Cardinal Newman archive to become digital library

The University of Manchester
22 May 2013
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=10076

A three-year project to digitise the tens of thousands of documents produced by one of the most important and prolific Christian thinkers of the past 200 years has been launched.

John Henry Cardinal Newman's enormous handwritten archive, kept at the Birmingham Oratory, will be captured by a team of experts using cutting edge equipment at The University of Manchester's John Rylands Library.

The documents, thought to number around 200,000, will then be re-housed at the Birmingham Oratory in custom made boxes, made by the collection care team at Rylands.

US-based National Institute for Newman Studies initiated the groundwork for the project over ten years ago.

It is now funding and managing the £386,000 digitization, which will transform the archive into a comprehensive digital library that will eventually include all of Newman’s published and unpublished works.

Newman, who died in 1890 aged 89, was an academic and a clergyman in the Church of England before he converted to Catholicism. 

Then, as a Catholic priest his influence increased still further and continues to this day. Pope Leo XIII made him a Cardinal in 1879.

In 2010, he was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI, the final stage before being declared a saint.

Newman was a prolific writer, exchanging letters with the public, leading figures, and even prime ministers. His books and essays are read across the world.

He joined the Roman Catholic Church in 1845, and pursued a life of study and prayer, mainly in the Catholic parish of the Birmingham Oratory.

Father Ignatius Harrison, the Provost of the Birmingham Oratory, said: "Cardinal Newman is a towering figure of Christian thought, and has had an enduring influence on modern Western intellectual life.

"His long life of ministry and scholarship left a deep mark on the national consciousness of Britain, transforming its ecclesial, devotional, intellectual, and popular identities in ways we are still only beginning to understand.

"Through his prolific and widely influential writings and his example of practical holiness, Newman also left a deep and lasting impression on the non-English-speaking world.

"So this hugely important collection provides a unique record of an influential churchman who is one of the most important voices in recent western European thought."

Mary Jo Dorsey from the National Institute for Newman Studies said: "Our prime aim is to enhance and extend the reach of Newman's life, thought, and spirituality.

"An important goal of the Digital Library is to not only preserve and extend the Newman Archive to scholars around the globe, but to build a multidimensional research tool for the humanities.

"So we are delighted that the project will bring his teachings to the community of Newman scholars as well as to today's pluralistic, diverse society.

"A robust Digital Library and research platform created by our Pittsburgh colleague Crivella West, will be a full-text anthology of Newman's letters, diaries, manuscripts, and documents saved by the Cardinal.

Jamie Robinson, is a Senior Photographer at The John Rylands Library's Centre for Heritage Imaging and Collection Care.

He said: "We’re delighted to be working with NINS and the Oratory on this prestigious project which will provide a wonderful research resource for scholars and students with an interest in nineteenth century studies.

“This is an enormous task, requiring two extra full time staff to cope with the workload – but one which we will relish.

"We are one of the few services in the UK to provide specialist digitisation and collection care of heritage and cultural collections so this commission is a perfect match with our expertise.

"No other organisation in the north of England specialises in the bespoke digitisation and collection care of heritage materials."

Notes for editors

Follow the progress of the project on www.newmanarchive.wordpress.com.

Located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, NINS, affiliated with Duquesne University, serves as the definitive resource of information on the Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman.
Kevin Mongrain, Executive Director of NINS, Mary Jo Dorsey Knowledge Manager at NINS, Fr Ignatius Harrison from the Birmingham Oratory, and James Robinson from the John Rylands Library are available for comment.

Images are available

For media enquiries contact: Mike Addelman
Press Officer
Faculty of Humanities
The University of Manchester
0161 275 0790
07717 881567
Michael.addelman@manchester.ac.uk
 

Oratory plan for Brisbane

Catholic Leader - 21 April 2013
By Paul Dobbyn
Link

Birmingham Oratory Visit

If only we at the B3 blog had heard about this sooner - a missed opportunity to get to the bottom of the B3 scandal! (link) "It [the Bimingham Oratory]has also had it’s fair share of recent press headlines; be it the £30,000 metal theft in February where thieves wrenched a cross from it’s roof; or the ongoing campaign to "Free The Birmingham Oratory Three” (two priests and a lay brother who were exhiled from the Oratory in 2010). Come and find out more about this charming building and it’s history on our private guided tour."

