In 1846, John Henry Newman traveled to Rome to see if he could arrange to undertake seminary studies for the Catholic priesthood. He had converted a year earlier, and now, at 45 years old, he wished to be ordained a Catholic priest. He was, as we say nowadays, a “late vocation”—but one like no other. He had already published several books: Arians of the Fourth Century, Parochial and Plain Sermons in eight volumes, and his Oxford University Sermons, which he regarded as the “best, not the most perfect” of his books. Moreover, he had just completed a draft of what would become one of his own and, indeed, the Church’s most innovative pieces of theology, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. Yes, this was no ordinary seminarian.
Read more on CWR