “hidden from history” as a book of that title claims, then it is a matter of moment to discern what Newman actually tells us about his affectivity in his voluminous writings and in his warm and passionate behavior toward his male friends. Rewriting his career as that of a “red-blooded heterosexual”, or in Fr Ker’s language “a normal man” could be a violence against truth. One of Newman’s mottos was: “The truth must be told.” It seems to me that he deliberately documented fully his cult of romantic, passionate male friendship; it is part of his message, that we need to accept in its full warm breathing reality and not dilute it.

[George Parr]

"a more vivid reminder of what a complete waste of time...it is to try to have any kind of relationship with ('revere' - aka worship) the utterly inert physical remains of 'saints' - aka ordinary dead people."

...or indeed claim a personal relationship with an equally missing entity, with no palpable trace of a suitable box and neither alive nor dead. At least John Henry Newman materialised.

So, you would be dismissive of the rights of those who gain comfort from venerating 'saints' would you D Smith? Is this some sort of dastardly equivalence for those who roundly dismiss your own unlikely claims of an ability to receive and to act upon one-to-one divine instruction? Ordinariness applies in death but not in life as far as you are concerned?

Your version of it all is unassailably right whilst theirs, of course, is wrong?

[David Smith]

Ruth, you write:
' ..rarely can there have been a more vivid reminder of the truth of what the priest says at the Ash Wednesday Mass: 'Remember Man, thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return.'

Nor, surely, a more vivid reminder of what a complete waste of time and spiritual and emotional energy, in both temporal and eternal terms, it is to try to have any kind of relationship with ('revere' - aka worship) the utterly inert physical remains of 'saints' - aka ordinary dead people.

[Rick Beekman]

...Just one more "Mystery" for the world's Conspiracy pundits to try and solve.

I can just see the front cover of next month's "Conspiracy Monthly"

"DID THE BISHOP RESURRECT BODILY? OR DID THE HEADLESS HORSEMEN STEAL IT"?

Other stories we are closely following; Did Humpty Dumpty Fall..or was he pushed?

Theroists prove the cow never jumped over the Moon in the nursery rhyme...the Moon wasen't out that night!!!

[Kevin Morgan]

Proof once again that "Man proposes but God disposes."

[JMC]

Historians are becoming rather alarmed at the number of prominent historic individuals with an incestuous pedophilic orientation, and wondering whether our stigmatizing society has taken a wrong turn.

In previous ages, incestuous pedophilia was frowned upon and sometimes even openly punished. People with incestuous pedophilic orientations were often excluded from mainstream society.

As a result, it is likely that many of the non-sexual loving relationships with children were repressed expressions of a latent pedophilia of individuals who dared not express their love sexually.

In a study of prominent nineteenth century scientists who also wrote biographies, it is noteworthy that 80% of more reported that their mothers expressed a deep love for them as children.

We can only conclude that latent incestuous pedophilia is a positive sign - given the many luminaries who were raised in an environment with a latently incestuous pedophile as a mother - and wonder what brilliant minds our society would foster were not latent incestuous pedophiles encouraged to express their love more actively, and not persecuted when they do so.

[Dr Alan Marsh]

"We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
The Burial of the Dead

Newman is always elusive in his writings, and now it seems in death also. How much better than being broken up for relics, and put on display after 118 years of rest in his grave!

May he rest in peace.

[Malcolm+]

Newmand and St. John get the last laugh.

[Robert Ian Williams]

Wonderful, the Cardinal will rise on the morning of the resurrection with his friend and brother in Christ.

[steve]

No axe to grind but: how can Peter Tatchell know that "the history of the Catholic Church is littered with" people who were "secretly gay"? If it was secret? This is the same argument he uses against current unwillingness to entertain the possibility of Newman being gay but doesn't connect it to his own assertions about the past. Also, aren't we finished yet with the Freudian idea that all desires and affections are really sexual? Maybe the negative effects of that idea have played some part in the current search amongst many westerners for some spiritual reality?