Payout in Birmingham Oratory Job Fight

Catholic & loving it! blog - 9.6.2012 (link) Here we go again... From the Birmingham Post (click here for bigger) It's been just over 750 days since three "entirely guiltless of any wrong-doing whatsoever" members of the Birmingham Oratory were "ordered to go on retreat". We were told it was "just a time away to cool down" and they would "come back soon" though that turned out not to be the case. The Birmingham Oratory is a dead parrot. It is deceased. It is no more. Yes, of course, there is still a big building in Birmingham with a sign outside saying "Oratory" but it is in no meaningful sense an Oratory. You see, each Oratory is an independent community which elects it's own provost from among it's own members. The Birmingham Oratory is not independent, it is ruled from afar and it's community has been scattered across the continents. My advice to the puppeteers in London and Cardiff is this: We would all find it a lot easier to believe that the whole "Birmingham Three" thing was entirely above board, if you could perhaps refrain from unfairly dismissing your lay staff.

Frather Gregory Winterton +

FATHER GREGORY WINTERTON +
(link)

Fr Gregory died peacefully at St Joseph’s Home, Harborne, on Wednesday January 18th. He was 89 years old, and had been a member of the Oratory Community for nearly fifty one years and a priest for nearly forty nine years.

According to a very old custom, no sermon or panegyric is given at the Requiem Mass of a Father of the Oratory, so we take this opportunity to record a few facts and memories of Father Gregory.

Cecil John Winterton—he took the name Gregory on coming to the Oratory—was born in Brighton, Sussex on July 9th 1922, the oldest son of the future Major-General Sir John Winterton and his wife Helen, née Shepherd-Cross. He was at school at Selwyn House, Broadstairs (1932-35) and Wellington College, Berks (1935-40). Leaving school in the early days of the Second World War, he was commissioned into the Royal Artillery and saw service in North Africa, Italy and Palestine. He acted as his father’s ADC when General Winterton was Allied Commander-in-Chief in Austria, and Military Governor of the Anglo-American Zone in Trieste. In 1946 John Winterton went to St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, where he read theology. During his time in Italy he had visited the Shrine of St Francis of Assisi and there discovered his vocation to the ministry. Accepted for training by the Bishop of London, he studied for ordination at the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield, and was ordained an Anglican priest in St Paul’s Cathedral, London, in September 1951. He served as a curate in Northolt, and in 1954 came to Wolverhampton as priest-in-charge of St George’s Church. However, he resigned on January 1st 1955 and was received into the Catholic Church on Maundy Thursday that year. In his early days as a Catholic, John Winterton first visited the Oratory, but it was not until 1961, when he had already been a student for the Archdiocese of Birmingham for five years, that he joined the Oratory Congregation. Fr Gregory was ordained priest in our church on March 9th 1963.

In his early years as a priest, Fr Gregory taught in our Grammar School, St Philip’s, and many still fondly remember him from those years as “Pop G”. Later on he served as a Governor of the School and its successor, the Sixth Form College. He was also a Governor of the Oratory School near Reading, originally founded by Blessed John Henry Newman in 1859. He served as Provost of the Oratory from 1971 until 1992 apart from six months in 1977, when Fr Geoffrey Wamsley occupied the position until his sudden death in July that year.

There are two areas of his life at the Oratory for which Fr Gregory will be long remembered: Firstly, for his work as Parish Priest. For many years Fr Gregory was a familiar figure riding his old bicycle through the streets of Ladywood and Edgbaston. When poor eyesight meant he could no longer use his bicycle, his fast, military style of walking became equally familiar. He was assiduous in visiting the sick and housebound; spent long hours in his confessional; prepared engaged countless couples for marriage and converts for reception into the Church. He loved (like St Philip) the youth, and was a keen supporter and Chaplain of the Legion of Mary. Until well into old age he was a regular pilgrim to Lourdes and attended Oratorian reunions in Rome, Spain and Mexico. His acts of kindness and generosity (often of a financial nature!) were both legion and legendary.

