Cardinal Newman Exhumation Fails to Produce Body

When undertakers opened his grave they found there was nothing in it.

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LONDON (The Catholic Herald) - Plans to rebury Cardinal John Henry Newman have been thrown into disarray after it was discovered that his body has disintegrated in its grave. Undertakers attempted to exhume the body of the Victorian cardinal on Thursday last week in preparation for his likely beatification later in the year.Officials were hoping to transfer his remains from a small rural cemetery in Rednal, Worcestershire, to a marble sarcophagus in the Birmingham Oratory, Edgbaston, where he could be better venerated by pilgrims.

Plans had been announced for the cardinal to lie in state for three days in the expectation that thousands of people would come to pray before his coffin.Specialists were also planning to fly into Britain from Rome and Milan to take parts of the cardinal's body back to the Vatican to be made holy relics. But when undertakers opened his grave they found there was nothing in it.

Peter Jennings, the spokesman for the Birmingham archdiocese, said that both the cardinal's body and his wooden coffin had rotted away, with not even any bones or teeth remaining.All that was left were the brass handles of the coffin, attached to a few pieces of wood, and a few tassels from the cardinal's hat.Also recovered was a brass plate which reads: "Eminentissimus et Reverendissimus Joannes Henricus Newman Cardinalis Diaconus S Georgii in Velabro Obiit Die XI August. MDCCCXC RIP", which in English means: '"The Most Eminent and Most Reverend John Henry Newman Cardinal Deacon of St George in Velabro Died 11 August 1890 RIP."

Mr Jennings said: "Brass, wooden and cloth artefacts from Cardinal Newman's coffin were found. However, there were no remains of the body of John Henry Newman. An expectation that Cardinal Newman had been buried in a lead-lined coffin proved to be unfounded. In the view of the medical and health professionals in attendance, burial in a wooden coffin in a very damp site makes this kind of total decomposition of the body unsurprising."The absence of physical remains in the grave does not affect the progress of Cardinal Newman's Cause in Rome. The Birmingham Oratory has always been in possession of some actual physical remains of Cardinal Newman. These consist of some locks of hair."

Instead of reinterring a coffin, Church officials will barely have enough to fill a casket, and have now cancelled their plans, though a Mass in honour of Cardinal Newman will still be celebrated at Birmingham Oratory on November 2, the transferred Feast of All Saints.Mr Jennings said: "If there is no body then there can be no reinterment in a tomb."

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Fr Paul Chavasse, provost of the Birmingham Oratory and Postulator of the Newman Cause for sainthood added: "The lack of substantial physical remains does nothing to diminish our deep reverence for Cardinal Newman."Since his death in 1890, the cardinal - who wrote the hymns "Praise to the Holiest in the Height" and "Lead Kindly Light" - has shared a grave with close friend, Fr Ambrose St John, in a rural cemetery in Rednal, Worcestershire.

But following the inexplicable healing of an American deacon from a severe spinal disorder, after he prayed to the cardinal, the Vatican is close to declaring the famous Catholic convert "Blessed", leaving him a miracle away from sainthood. The Holy See asked authorities in the Archdiocese of Birmingham to dig up the body of the cardinal and transfer them to a shrine that befits his new status. Last week the Vatican theological consultors met for the first time to discuss the healing of Jack Sullivan, 69, of Marshfield, Massachusetts, but asked for more time to study the case. A panel of medical experts has already concluded that the healing cannot be explained scientifically. If the theologians decide it was a miracle then the Cause for beatification would have passed its final hurdle. It will be rubber-stamped by cardinals of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith before Pope Benedict signs a decree declaring Cardinal Newman Blessed, which is likely to occur in December.

The Pope has been an admirer of the theology and philosophy of Cardinal Newman since the 1940s and is keen to make him a saint and possibly a Doctor of the Church. As soon as he signs the decree the cardinal can be described as "Blessed".The Vatican has rejected claims by gay activists that Cardinal Newman's desire to share a grave with Fr St John showed he was homosexual.

Newman was born in London in 1801 and died in Birmingham at the age of 89. He was a Church of England vicar and led the Oxford Movement in the 1830s to draw Anglicans to their Catholic roots. His Cause for sainthood was opened in 1958.Cardinal Newman is one of five post-Reformation contemporaries whose causes for sainthood have been taken up by the Vatican because of their work in Britain and Ireland.Last year, St Charles of Mount Argus, a Dutch Passionist who worked with the poor of 19th-century Dublin, was canonised in Rome. The Vatican is also studying the Causes of Passionist Fr Ignatius Spencer, a relative of Lady Diana and Winston Churchill, and Sister Elizabeth Prout, the founder of the Passionist Sisters who worked with the poor in Manchester.

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Cardinal Newman was buried above the body of Fr St John, who had died several years earlier and whose remains were undisturbed during the exhumation. There is no conspiracy theory over what has become of Newman's remains. Experts believe that damp conditions, time and the weight of soil led to their complete decomposition.