It is always exciting when a previously unknown Newman letter comes to light. When Oxford University Press’s Letters and Diaries were being compiled the editors scoured the globe for every piece of correspondence from the Cardinal that could be found. Despite this, letters they missed continue to appear. In January after cataloguing some letters written by the Right Reverend Patrick John Ryan, Archbishop of Philadelphia to Cardinal Newman, I contacted the Catholic Historical Research Centre at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to let them know that these letters were now online and to ask if they knew where Newman’s replies were.
During my internship for NINS, I took great pleasure in reading the letters of Richard Simpson, a former Anglican priest numbered among the prominent Catholic converts of the time. He was most known for his involvement in the Liberal Catholic movement through the Rambler, a periodical which served to allow the prominent lay converts of the time to express their views to the masses. We currently have a total of 64 letters penned by Richard Simpson in the Digital Collections, of which most were directed to St. John Henry Newman. Despite their often-mundane nature (as is often the case with historical letters), they provide a window into the man Richard Simpson, as well as into the unfolding of the Rambler situation in 1859 as it suffered attacks by the English Bishops.
The NINS Digital Collections contain twenty-nine letters from Sir James Marshall. Marshall grew up in Edinburgh, the son of the Rev. James Marshall, a Scottish Presbyterian minister. He received his degree at Exeter College, Oxford and was ordained in Anglican Orders in 1852. He was received into the Catholic Church in 1857, but due to the fact he had lost an arm in a childhood accident, was barred from being ordained a Catholic Priest.
There are two letters on the Digital Collections, written to Cardinal Newman from W. T. Stead, in his capacity as editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. Stead was a prominent nineteenth-century English journalist and a pioneer of the journalistic profession. He first began writing for newspapers in 1870 at1 the age of 21, and the following year was made editor of The Northern Echo, becoming the youngest newspaper editor in the country.
In 2022, the National Institute for Newman Studies began a second phase of the digitization project at the Birmingham Oratory. The project involved scanning the correspondence archives of the Oratory Fathers who lived and worked with Cardinal Newman, including Fathers William Neville, Frederick Bowles, Edward Caswall, Paul Eaglesim, and Nicholas Darnell.
Laval’s originality lies in his reliance upon the catechists and treasurers he trained, which was the original reason for the pastoral success on Mauritius. Laval’s influence is evidenced by the 40,000 people who were drawn to his funeral in 1864. Through him and those who came to help him, the emancipated enslaved people discovered how much they were loved, and they responded to that love beyond all hope.