The second great area of his work concerned the Cause for Cardinal Newman’s canonisation. Opened in 1958, the Cause had not made much progess apart from the publication, at regular intervals, of Newman’s vast ‘Letters and Diaries’.



In 1973, Pope Paul VI enquired whether it would be possible to beatify Newman during the course of the 1975 Holy Year. Of course things were nowhere near ready but, galvanised by Papal interest, Fr Gregory devoted increasing amounts of time to furthering the matter. Founding ‘The Friends of Cardinal Newman’ in 1976, giving talks and lectures to deepen knowledge and love of the Cardinal, producing pamphlets and prayerbooks, his work proved successful and interest grew year by year. Combined with the work of Fr Vincent Blehl as Postulator, significant developments occurred, a particular milestone being the Declaration by Pope John Paul II of Newman’s heroic virtues in 1991. After that another eighteen years elapsed before Cardinal Newman’s beatification at the unforgettable Mass at Cofton Park on September 19th 2010. The moment when Fr Gregory was presented to Pope Benedict XVI and, later that same day, when they met at the Oratory House, provided unforgettable pictures: two men in their eighties—one (the Pope) a devoted student of Newman, the other (Fr Gregory) the tireless advocate of Newman’s holiness. It was the culmination of half a life-time’s hard work for Fr Gregory.
At the end of his long life, dedicated to God as a faithful priest and son of St Philip, we pray for Fr Gregory in the words of the Church’s liturgy: “Lord, you gave Gregory, Your servant and priest, the privilege of a holy ministry in this world. May he rejoice for ever in the glory of Your Kingdom, through Christ Our Lord. Amen”

Fr Gregory Winterton, rest in peace

Of Your Charity, pray for the repose of the Soul of Fr Gregory Winterton,
priest of the Birmingham Oratory who died on the morning of 18th January

(link)

Fr Dermot Fenlon's 70th Birthday

Today is Fr Dermot Fenlon's 70th birthday.

It is also the 570th day since he was sent away from his home at the Birmingham Oratory.

Fr Dermot, wherever you are we wish you a very happy 70th birthday.
Please be assured of our prayers.

Enough to make one vomit

Catholic Paterfamilias blog - 28.11.2011
(link)

The Free the B3: Justice for Fr. Dermot Fenlon blog has picked up on this YouTube clip about the launch of a book about a cat.

The video clip that I link to above is nauseating in itself. Placing it in the context of the wrongful and unjust exclaustration of Fr Dermot Fenlon from the Birmingham Oratory and his being homeless as he approaches his 70th birthday really is enough to make one vomit.

But, I'm missing the Nuchurch agenda - three pesky Oratorians who said things about Church teaching that were rocking the bad ship Nuchurch got booted. I would love to have sat in on the meeting that decided "So what if one of them is homeless and soon to be 70 - no one will remember that if we can get a book out about a cat..."

Oh, but we will remember and I think that history will show the Birmingham Oratory to be seriously diminished in the eyes of many in consequence.

Cat or Monk, you decide...

... the Birmingham Oratory did!

Diversionary tactic, smokescreen, sidetrack maneuver, call it what you will.

Pushkin the Pontifical Puss: Tails of an Oratory Cat
St Paul's Publishing

(link)

"PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
When Pope Benedict XVI visited the United Kingdom in 2010 many historic and significant events took place. The head of the Catholic Church was personally welcomed to the United Kingdom by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England; thousands of young people gathered with Pope Benedict in Hyde Park, London to celebrate a prayer vigil; for the first time in history on English soil, the Holy Father declared an Englishman Beatus (Blessed) - John Henry Cardinal Newman. However, for one resident of the city of Birmingham these events were nothing compared with the honour he bestowed upon the Holy Father.

In the Oratory in Birmingham, the former home of Blessed John Henry Newman, lives Pushkin, the Oratory Cat. But Pushkin is no ordinary cat. He is one of many felines who have played an important part in momentous events in history, not only in England, but worldwide.

