Benedict XVI and Blessed John Henry Newman, Ed. Peter Jennings, CTS, £14.95

You have to take your hat off to the CTS. Hardly has the Holy Father taken wing from our shores when this handsome volume arrives, with all the Pope’s speeches and addresses in it during his most memorable state visit, as well as the welcoming speeches to him, reflections by some of those who met him and a wealth of colour photographs. It is a book to savour, re-read and to keep, with its red cover – the colour of martyrdom and the reason why the Pope wears red shoes – illustrated by photos of the Queen, the Holy Father and Blessed John Henry Newman in his cardinal’s robes.

Two adjectives about Pope Benedict stand out amid the reminiscences: his gentleness and courtesy, so different from the picture painted in the media before he came. As Lord Patten observes here, “Public enthusiasm buried metropolitan cynicism.” Obviously speechwriters helped in the briefing of those who welcomed the Pope; yet it was still good to read that David Cameron had referred to Newman’s care for the sick during the cholera outbreak in Birmingham and that her Majesty had described Newman as “a man who struggled with doubt and uncertainty.”

Pope Benedict’s speeches were both truthful and tactful, a difficult balancing act, mentioning the role Britain played in WW2 as well as some of the great men and women in our island story: Wilberforce, Livingstone and Florence Nightingale, as well as great saints like Thomas More. To the young Catholics he met, he constantly directed them towards Christ: “There is only one thing which lasts: the love of Jesus Christ personally for each one of you. Search for him, know him and love him...”

It was good to read here the quotation from Newman by the Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, who met the Holy Father at St Mary’s, Twickenham: “We should conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend.” And Lord Alton of Liverpool, responding to the Pope’s “call to place human dignity at the heart of the political equation”, reflecting: “I wondered what legislators who had legalised the creation of animal-human hybrid embryos, the abortion of disabled babies, made of this call.” I, too, rather wonder, for instance, what was going through the mind of the Speaker, John Bercow, during the Pope’s Address in Westminster Hall.

The photographs of Benedict talking to residents of the Little Sisters of the Poor Home in Vauxhall and his words to them, “I come among you ... also as a brother who knows well the joys and struggles that come with age” were especially moving; also the photos of him sitting at table in Edinburgh, ready for a meal with the hierarchy, and having only orange juice poured into his (single) glass while all the other place sets had three wine glasses. It was good to see the joy on the face of Sr Mary Dechant of Littlemore, where so much has been done by the Sisters of “The Work” to bring Newman to wider attention, as she and Mother Catherine Strolz were presented to the Holy Father during the Mass of beatification at Cofton Park.

Fr Gregory Winterton CO, the senior member of the Birmingham Oratory, and one of the “Actors” who have been involved over the years in bringing forward Newman’s Cause, reminds us in these pages that the work is not yet over; we must now pray for a second miracle so that Newman can be canonised, with the hope that he will then be made a Doctor of the Church.

The book ends, appropriately, with Blessed John Henry’s own short Address to the CTS Conference held in Birmingham in July 1890, the year he died: “God is not wanting if we are ready to work. I beg you to pardon and to forget the weakness of my words.” The Holy Father and Newman: both men of gentleness and courtesy, but not afraid to speak the truth. Thanks must be given to Peter Jennings, press secretary to the Archbishop of Birmingham, who must have worked round the clock to bring together the text and photos so speedily.

© 2010 Francis Phillips

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