[Peter Carey]

Amazing ... I love your use of the Ash Wednesday words ... Lord knows we could use some help remembering the larger perspective, the larger world view that our Faith gives us ... I'm sure Newman is having the last laugh at this turn of events.

Thanks!

Enjoy the day!

Peter Carey+
http://santospopsicles.blogspot.com

[Fr. Ed Tomlinson]

or maybe he was assumed...or faked his death....or someone stole the body and it lies in Peter Tatchells garden...conspiracy theorists do your worst!!

[penwatch]

Another b.....! miracle. It's quite clear that he wasn't going to be moved away from Ambrose St John, even at the behest of the Vatican. The rumours were true he remained a closet Anglican.

[Fr. Van Windsor]

ick...

[Chris Gillibrand]

And from Cardinal Newman's poem, The Dream of Gerontius which concerns a soul in the last moments of their earthly pilgrimage.

"Nor touch, nor taste, nor hearing hast thou now;
Thou livest in a world of signs and types,
The presentations of most holy truths,
Living and strong, which now encompass thee.
A disembodied soul, thou hast by right
No converse with aught else beside thyself;
But, lest so stern a solitude should load
And break thy being, in mercy are vouchsafed
Some lower measures of perception,
Which seem to thee, as though through channels brought,
Through ear, or nerves, or palate, which are gone.
And thou art wrapp'd and swathed around in dreams,
Dreams that are true, yet enigmatical;
For the belongings of thy present state,
Save through such symbols, come not home to thee.
And thus thou tell'st of space, and time, and size,
Of fragrant, solid, bitter, musical,
Of fire, and of refreshment after fire;
As (let me use similitude of earth,
To aid thee in the knowledge thou dost ask)—
As ice which blisters may be said to burn.
Nor hast thou now extension, with its parts
Correlative,—long habit cozens thee,—
Nor power to move thyself, nor limbs to move.
Hast thou not heard of those, who after loss
Of hand or foot, still cried that they had pains
In hand or foot, as though they had it still?
So is it now with thee, who hast not lost
Thy hand or foot, but all which made up man.
So will it be, until the joyous day
Of resurrection, when thou wilt regain"

[Chris Gillibrand]

From Mozely's Life,
'A poor, an indigent person, a stranger to him, had once left for him at the house door a silk handkerchief with a message of respect. This was very many years before he was Cardinal, and when he seemed, so to speak, much set aside; at a time, too, when he was himself very poor. Both present and message were received by him as they were meant, and with a solemn gravity which checked even a smile. He kept the handkerchief as something he prized. When he went to bed expecting to die, he had it brought to him, and put it on, and, though the doctors said he might as well be without it, he died with it on. He had kept it quite thirty years, even more.'

The Cardinal received the last Sacraments on August 10, and passed away at a quarter to nine in the evening of August 11, having been unconscious for most of the day. The funeral was at Rednal on the 19th. He was buried in accordance with the instructions he had left, in the grave of his beloved friend Ambrose St. John, and on the pall was his chosen motto 'Cor ad cor loquitur.'( Heart speaks unto heart) On the memorial slab at his own desire were engraved the words 'Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem.' (from shadows and images, into Truth).

I suspect his instructions, if they still exist, might be found to contain the fateful words "wooden coffin". Clever man the Cardinal.

[Lapinbizarre]

Elegant, final solution and a nicely-written story. You seem to have scooped everyone on this.

[Bishop Alan Wilson]

Is this a job for Temperance Brennan?

[j]

Please excuse a stupid question, but does it make any difference to the process of canonisation either way?

I can see that it is nice to have a physical reminder of someone for veneration, but does it undermine the claim for sanctity that the remains were not unusually preserved?

On the Tatchell question, I may have missed the point, but I doubt he needs a physical body in order to make his point about the cardinal's life?