"Thank her(the Church) that she has kept the faith safe for so many generations and do your part in helping her to transmit it to generations after you...O long sought-after desire of the eyes, joy of the heart, the truth after many shadows, the fullness after many foretastes, the home after many storms--come to her, poor wanderers, for she it is, and she alone, who can unfold the meaning of your being and the secret of your destiny."
--John Henry Newman

John Henry Cardinal Newman was one of the most famous and influential Catholic converts in England. He was a learned Anglican divine who converted to Catholicism when Catholics were again beginning to be tolerated in England.

Born in London on February 21, 1801, Newman earned his bachelors degree at Trinity College, Oxford in 1820. He became a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford in 1822 and a tutor in 1826. Newman had a revolutionary approach to instructing students; he saw his role as a mentor who should develop a close relationship with his students and assist them in developing as whole persons, rather than solely concentrating on academic subjects. His approach led to conflicts with the college provost, and ultimately to dismissal from his post in 1832.

From 1832 to 1843, Newman held various academic and pastoral assignments. His most famous assignment during this period was as vicar of St. Mary's Church at Oxford. The pulpit of this church was extremely influential in the Oxford community. Through his powerful but scholarly preaching, he influenced hundreds of students, university officials, and townspeople.

The height of Newman's career as an Anglican was as a leader of the Oxford Movement. This was a high church movement which sought to restore various pre-Reformation practices into the Anglican church. The Oxford Movement emphasized Catholic elements such as the sacraments, solemn liturgical worship, episcopal governance, and apostolic succession. The leaders of the Oxford Movement wanted to position Anglicanism as a middle way between the Catholic Church's extraordinary claims of authority and infallibility and Protestantism's emphasis on spiritual liberty and private judgment.

While extensively studying the Fathers of the Church for a study on the Arian heresy, Newman began to lose faith in the principles upon which the Oxford Movement was based. His reading of the Fathers caused him to reevaluate the claims of the Catholic Church in a more positive light. This culminated in 1839 with the publication of the famous "Tract 90" in which Newman argued that the Thirty-Nine Articles (the doctrinal statement of Anglican beliefs) could be interpreted in a way that supports Catholic Teaching. On October 9, 1845, Newman was received into the Catholic Church and was ordained a priest one year later. As a Catholic, he performed many important works such as establishing the Oratory of St. Phillip Neri in Birmingham and the Catholic University of Dublin in Ireland.

Aside from his brilliant preaching, Newman made many other important contributions to theology, which have influenced Christian thought even to today. In The Idea of a University Newman outlined his vision for a Christian liberal education, and the institution that could provide it. Newman's Essay to Aid in a Grammar of Assent showed how certitude regarding propositions, especially religious ones, could be reached, and his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine still remains the definitive work on the subject. Newman outlined his own conversion in Apologia pro Vita Sua, which is a classic work of English literature.

In 1877 Newman became the first person to ever be elected to an honorary fellowship to Trinity College. In 1879, Pope Leo XIII made him a member of the College of Cardinals. Newman died on August 11, 1890. His epitaph reads "ex umbris et imaginibus in veritate" - out of shadows and images into the truth.

The history of Newman begins over 100 years ago. In 1883, in response to attacks on the Catholic Church made by university professors at the University of Wisconsin, several lay people established a student group known as the Melvin Club in order to study their faith. Soon, similar clubs began to spring up at colleges and universities across the U. S. The University of Pennsylvania's club was the first to call itself the "Newman Club" in 1893. Cardinal Newman had died three years before Penn founded its club, and they chose the name in recognition of Cardinal Newman's immense contributions to Catholic intellectual and university life.

These Catholic clubs filled an important role. At the dawn of the Twentieth Century, many American Catholics were beginning to enter college. At the same time, many American colleges and universities were taking on a much more secular approach to the intellectual life. These two trends caused several farsighted leaders to see that the Church needed to reach out to these students in order to preserve their theological and religious heritage. These new Catholic Clubs, which almost universally bore the name "Newman", formed a nationwide association in 1908. By the time of World War I, this association became known as the "National Newman Club Federation". This organization was extremely successful in its heyday (we even have some of its publications in the Newman Office), but it was never strongly supported by the bishops of the United States. The National Newman Club Federation began to disintegrate with the upheavals in the Church, on campuses, and in the wider American culture which occurred in the 1960's, and finally ceased to exist in 1969.

Since 1969 there has been no monolithic national organization of Catholic campus ministries. However, that is not to say that Catholic campus ministry has declined, rather it has increased. In the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, many diocesan bishops began to realize the importance of campus ministry, and have placed a renewed emphasis on Catholic campus ministry in their dioceses.