Newman Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture celebrates 10th anniversary
Southern Nebraska Register
Newman Institute
Bishop James Conley celebrated the feast of St. John Henry Newman Oct. 9 at the St. Thomas Aquinas Newman Center on the campus of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL).
Bishop Conley celebrated the daily 9:10 p.m. Mass.
St. John Henry Newman was beatified in 2010 and canonized in 2019, making this sixth opportunity to observe the feast day particularly special because it marked both Newman’s elevation as the 38th Doctor of the Church and the 10th anniversary of the Newman Institute for Catholic Thought & Culture.
Bishop Conley explained to students how even the very choice of date––Oct. 9––signifies the extraordinary life of this saint. Typically, the feast day of Catholic saints is the day of their death. But for St. John Henry Newman, the Church celebrates his feast on the day of his conversion to the Catholic Church, Oct. 9, 1845.
In his homily, Bishop Conley emphasized the importance of friendship in the episcopal motto of St. John Henry Newman, which Bishop Conley also took for his own: cor ad cor loquitur (Latin for “heart speaks to heart”).
“That motto has two meanings,” Bishop Conley said. “Our heart speaks to each other. Newman was a great champion of friendship. In fact, he has 32 volumes of letters to friends that he wrote throughout his life… But it also means the Heart of Jesus speaking to our hearts.”
The feast day was particularly memorable since Pope Leo XIV announced July 31 that St. John Henry Newman was to be declared a Doctor of the Church.
“Newman joins the ranks of some very distinguished people,” Bishop Conley pointed out. “St. Thomas Aquinas, the other patron of our Newman Center. St. Augustine. St. John of the Cross. St. Thérèse of Lisieux. St. Catherine of Siena. St. Bonaventure.”
As Bishop Conley went on to explain, there are three criteria to be declared a Doctor of the Church. First, the prospective candidate must demonstrate sanctity of life. While honored even in his own lifetime for his devotion and holiness, the Church only recently has finished the process of formally recognizing Cardinal Newman among the company of her saints.
The Newman Center in a special way remembers this process of Newman’s canonization. During the beatification ceremony in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI blessed the cornerstone of the yet-to-be-constructed Newman Center. Bishop Conley and the first director of the Newman Institute, Dr. John Freeh, took a group of UNL students on pilgrimage and were present at the canonization of St. John Henry Newman in 2019.
The next criterion to be a Doctor of the Church is that the individual must possess a depth of doctrinal insight. St. John Henry Newman wrote theological tracts, novels, history, essays, and sermons steeped in such insight.
And finally, as Bishop Conley explained, Doctors of the Church must remain relevant today. With so many Newman Centers both in the United States and throughout the world, it seems more and more people are beginning to understand the principle for which St. John Henry Newman advocated: the accessibility of the Catholic liturgical and intellectual tradition to students at secular universities.
“It was the dream of his lifetime to come back to Oxford and establish a Catholic Center,” Bishop Conley reflected. While legal restrictions against Catholics frustrated this effort in his lifetime, since 1888 in Oxford and 1893 in the United States, there have arisen countless Newman Centers throughout the world, living out the dream.
The feast day also marked the 10-year anniversary of the Newman Institute for Catholic Thought & Culture. The foundational committee led by Bishop Conley and then pastor Father Robert Matya met in 2015. In partnership with St. Gregory the Great Seminary in Seward, it offered its first for-credit course in the spring of 2016. Today it offers a wide array of for-credit and non-credit courses, providing the depth of the Catholic intellectual tradition to regional college students. For the last three years, the Newman Institute has expanded programming to include a dual-credit Great Books partnership with Pius X High School.
After Mass, Bishop Conley joined Father Ryan Kaup, current pastor, and Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) missionaries serving at UNL for the weekly “Community Night” at the Newman Center.
Students learned about and registered for FOCUS’ annual SEEK conference. Each year thousands of college students from across the country come together for a five-day experience to encounter Christ through prayer, Adoration, the sacraments, and inspiring speakers.
