Interview: Newman’s biographer

 

Much in demand as a speaker and lecturer, Fr Ker also works with the New Movements in the Church, notably the Neo-Catechumenate.

 

“The important thing is that these are ecclesial movements – clergy and laity together. They are certainly important for the renewal of the Church. This again is something that Newman anticipated, even back in his Anglican days when he and others could see the need for some sort of spiritual revival. He saw the Oxford Movement as just that – a Movement. Others had wanted a Committee, an Oxford-based group that would create a structure. But he never saw it like that. There was always this idea of a genuine renewal of the Church.”

 

Seeing links with the developments in the Church of England in the 19th century, and with the Catholic Church in the 20th and 21st obviously intrigues him. Leaping up to consult a book, riffling through the pages to find a reference, there is a sense of infectious enthusiasm. He chortles cheerfully about American groups inviting him to speak and although he has retired from parish work – he was parish priest of Burford for some years – he is evidently busy and has a full diary.

 

 

He’ll be in Rome for the canonisation and as the TV session is completed we all end up talking about that. It will be a massive event, and of lasting importance for the Church in Britain and the world. For a brief moment, as we make our goodbyes in the Littlemore garden in the late-afternoon sunshine, there is a sudden sense of awe at the oddness of things – this quiet village on the outskirts of Oxford, and its role in history. The vanished England of the 19th century, and a group of people chatting about an event that will be televised worldwide in the 21st. Newman’s tiny chapel here, and a sudden thought about a teeming St Peter’s Square, and the years that link the two, and the future of people reading Newman and invoking his prayers.