Blessed John Henry Newman and Ambrose St. John, his “light on earth”

Article by Kittredge Cherry published on her blog Jesus in Love (United States) on August 11, 2016, freely translated by Silvia Lanzi

In 2010, John Henry Newman, a priest and scholar and the most famous convert to Catholicism of the 19th century, was beatified despite speculation that he was gay. His feast day falls on 11 August in the Anglican Church and 8 October in the Catholic Church.
Newman and another priest, Ambrose St. John, lived together for thirty-two years and are buried in the same grave. Some say they shared a “romantic friendship” or a “community life.” It seems likely that both had a homosexual orientation, even though they abstained from sex. Newman described St. John as the “my light on earth”. The two were inseparable.

Newman (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890) is considered by many to be the greatest Catholic thinker in the English language. Born in London, he was ordained a priest in the Anglican Church. He became one of the leaders of the Oxford movement, which attempted to return the Anglican Church to the Catholic tradition. On October 9, 1845 he converted to Catholicism. Because of this he had to leave his position as a professor (he taught in the English university town) but eventually rose to the role of cardinal.

Ambrose Saint John (1815 – 1875) probably met Newman in 1841. He was about fourteen years younger than Newman. They lived together for thirty-two years starting in 1843. St. John compared their meeting to that of the biblical couple Ruth and Naomi. In Newman's own words, St. John “she came to me as Ruth came to Naomi during the difficult years before she left the Anglican Church.”

After both converting to Catholicism they studied together in Rome, where they were ordained priests during the same ceremony. When St. John was confirmed in the Catholic faith he asked to take a vow of obedience to Newman, but was refused. Newman remembers those years like this: “From the beginning he loved me with a love of unspeakable intensity. Twenty-eight years ago, in Rome, he always did everything he could to relieve me of every problem: he was young and had Saxon features and the Romans called him 'my guardian angel'”.

Maria Giberne (an amateur artist friend of the Newman family, who followed him into the Catholic Church) painted a portrait of Newman and St. John together while they were in Rome. In the painting the couple is sitting in one of their rooms in the Propaganda Fide college on June 9, 1847. Among them is Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, who seems to bless and protect the two priests who were so fond of each other.

St. John, also a scholar and linguist, helped Newman with his studies and shared other aspects of his daily life, as if they were a married homosexual couple. John Cornwell, author of Newman's Unquiet Grave: The Reluctant Saint, told National Public Radio that St. John's help to Newman included things like “packing his bags before he left, making sure he took his medications and went to his dentist appointments, things like that. So she was practically like a wife, but without the sexual implications."

They lived together until St. John's death on May 24, 1875, when he was only sixty years old. According to a memorial letter written by Newman himself, St. John died of a stroke “for working too hard translating Fessler, which he did for my letter to the duke of Norfolk”. Newman needed the translation of German theologian Joseph Fessler's book for the start of the First Vatican Council. In the memorial letter Newman describes their last dramatic moments together, including when St. John embraced him near his bed, squeezing his hand tightly. Newman, unaware that his beloved companion was about to die, asked those present to untie his fingers before saying goodbye to him: a greeting that turned out to be his last. The man was devastated by the loss of his beloved companion and wrote: “I have always thought that no loss was the same as that of one's husband or wife, but I think it is difficult that someone's pain could be greater than mine”. He insisted on three separate occasions that he wanted to be buried in the same grave as St. John: “I wish with all my heart to be buried in the tomb of Father Ambrose St. John and this is my last and essential wish”. And later he added: “I confirm and insist on this will of mine.”

Newman died of pneumonia on August 11, 1890, aged eighty-nine. According to his express wishes, he was buried with St. John. The shroud above his coffin has his personal coat of arms with the Latin motto “Cor ad cor loquitur” (“The heart speaks to the heart”), which he adopted when he became cardinal. On their tombstone is another Latin motto chosen by Newman: “Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem” (“From shadows and reflections towards the truth”). The two share a grave in Rednal, a small town in central England.

During the beatification process the Vatican attempted to override Newman's desire to be buried with his beloved companion. Holy See officials hoped to remove his mortal remains and transfer them to a specially prepared tomb in Birmingham ahead of his beatification. There was controversy when some LGBT activists interpreted the decision to "violate" the tomb as an attempt to separate the two friends and hide Newman's queer side. However, when the tomb was opened in 2008, the remains were so decomposed that they could not be moved.

Newman's legacy is vast. Since he was an excellent scholar, many Catholic college centers in the United States bear his name. Newman tells us his story in his famous spiritual autobiographyApologia pro Vita Sua. He is also famous for writing the poem The Dream of Gerontius and the anthem Lead, Kindly Light.

His theology of friendship and his emphasis on conscience are both important to LGBT people and their supporters. Although the Catholic Church tends to frown upon special friendships between priests, nuns, or monks, Newman thought that “the love of our intimate friends is the only preparatory exercise for being able to love all men”. In fact he preached that "The best preparation to love the whole world more fully and deeply is to cultivate friendship and affection towards those who are closest to us".

Terence Weldon explains to Queering The Church how Newman's teaching about the importance of consciousness has laid the foundations for today's LGBT Christians: "As theologian Cardinal Newman has played an important role in the development of the modern formulation of the primacy of consciousness, which is of fundamental importance for LGBT Catholics who reject the current teaching on sexuality, or for most of heterosexual couples who dissent from the Humanae Vitae".

The Catholics celebrate Newman on 9 October, the anniversary of his conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism in 1845. Of course the Anglicans chose another date: on 11 August, the day of the anniversary of his death. Being blessed, Newman is only one step away from holiness but is already a saint in the heart of many, including LGBT people who are inspired by his life and way of embodying love.

His name is invoked in an official Catholic prayer:

O God, whom you gave to the blessed priest John Henry Newman
the grace to follow your kind light and find peace in your church,
we grant, we pray to you, through its intercession and example
that we are taken from shadows and reflections
in the fullness of your truth.

Note of the author: i decided to write this piece, I hope quite exhaustive, on the friendship between Newman and St. John when I discovered that he had not yet been taken into consideration, at least on the internet, with a positive approach regarding the LGBT issues that evokes. I was one of the many bloggers who, on both sides, wrote on Newman's alleged homosexuality during the period of his beatification, however citing only a few facts. I therefore thought I had to make a quick update on his life and in particular on his relationship with St. John but, while I continued in the research, I surprised myself how compelling their story was and how difficult it was to find an overview of their relationship on the internet. It is true that many details on their mutual love are accessible on the web, but they are mainly found on sites that tend to deny their homosexuality. It is strange as in the end give credit to the point that they try to deny. So I collected them all by recalling them to a queer point of view.

Original text: Blessed John Henry Newman and Ambrose St. John: Gay saint and his "Earthly light" share romantic friendship