‘A great gift to our city’: Archbishop Longley on Birmingham’s new Doctor of the Church

After his conversion, Newman chose to serve in the gritty English city

Birmingham, England, is not necessarily the first place you would associate with a Doctor of the Church.

Newman’s glasses lie on his writing desk at the Birmingham Oratory in England. © Mazur/catholicchurch.org.uk.

Broadly speaking, England’s second-largest city by population isn’t famous for its Catholic churches, shrines, and places of learning. These d…