The Vatican plans to exhume and rebury Cardinal John Henry Newman in a new tomb in Birmingham Oratory church, in preparation for him being made a saint later this year.
The Vatican is embarrassed that Newman is currently buried in the same grave as the man he shared much of his life with, Father Ambrose St John. Although inseparable in life and buried together for 118 years, the Catholic Church wants to now tear them apart.
Newman and St John have been buried side-by-side in a simple grave since Newman’s death in 1890. It was what Newman wanted. He wrote to his executors shortly before his death stating emphatically: “I wish, with all my heart, to be buried in Father Ambrose St John’s grave – and I give this as my last, my imperative will.”
Despite this categorical instruction, the Vatican is now overturning it.
Peter Tatchell reveals the whole strange saga at Comment Is Free …
It seems the Catholics are still playing one-up-manship with the Anglicans. The Anglicans get a gay Bishop, so now the Catholics want a gay Saint. I don’t begrudge them that. But the least they can do is respect his final wishes.
