St. John Henry Newman inscribed in General Roman Calendar as optional memorial
February 04, 2026
Pope Leo XIV has “decreed that Saint John Henry Newman, Priest and Doctor of the Church, be inscribed in the General Roman Calendar, and that his Optional Memorial be celebrated by all on 9 October,” according to a curial decree made public on February 3.
October 9 is the day of Newman’s reception into the Catholic Church in 1845. The day of Newman’s death, August 11, is the memorial of St. Clare of Assisi.
The prefect and secretary of the Dicastery of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments signed the Decree on the Inscription of the Celebration of Saint John Henry Newman, Priest and Doctor of the Church, in the General Roman Calendar on November 9, soon after Pope Leo XIV proclaimed him the 38th doctor of the Church. Newman (1801-1890) was declared venerable in 1991, beatified in 2010, and canonized in 2019.
According to the Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and the New General Roman Calendar (1969), only saints of “universal significance” or who “demonstrate the universality and continuity of sainthood within the People of God” are inscribed on the General Roman Calendar, while other saints are recalled in the particular calendars of dioceses and religious institutes (n. 49). Thus, over a dozen saints and blesseds, including St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and St. John Neumann, are included in the proper calendar of the dioceses of the United States, but are not listed on the General Roman Calendar.
The curial decree was accompanied by Latin liturgical texts for the memorial, as well as by commentary from Cardinal Arthur Roche, the dicastery’s prefect. Cardinal Roche noted that “it now falls to the Episcopal Conferences to translate these texts, approve them, and, after the [approval] of this Dicastery, to publish the liturgical texts for this celebration, in accordance with the norms currently in force.”
Cardinal Roche added:
The inclusion of Saint John Henry Newman in the General Roman Calendar, which follows upon his proclamation as a Doctor of the Universal Church, is intended to present his figure as an outstanding example of the constant search for the truth that enlightens and saves ...
The inclusion of this celebration in the General Roman Calendar invites us to contemplate Saint John Henry Newman as a man led by the “kindly light” of God’s grace to find peace within the Catholic Church. His enduring contributions of profound theological and ecclesiological significance, as well as his poetic and devotional writings, continue to inspire the spiritual and intellectual journey of the faithful. His steadfast pursuit of moving beyond shadows and images to reach the fullness of truth remains a shining example for every disciple of the Risen Lord.
Newman’s works on theology (An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent) and liberal education (The Idea of a University) have long been viewed as masterpieces, as have his autobiographical Apologia Pro Vita Sua and his “Dream of Gerontius,” later set to music by Sir Edward Elgar. Newman’s sermons, both before and after his 1845 conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism, have also been treasured as models of eloquence.
Pope Leo XIII created Newman a cardinal early in his pontificate (in 1879, a year after the papal election), much as Pope Leo XIV declared Newman a doctor of the Church early in his own pontificate. Upon being created a cardinal, Newman said:
For thirty, forty, fifty years I have resisted to the best of my powers the spirit of liberalism in religion. Never did Holy Church need champions against it more sorely than now, when, alas! it is an error overspreading, as a snare, the whole earth; and on this great occasion, when it is natural for one who is in my place to look out upon the world, and upon Holy Church as in it, and upon her future, it will not, I hope, be considered out of place, if I renew the protest against it which I have made so often.
Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another, and this is the teaching which is gaining substance and force daily. It is inconsistent with any recognition of any religion, as true ... Such is the state of things in England, and it is well that it should be realised by all of us; but it must not be supposed for a moment that I am afraid of it. I lament it deeply, because I foresee that it may be the ruin of many souls; but I have no fear at all that it really can do aught of serious harm to the Word of God, to Holy Church, to our Almighty King, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Faithful and True, or to His Vicar on earth.
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