Father Dominic Barberi the Missionary

Extract

Father Dominic Barberi’s name is always associated particularly with that of Newman because it was he who received Newman’s submission at Littlemore in October 1845. He arrived there (apparently by accident but actually as the result of years of constant vigilance and sympathetic correspondence) just at the moment when Newman had decided to take the final step but knew no Catholic priest in England to whom he could turn without feeling tongue-tied. But although the immediate reason for the recent petitions to Rome to hasten the cause of Father Dominic’s beatification is his connection with Newman’s conversion, it is probable that Father Dominic’s preaching as a missionary pioneer in England will be the chief subject of interest to the authorities in Rome. Undoubtedly it was his missionary labours in the English towns that made Newman regard him with so much personal veneration both before and after their first meeting. For it was he who first provided the convincing answer to that challenge which Newman had unconsciously formulated when he wrote to Ambrose Phillips nearly five years before he became a Catholic. At that time Newman was still convinced that the Catholic Church did not possess the marks of sanctity by which the true Church was to be recognised.

“This I feel most strongly and cannot conceal it,” Newman had written, to warn off Ambrose Phillips at the beginning of 1841, when Phillips desired to meet him in Oxford to discuss the, possibilities of union between the Church of England and Rome, “that while Rome is what she is, union is impossible.