Vatican City, Jan 11, 2008 / 07:10 am
Cardinal John Henry Newman, the famous 19th-century British convert to Catholicism, could be beatified this year even as Pope Benedict tightens the guidelines for canonizations, the Daily Telegraph reports.
On Tuesday CNA reported that Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins told the Vatican’s newpaper, L’Osservatore Romano, that Cardinal Newman’s beatification was “imminent”. Now he has given an even more specific timeframe, telling the Daily Telegraph that he hoped the beatification would happen this year.
Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Cause of the Saints, said, "Cardinal Newman was a relevant intellectual, an emblematic figure of conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism and personally I wish his beatification to happen very soon."
The congregation has been evaluating a reported miracle in which an American was inexplicably cured of a crippling spinal condition after praying to Cardinal Newman.