Bl Dominic Barberi and Newman

Blessed Dominic Barberi

Among the 50,000 people gathered in St Peter's Square for the Canonisation of St John Henry Newman on Sunday, there was a quiet group of priests and religious who had a special reason to celebrate - the Passionists. It was an Italian missionary to England and member of their Congregation, Blessed Dominic Barberi, who received John Henry Newman into the Catholic Church at the College, Littlemore, near Oxford on 9 October 1845.

A gentle man with a serene faith in the face of opposition and persecution, he had made quite an impression on Newman. Birmingham Archbishop Bernard Longley said: "... Newman recognised in Blessed Dominic something for which he had been searching - a moving example of goodness and holiness that would confirm his intellectual conviction that the claims of the Catholic Church were true. He could move forward with heart and mind united."

In his Apologia pro Vita Sua, Newman relates how Fr Dominic, who was going to stay at Littlemore on his way from Aston in Staffordshire to Belgium. arrived soaked from the rain. While he was drying himself, the former Anglican clergyman knelt and asked to be received into the Catholic Church.

Barberi was born near Viterbo in central Italy to a poor farming family in 1792. His parents died when he was a child and he was raised by his maternal uncle. As a boy he was employed to take care of sheep. He was taught his letters by a Capuchin priest, and learned to read from a country lad his own age. Although he read all the books he could obtain, he had no regular education.

When Napoleon suppressed the religious communities in the Papal States, Barberi got to know several Passionists living in exile near his town. When Barberi was one of the few men in his locality not chosen for military conscription, he felt it was a sign from God that he should enter a religious community. Barberi believed that he was called to preach the Gospel in far-off lands. He would later affirm that he had received a specific call to preach to the people of England. Saint Paul of the Cross, founder of the Passionist Congregation, also had great enthusiasm for converting England.

In 1840, he established the first Passionist community outside of Italy in Ere, Belgium. He subsequently went to England where in 1842 he inaugurated the monastery of Aston Hall, near Stone.

Blessed Dominic consecrated and offered his life for the unity of the Church - the mission to which he had been called by God and to which he devoted himself with great love and with many initiatives from the time of his youth.

He longed for the return of the "separated brethren" to the Catholic Church - an expression coined by him.

He made a vow to renounce all material and spiritual consolation and offered himself to the Lord for the conversion of England. He anticipated by 150 years the ecumenical movement based on love, dialogue, respect for conscience and mutual discernment.

The initial reception of Barberi and his fellow Passionists in Aston was less than welcoming. Local Catholics feared the arrival of these newcomers would cause renewed persecutions. Barberi was also met with ridicule. People laughed at his attempts to read prayers in English. However, the community increased in numbers and Barberi soon began to receive a steady stream of converts. A Mass centre was also set up in neighbouring Stone - where Barberi also faced hostility.

As he walked to the centre, local youths would throw stones at him - though two youths took the decision to become Catholics when they were greatly edified to see Barberi kiss each stone that hit him and place it in his pocket.

Local Protestant ministers often held anti-Catholic lectures and sermons to warn people away from Barberi and the Catholics. One minister followed Barberi along a street shouting various arguments against Transubstantiation. Barberi was silent, but as the man was about to turn off, Barberi said: "Jesus Christ said over the consecrated elements: "This is my body." You say, "No. It is not his body!" Who then am I to believe? I prefer to believe Jesus Christ."

During his years in England, Blessed Dominic Barberi established three churches and several chapels, preached innumerable missions and received hundreds of converts.

He died in Reading, near London, on August 27, 1849 at the age of 57. His grave in Sutton, St Helens, has become a place of pilgrimage. Fr Barberi was beatified by Pope Paul VI on 27 October 1963, during the Second Vatican Council.

A relic of Barberi was given to Mgr Keith Newton, Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, for the Ordinariate to be kept at Our Lady of the Assumption Church, Warwick Street, London.

Archbishop Bernard Longley said: "Blessed Dominic approached the world, not with suspicion or fear but with confidence and love. He did not accept the way of the world but he tried to understand people and their needs so as to be able to awaken in them a thirst for Christ. He possessed the confidence and cheerfulness that arose from his deep trust in the crucified Christ….The world still needs those moving examples of goodness and holiness, like Blessed Dominic, if our preaching is to be effective and so that the message of the Good News, offered through the new evangelisation, can take root afresh in the communities and neighbourhoods that we know."

During his visit to England in 1982, Pope John Paul II said Blessed Dominic Barberi was: "One example of the countless other priests who continue to serve as models of holiness for the clergy of today."

Passionist Fr General Joachim Rego, who attended the Canonisation on Sunday, told ICN: "We are very happy to celebrate the Canonisation of St John Henry Newman, and of course we also praying that our own Blessed Dominic Barberi will be recognised as a saint one day."

English Provincial Fr John Kearns said: "The significance of Dominic Barberi to John Henry Newman cannot be overestimated. Even before reaching England Bl Dominic maintained a significant, supportive correspondence with the Oxford Movement and in this way became known to, and appreciated by, the new Saint. Newman is recorded as saying that he still needed to see something from the Catholic Church which he could not find within his own tradition, that is, someone who would go poor and barefoot amongst the most neglected members of society. In Dominic this he saw, and so it was not by accident that John Henry asked the Passionist to receive him into the Roman Catholic Church. Newman said that there was something special about Dominic, so much so that even looking at him made him aware of the presence of God."

Bl Dominic Barberi is buried in St Anne's Church, St Helen's, which is also the shrine of the Passionist Servants of God, Fr Ignatius Spencer (one of Barberi's converts and ancestor of Princess Diana) and Mother Elizabeth Prout.

LINKS

ICN 30 August 2013 - Archbishop Longley voices hope for canonization of Newman and Barberi

www.indcatholicnews.com/news/23121

Watch a short documentary film - www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOocWPOngAw

Passionists - http://passionists-uk.org/