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Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Blessed John Henry Newman in Lincoln, Nebraska


Earlier this year, Bishop Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska was on a brief speaking tour to discuss "Beauty, Culture, and the New Evangelization"; one of the stops was the Eighth Day Institute in January. During that lecture, he spoke about the new Newman Center church (not chapel) his diocese was building on the campus of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He wanted it to be beautiful--and chose the Gothic style of architecture as a tribute to Newman and A.W. Pugin (I teased him that Newman would not approve since he did not agree with Pugin's medieval style but preferred the classical basilica style of the early centuries in Rome--see page 5 of the article I've linked). You can see some more pictures here in this newspaper story about the church.

The cover of the July 2015 issue of the Adoremus Bulletin features a picture of the stained glass window above the Altar and behind the Rood, with this commentary by Bishop Conley:

We illustrate the indebtedness of our center to both St. Thomas Aquinas and Blessed John Newman in the stained glass window above the high altar. It’s the largest stained glass window installed in a Catholic Church in 100 years. It was built in Munich by Franz Mayer & Company. Measuring 20x24 feet, it pictures Christ on the heavenly throne surrounded by angels and saints that have to do with either learning or working with youth. To his right is St. Thomas, the Angelic doctor and great teacher of the faith, and to his left is Blessed John Henry Newman, who is the patron of Newman Centers, Catholic campus ministries and the apostolate to college students. The window also includes St. Albert the Great . . . a teacher of St. Thomas renowned in his own right for his contributions to philosophy and theology, and St. John Paul II, a great icon for the youth. The window also shows Blessed Giorgio Frassati and St. Therese of the Little Flower. All these figures in the window depict something related to young people, to the teaching or evangelizing of the youth.” – Bishop James D. Conley, Bishop of the Diocese of Lincoln

The issue contains more commentary and pictures. And here is another view of the stained glass (at the bottom of the page).


Road trip! I call shotgun!

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