"In Newman's Footsteps". With my camera I follow in the footsteps of the great John Henry Newman, or as he is hailed by his fellow Catholics, "John Henry Cardinal Newman", and now "The Blessed John Henry Newman".
We begin with his birthplace in London, where his father was a banker, including a pleasant house in the suburbs called Grey Court. Then we move with him to Oxford, both to Trinity College, where he was an undergraduate, and to Oriel College, where he was elected a "fellow", as well as Vicar of St.Mary's university church. There his sermons had a powerful impact on his congregation and on the course of the Oxford Movement within the Anglican Church. But when his ideas were opposed by his bishop and the heads of colleges, he retired with like-minded friends to a village outside Oxford named Littlemore, and there he was received with others into the Catholic Church. After a year of theological studies and ordination to the priesthood in Rome, he returned to the industrial city of Birmingham, where he established the Oratory of St Philip Neri in working largely for the poor - in contrast to the learned scholars at Oxford. From there he was invited to found the first Catholic university in Dublin, where he delivered his foundational lectures on the nature and ideal of university education.
But after a few years he returned to Birmingham, a disappointed man - till his services to the Church were recognized by Pope Leo XIII and he was made a Cardinal. More recently, he was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in a park near his burial place at Rednal, to the West of Birmingham. These photos may serve to show that he was, in Aesopian terms, a Town Mouse rather than a Country Mouse, moving as he did from city to city - from London to Oxford, and from Birmingham to Dublin. His impressive statue is to be seen in front of the Oratory not of Birmingham but of London, on the Brompton Road.
Peter Milward was born in London on October 12, 1925, and educated at Wimbledon College (a Jesuit high school). He entered the Society of Jesus in 1943, and after various studies he went on to specialize in the Classics and English at Oxford University. He came to Japan in 1954 and after further studies was ordained priest in 1960. From 1962 onwards he has taught English literature at Sophia University in Tokyo. In addition to founding the Renaissance Institute, the Hopkins Society of Japan and the Chesterton Society of Japan, he has published some 400 books, mostly as textbooks for Japanese students, many of them translated into Japanese, but now most of them out of print. Several of his books, especially those on the drama of Shakespeare and the poetry of Hopkins, have been published in England and America. Even in retirement he is still teaching and writing, as he enters his 88th year (or beiju).
