On the 700th anniversary of the Oxford institution’s royal charter, the Holy Father praised its most famous student — St. John Henry Newman — and unity of faith and reason.
The 700th anniversary of Oriel College’s royal charter is an “opportunity to celebrate its Catholic origins,” Pope Leo XIV said on Friday, September 4. While addressing the Oxford institution’s leaders at the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, the Pontiff paid tribute to its most famous student, St. John Henry Newman.
He called the 19th-century British intellectual a “shining example of a scholar who not only showed the inseparability of faith and reason in his works but even more admirably in his life.”
The Pope received about 20 leaders from Oriel College, accompanied by Cardinal Wim Eijk (the archbishop of Utrecht), at the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace. Their college, which is part of the University of Oxford, was founded in 1324. However, King Edward II of England only officially approved the founding of Oriel College in 1326. The College’s representatives’ participation in the papal audience was part of a pilgrimage to Rome which the college organized for the occasion.
Firm in Christian identity
In a brief greeting addressed to the English professors and students, the Holy Father praised the “long and illustrious history” of Oriel College. He emphasized how the academic community has “remained firm in its Christian identity.”
The Holy Father also highlighted the Catholic origins of this institution. Originally founded as the College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it was later renamed Oriel after a property, “La Oriole,” which it was given. Pope Leo XIV encouraged the current students to form a daily “community of faith and scholarship in its deepest meaning.”
The legacy of St. John Henry Newman
During the 19th century, Oriel College served as the heart of the Oxford Movement. This movement within Anglicanism sought to recover some pre-Reformation aspects of theology and liturgy. This resulted in an Anglo-Catholic form of Anglicanism, ultimately leading to numerous conversions to Catholicism.
The most famous of these converts is St. John Henry Newman. The Pontiff described him as “a shining example of a scholar who not only showed the inseparability of faith and reason in his works but even more admirably in his life.”
The saint’s “scholarship was both sublime and eminently practical,” Leo XIV added. The Pontiff recently declared Newman a Doctor of the Church and named him a co-patron of the Church’s educational mission alongside St. Thomas Aquinas.
Highlighting this legacy, the Pope insisted on the importance of a Christian formation that embraces the whole person, something the British saint famously championed.