First Friday in August and Blogging Again

I've neglected the blog lately because I've been working on a project. When you're given only 15 minutes for a presentation, I've found you have to work even harder to put it together, mainly because you have to focus on what you really have to say. I've had to keep telling myself that I don't have time for this idea, or that idea.

And the project I've been working on is all about an idea--The Idea of A University, Saint John Henry Newman's great plan for a truly Catholic and truly universal University. I've been concentrating on the historical context of the his efforts from 1851 to 1858 to found, staff, promote, and teach at the Catholic University of Ireland. 

Just putting together this chronological handout for the participants was time-consuming, but it did afford me the pleasure of reading chapters of Father Ian Ker's great biography of Newman again and dipping into Wilfrid Ward's biography of Newman too:

Timeline of Newman’s involvement in the Catholic University of Ireland

'I want the intellectual layman to be religious, and the devout ecclesiastic to be intellectual.’ Newman’s first University Sermon preached in Dublin, “Intellect, the Instrument of Religious Training”

In England/Ireland: 1829: Catholic Emancipation Act passed: many but not all restrictions on Catholic worship and citizenship were removed in England and Ireland.

In Ireland: 1840’s: Potato Famine; typhoid, cholera, and dysentery epidemics

            Newman: October 9, 1845: Received into the Catholic Church at Littlemore

In England/Ireland: 1845: The Queen's Colleges (Ireland) Act (An Act to enable Her Majesty to endow new Colleges for the Advancement of Learning in Ireland) passed.

In Ireland: December 30, 1845: the Queen’s Colleges of Galway, Belfast, and York incorporated.

In Ireland: 1846-1855: emigration reached its peak

           Newman: September 1846: in Rome to study for the priesthood

           January 1847: decides to become an Oratorian (member of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri) priest; 

           May: ordained a Catholic priest

           February 1848: opens the first Oratory in England; June: opens the London Oratory

In England: Pope Pius IX announces the Restoration of the Catholic Hierarchy; names bishops

            Newman: November 1851: Archbishop Cullen asks him to become the Rector of a new    Catholic University in Dublin: Newman accepts

Newman in Dublin

·         5/10/1852: First of his lectures on The Idea of a University

·         June 21-24: has to leave Dublin to stand trial for libel

·         October 1852: finalizes the lectures on the scope of the university (part one of The Idea of a University)

·         January 1853: Newman has to return to England for sentencing in his libel trial

·         November 1854: the University opens and classes begin; Newman officially named the Rector; begins publishing the Catholic University Gazette

·         1855: Newman delivers his lecture on “Christianity and Scientific Investigation”, chapter 8 in “University Subjects” (part two of The Idea of a University)

·         May 1856: the University church dedicated (Saints Peter and Paul)—now named for Our Lady Seat of Wisdom

·         March 1857: Newman informs the Irish bishops that he wants to resign as the University’s Rector

·         October 26, 1858: Newman returns to Dublin for last lectures