Newman to be beatified. Huzzah!

The Pope apparently commented a few months back as to the slow process of Newman's canonization with the words "it's hard to find miracles in Britain". A comment on the modern sentiment epitomized by the philosopher David Hume that miracles are contrary to reason. Despite the odds there appear to be some credible miracles from the Eastern United States, an area no less secularized than Modern Britain. Huzzah for Newman!

Anyway, for a little while now I have become accustomed to reading Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua ever year. It settles the mind to see a great intellect couched in a gentler time that bore the seeds of the fight over religion in our day. I enjoy his intellectual odyssey through his reading of Anglican Divines and the erection of his paper church of the Via Media as a bridge between Catholicism and Protestantism. As well as the powerful personalities in the Oxford Movement he helped start.