From Birmingham to Philadelphia: Cardinal Newman and Archbishop Ryan

It is always exciting when a previously unknown Newman letter comes to light. When Oxford University Press’s Letters and Diaries were being compiled the editors scoured the globe for every piece of correspondence from the Cardinal that could be found. Despite this, letters they missed continue to appear. 

In January after cataloguing some letters written by the Right Reverend Patrick John Ryan, Archbishop of Philadelphia to Cardinal Newman, I contacted the Catholic Historical Research Centre at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to let them know that these letters were now online and to ask if they knew where Newman’s replies were.

The archivist, Patrick Shank, replied immediately, advising me that they held Newman’s reply to one of the letters in the archive. He sent a scan with permission to add it to the NINS Digital Collections.

The letter is the culmination of a short correspondence, which took place between Archbishop Ryan and Cardinal Newman in 1886. (They had previously corresponded in 1870, when Ryan was Vicar General of St. Louis. 

On 4 February 1886 Archbishop Ryan had written a brief note to Newman to ask if he might send an autograph for one of his parishioners and mentioning the thousands of followers Newman had in America. Newman evidently replied (although this letter has not survived), sending a number of autographs, which Archbishop Ryan distributed (keeping one for himself) and wrote back to thank the Cardinal on the 3 April. 

In this second letter he told Newman of a conversation he had had with Pope Leo XIII in 1883, at which he told the Holy Father that the promotion of Newman to Cardinal was the “greatest act of his pontificate.” He writes that the pope had replied that he wished Newman could have another two decades of work for the church.

It was at this stage that the conversation ended in our Digital Collections, until the addition of this new letter from the Philadelphia Archives. 

In this letter, Newman sends Archbishop Ryan his gratitude for his kindness and expresses his surprise and pleasure that so many people in America should be interested in him, stating his gratitude for their prayers. He ends his letter by asking Archbishop Ryan to send his remembrances to his old friend, Archbishop Peter Kenrick of St. Louis.

In the twenty-first century, when devotion to Newman across the United States is so great, this brief but rather beautiful conversation from 140 years ago becomes even more poignant, and the kind addition of this letter from the CHRC enriches our Digital Collections.