When St. John Henry Newman is proclaimed a doctor of the church on Saturday, staff and students at his old university will be counting on a boost of confidence for Oxford’s once-excluded Catholics. Lord Neil Mendoza, provost of Oriel College, where Newman served as a fellow and became an Anglican priest, said he had been “reminded many times” of St. Newman’s “profound impact” on university life, while St. Mary the Virgin’s current vicar, Father William Lamb says many pilgrims are now coming to see the pulpit from which St. Newman preached his famous sermons. Adam Gardner, Newman Society president, said attendance at Mass and Catholic events in Oxford has grown steadily over the past decade, in an officially Protestant country where practicing Catholics are now thought to outnumber Anglicans by a ratio of 2-to-1.
