Pope Benedict issued a decree yesterday that will allow the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman. This is the penultimate step towards sainthood. The beatification rite could provide an opportunity for the Pope to visit Britain. It will in any event be a source of inspiration for Roman Catholics in Britain. More widely, it will enhance public appreciation of a notable figure whose life and thought have enriched British intellectual and cultural life.

Newman, who died in 1890, was a huge influence on Victorian religious debate. He was a leading figure in the Oxford Movement, formed among Anglicans in the 1830s in dissatisfied reaction to the Church of England’s alleged neglect of doctrine and ceremony. In a series of tracts, the movement urged fidelity to the Church’s Catholic inheritance.

Newman converted to Rome in 1845. His decision sparked public fascination in an age when religious faith was challenged by the spread of science and liberalism. His writings offer Catholics a rich source of reflection on such questions as infallibility, reason and natural theology.

Religious observance in Britain has changed greatly since Newman’s times. But his account of his religious opinions, in Apologia pro Vita Sua and in a celebrated exchange with Charles Kingsley, makes him an important figure in English letters. So does his poem The Dream of Gerontius, later set to music by Edward Elgar. Newman’s exposition of the value of a liberal education, The Idea of a University, remains unsurpassed. Not only Catholics will reflect that Newman exemplified his own belief in the virtues of a “candid, equitable dispassionate mind”.