Your sermon for Sunday, October 5, 2008…

Potential Saint, Cardinal John Henry Newman, was probably gay

”They were inseparable, they lived together for half a century, effectively like husband and wife. There were repeated allegations during [Newman’s] lifetime about his circle of homosexual friends. It is uncertain whether their relationship involved sex. It is quite likely that both men had a gay orientation but chose to abstain from sexual relations. But abstinence does not alter a person’s sexual orientation.”

Peter Tatchell, a British gay rights activist, remarking on the life of the late Cardinal John Henry Newman, an influential Catholic thinker, who may be granted full Sainthood by the Catholic Church despite the probability of a homo-relational life spent with his male companion, Ambrose Saint John.

At his own request, Newman was buried in the same grave as Ambrose St John. He had stated on three occasions his desire to be buried with his friend, including shortly before his death in 1890: "I wish, with all my heart, to be buried in Fr Ambrose St John’s grave – and I give this as my last, my imperative will", he wrote, later adding: "This I confirm and insist on."
–Wikipedia Entry on John Henry Newman

Was a Would-Be Saint Gay?

The long-running battle between gay rights activists and the Vatican has moved into the realm of the dead. With 19th century Anglican convert Cardinal John Henry Newman, arguably the greatest Catholic thinker from the English-speaking world, moving ever closer to sainthood, trouble is brewing over where his final resting place should be. The London-born historian and theologian died in 1890 and, following the instructions in his will, was buried beside his lifelong friend and fellow convert Ambrose St. John, who had died 15 years earlier. Newman’s deep expressions of grief after St. John’s death, along with other writings, have led some historians to ask whether the two men, who lived together for many years, lived much like common-law spouses.

Newman, whose ideas on conscience and faith have influenced Christian theology ever since, is expected to be beatified next year following the Vatican’s recent certification of a Newman miracle — when a Boston man’s cure from a crippling spinal disease could not be explained medically. The final step of canonization — full Sainthood — will require proof of an additional miracle achieved through the intercession of Newman’s spirit. The Vatican announced plans this month to move Newman’s remains from a small gravesite in the central English town of Rednal to a specially built sarcophagus in the Oratory Church of Birmingham, where, officials say, they will be more accessible for venerating faithful.

-Time Magazine

Although the passionate love between them was entirely chaste, the campaigners were seeking to claim — extravagantly — that Newman’s was a "same-sex relationship" which the Catholic Church was trying to suppress, an accusation Rome felt the need to scotch. But even those who did not believe Newman was a "closet homosexual" were still concerned that Newman’s body was going to be dismembered to extract relics. For such an English saint — the first non-martyr since the Reformation to be raised to the altars – it all seemed a little, well, Mediterranean.

(It has also been a running joke for religious correspondents, who have been proposing a "graveside webcam" to cover the disinternment, and speculating at the embarrassment that would follow from the discovery that the body of St John, not Newman’s, had been preserved.) 

–Austen Ivereigh, Writing For The National Catholic Weekly

No body in exhumed Newman’s grave

The grave of the 19th Century Cardinal John Henry Newman did not contain his body, the Catholic Church has revealed.

The plot, at the Oratory House, Rednal, near Birmingham, was excavated on Thursday at the Vatican’s instruction.

His remains were to have been moved to the Birmingham Oratory, in preparation for Newman’s anticipated beatification.

Newman’s body may have decomposed, as his coffin was not lead-lined. Its absence will not affect the progress of his cause in Rome, a spokesman said.

In a statement released on Saturday, Peter Jennings from the Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory, said: "Brass, wooden and cloth artefacts from Cardinal Newman’s coffin were found.

Newman was actually laid to rest, per his wishes, in St. John’s tomb.  That’s what makes the joke Ivereigh mentions of particular interest.   Regardless of whether their relationship ever became a physical one, Newman clearly and deeply loved St. John.  That’s why his body had to be removed from St. John’s tomb before he could be canonized.  The dehumanization of homosexual people proceeds not from a denial that sex between same sex lovers is natural, but from a denial that we love.  Homosexuals don’t love, they just have sex.  It isn’t the suggestion that Newman ever had sex with the man he loved that outrages the likes of Ratzinger.  It’s the fact that he loved another man, and was loved by him, and that their love was vital to both of them.  That is what simply cannot be.  Not that they had sex, but that they loved each other.  That is why Newman’s body had to be dug up, and separated from St. John’s.  In his jihad on gay people, Pope Ratzinger isn’t one to let mere death prevent him from separating same sex lovers.

But when the tomb was opened they found no remains.  Both men were gone.  No Newman, No St. John.  The tomb was empty.