Pushkin: The Pontifical Puss gives an insight into the life of this extraordinary cat. It details his early life, time spent in Fenton, his encounter with HRH Princess Michael of Kent (in Pushkin's own words, She-who-wears-diamonds) and Pope Benedict (He-who-wears-white).

With the assistance of his Human (Fr Anton Guziel), and illustrations supplied by the Carmelite nuns of the Carmel of the Magnifi-cat, Wolverhampton, Pushkin is delighted to make available his autobiography."

NB: Fellow Oratorians Fr Dermot Fenlon, Fr Philip Cleevely and Br Lewis Berry were not allowed to meet Pope Benedict XVI or to attend the beatification of their founder, Blessed John Henry Newman, in October 2011

Heresy and Obedience in Tridentine Italy

In the spring of 1972 the layman Dermot Fenlon wrote these moving and humble acknowledgements in the preface to his book HERESY AND OBEDIENCE IN TRIDENTINE ITALY:

“To have finished a book is to be aware of debts and a certain measure of defeat. The debts are easier to recount. (…) There are friends whom I can never adequately thank: my supervisor, whose encouragement and guidance, cautions, queries and corrections, combined with monumental patience and humour, supported me, against the odds, through an education in research, and much more than research; his wife, who generally took my side when it counted; my friends (...) who helped and sustained me, through good and bad times, more than they will ever realise (…)
One’s defeats, like one’s debts, are entirely personal. (…) … but as my mother remarked when I explained the problem, Pole was a man who encountered many disappointments in his own lifetime, and he is unlikely to be much bothered by anything that can happen now.” (Cambridge, 24 March 1972, Eve of the Annunciation, Dermot Fenlon)

Pushkin: the Pontifical Puss

St Pauls Publishing (link)

Dr Who at the Birmingham Oratory

Catholic and Loving It blog - 18.10.2011
(link)

I don't know if you watch Doctor Who but the latest series included a human sized robot filled with tiny people. The robot had the ability to kill an individual and then take on it's form so that people would think they were speaking with the deceased when in reality they were speaking only with a robot imposter.

You may think there is a Birmingham Oratory, you may have been there and seen the buildings, read the newsletter and even had a cup of tea after Mass. What you actually saw was a lot like the robot from Doctor Who. The appearance of the Birmingham Oratory is there, but the Oratory community is gone.

The Birmingham Oratory community has been torn up and spread (literally) to the far corners of the earth. What remains are buildings and a few fragments of what once was, all held up on artificial limbs to look like it is still alive - it is not. Do not confuse the buildings with the community.

What remains is a puppet manipulated from afar by cynical politician Bishops, hell bent on bringing the legacy of Cardinal Newman under their control and silencing the dangerously outspoken Oratorians. Oratorians who once forced Clare Short to abandon her speaking gig at a local primary school, who criticised Tony Blair in the national press...

Are you blind? The press releases are coming from Eccleston Square! Yes, that would be Eccleston We're not really keen on an 'archbishop versus the politicians' headline' Square!

The same Eccleston Square that was paying Jack Valero to "act" as spokesman!

But it's okay, you keep blaming Fr Guy Nicholls - I'm sure he arranged everything.

We ask, "is the Birmingham Oratory downsizing?"

From Birmingham Oratory newsletter - 16.10.2011
(link)

IMPORTANT CHANGES TO MASS TIMES: Please note that the 5.45 p.m. Mass from Monday to Thursday will be suspended for the time-being. October Devotions will be at 5.45 p.m. Those of you who attend these devotions will be able to receive Holy Communion after Benediction. Friday’s timetable remains unaltered. On Saturday, there will no longer be a Mass at 8 a.m. The EF Mass will be at 9 a.m. (instead of 9.30) and the readings will be in English.

Red Herrings at the Birmingham Oratory

Catholic and Loving it! blog - James Preece - 4.10.2011
(link)

I'm not a huge fan of TV soap operas and it's been a long time since I saw any. My sister used to be big in to soaps so I used to see bits of them in the background but since I got married I'm pleased to say I'm completely out of touch.

However, judging by some of the emails I've been getting (and some of the comments on this blog) quite a few people seem to be under the impression that I have been getting my soap opera fix from the Birmingham Oratory. They seem to think I care about who said what to who, why it is that so-and-so has never got on with so-and-so, who may or may not have driven who to a nervous breakdown and so on.

Let me spell it out for you: I'm not interested.

This is not about the internal politics of the Birmingham Oratory. It has never been about the internal politics of the Birmingham Oratory! Do you think I am stupid? Do you really think I would get involved in the internal politics of a religious community from 200 miles away based on hearsay over the internet? I wouldn't even get involved in the internal politics of a religious community if I lived next door!

So why am I getting involved? Because the problems at the Birmingham Oratory are not internal...

For example: The lastest rumour from the Oratory is that everything is Fr Guy Nicholls fault... I know nothing about Fr Guy Nicholls so let me ask you: Did Fr Guy Nicholls pay Jack Valero to act as spokesman for the Oratory? No. Did Fr Guy Nicholls put Fr Duffield on a train and tell him to have his photo taken outside Eccleston Square?

I can't hear you... What's that? No?

Did Fr Guy Nicholls arrange the exclaustration of Fr Dermot Fenlon? No, that would require "either the direct approval of either the Holy See or the local bishop". Did Fr Guy Nicholls arrange for the recent press release on the new provost to come direct from the Catholic Bishop's Conference? No.

Fr Guy Nicholls is a red herring and the real culprits are getting away scott free.

500 days of exile

But he has prayed 500 days
And he will pray 500 more
Only the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary can understand
Our Most Blessed Virgin Mary is taking Fr Dermot by her hand

But he has prayed 500 days
And he will pray 500 more
He’s been walking the way of the cross
It’s been Loss and Gain, Gain and Loss

But he has prayed 500 days
And he will pray 500 more
And we hope and we pray
That one day
he will kneel down at the Birmingham Oratory door…

Brothers of the Birmingham Oratory

From left to right: Fr Gareth Jones, Fr Gregory Winterton, Br Lewis Berry, Fr Philip Cleevely, Cardinal Foley, Fr Guy Nichols, Fr Anton Guziel, Fr Paul Chavasse, Fr Dermot Fenlon.

Birmingham Three Recap...

Catholic and Loving it blog (link) 20.9.2011

I don't know how many of you are new to events at the Birmingham Oratory in the run up to the Papal visit but it's been a while and it might help if I run through it all again.

It was back in May 2010 that The Tablet first carried the news that three Oratorians had been told to “spend time in prayer for an indefinite period by Fr Felix Selden, an apostolic visitor to the Oratory Congregation”. If the Tablet had stopped there that might have been the end of it - such things are an internal matter and helps nobody to speculate on blogs.

Except in this case it wasn't an internal matter, it ceased to be an internal matter when the spokesman for the Birmingham Oratory picked up the phone to The Tablet and named names. However much he might bleat now about privacy, it was the Birmingham Oratory spokesman and not a blogger who made it a matter of pubic record that Fr Philip Cleevely, Fr Dermot Fenlon and Brother Lewis Berry had been “ordered to go on retreat” by Fr Felix Selden. This is the ecclesiastical equivalent of announcing that somebody has been permanently suspended from work - a very public stain on the reputation of these three men and one which they were entirely unable to defend themselves due to the gagging order placed on them by the Oratory.

As the weeks turned in to months some suggested that whatever the three had done to deserve their exile, it must have been pretty serious. Rumours of bullying and possible sexual misconduct began to surface. Friends of the three men were so distressed at the way in which their reputations were being “trashed” that they began to campaign publicly that the three were known to be good holy men a blog was started and an open letter was sent to Fr Felix Selden.

To suggest that these friends and wellwishers were guilty of gossip is outrageous. It was gossip and rumour that they were seeking to dispel.

It was about this time that BBC West Midlands became interested and Oratory spokesman Jack Valero was quick to play things down... “it's just a time away to cool down” he said “they can come back soon and we can continue as normal”. Only a few weeks later Jack had changed his tune telling Radio Ulster that the three “are going to come back at some point, we don't know, it's not going to be soon”. This is the sort of transparency most people would associate with a brick wall.

To their credit, the Oratory did defend the three men and Ruth Dudley Edwards reported that Jack Valero had “confirmed unequivocally that the Three are entirely guiltless of any wrong-doing whatsoever”. Of course, this only begs the question – if they have done nothing wrong, why are they away? Why can they not come back? This soon became the central mystery of the Birmingham Three. Three men, declared innocent by an official spokesman for the Birmingham Oratory yet exiled from their home for months and looking increasingly likely to miss the beatification of their founder. Why had they been sent away in the first place?

More questions began to be asked, like why is the press officer for Opus Dei speaking for the Birmingham Oratory? Things did't get any less mysterious when it turned out that while Mr Valero is officially speaking for the Oratory he is actually being paid to do so by the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales and reports to Archbishop Nichol's press secretary. Yet more questions were raised about the role of the mysterious Fr Gareth/Sebastian Jones...

Pressure was mounting, blog entries about The Birmingham Three were getting hits from Rome, I had been on the Radio and Ruth Dudley Edwards was writing in Standpoint magazine and had even got the story on TV. The same questions were repeatedly asked: If the three have done nothing wrong, why can't they come home?

Something had to be done and something was, I can't say exactly how much pressure Brother Lewis Berry was under when he agreed to spend next year at an Oratory in South Africa but it's very hard imagine he did so of his own free will. The youngest of the three had the most to lose and with his ordination hanging in the balance the press release in his name had all the credibility of a forced confession. Fr Philip Cleevely issued a remarkably similar press release about how happy he is to be spending the next year in Toronto. It would not be long until the men who Jack Valero said would be “back soon” announced plans to remain abroad permanently.

Which leaves Fr Dermot Fenlon, the last of the three. There has been no press release from Fr Fenlon, no statement that he is happy about being sent away from his home of twenty years at a days notice despite being 68 years of age. So Fr Fenlon has been well and truly stamped on, according to a report in the Catholic Herald Fr Fenlon is being “forcibly exclaustrated” for a period of five years. In the article Simon Caldwell writes that “Under the Code of Canon Law, a priest cannot be exclaustrated for more than three years unless there is a “grave reason” yet Fr Fenlon has officially done nothing wrong. Such a prolonged period must have “either the direct approval of either the Holy See or the local bishop, who, in the case of Fr Fenlon, is Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham”.

And so the questions remain: If there has been no injustice, why not let the three speak to journalists and tell everbody how happy they are with the situation? If the three have done nothing wrong, why couldn't they be present for the beatification?

More than a year later - why is Fr Dermot Fenlon still in exile?

He's once, twice, three times an Oratorian?

Catholic Paterfamilias blog (link) 20.9.2011

Recent news that Pushkin the cat has "written" a book would seem to pretty much sound the death knell for the Birmingham Oratory as a place of serious scholarship. What Cardinal Newman would have made of it I would not pretend to guess.


The further announcement today that Fr Gareth Jones is returning to the Birmingham Oratory as assistant to the new Provost is really just the icing on the cake. What's he hoping for? Third time lucky?


And yes, the title is a passing nod to a song title but I don't have the time or energy to parody the entire lyrics of that song to reflect the absurdity and brutal cruelty of what has happened over the past 16 months to Fr Dermot Fenlon.


Perhaps Peter Jennings will be having a special first day cover commemorative stamp set released by some far flung postal service to commemorate Fr Jones' return to the Oratorian fold? If that happens, I do hope we get another press release from Peter with a picture of Archbishop Vincent Nichols holding said first day cover. After all, the good Archbishop must be pleased by this turn of events.

Fr Ignatius Harrison to head the Birmingham Oratory; Fr Gareth Jones to be his Assistant

An Honour and a Responsibility blog (link) 20.9.2011

The admirable Reluctant Sinner, whose blog I heartily recommend, has posted this news from Peter Jennings, press secretary to the Archbishop of Birmingham.

Interesting, in view of the Apostolic Visitation last year at the Birmingham Oratory. Fr Harrison was the second Visitor (Fr Felix Selden being the first) and Fr Jones the canonical adviser to the Visitation.

I have a funny feeling that it won’t be long before Catholic and Loving it, and others, have something to say on the matter.