Catholic Saints • Birmingham • Oxford • 1866 to 1889
Saint John Henry Newman and Gerard Manley Hopkins: The Poet He Received into the Church
In the summer of 1866 a young Oxford man wrote to the most famous convert in England. By October he had been received into the Catholic Church by him. The poet was Gerard Manley Hopkins, and the story is told in their own letters and in the dates around them.
Newman and Hopkins at a Glance
- Who
- Saint John Henry Newman (1801 to 1890) and Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 to 1889)
- Where
- Oxford and the Birmingham Oratory, England
- First letter
- Hopkins wrote to Newman on August 28, 1866
- Newman’s reply
- September 14, 1866
- Reception
- October 21, 1866, at the Birmingham Oratory, by Newman
- Later
- Hopkins entered the Society of Jesus in 1868 and died in Dublin in 1889
- Newman canonized
- October 13, 2019
An Oxford Undergraduate Writes to Newman
By 1866 John Henry Newman was already one of the best known religious figures in England. He had been an Anglican priest at Oxford, had entered the Catholic Church in 1845, and was now living at the Birmingham Oratory, the community he had founded.
Gerard Manley Hopkins was a student at Balliol College, Oxford, a gifted young man who drew, wrote verse and thought hard about worship. He was moving toward the Catholic Church through the same Oxford questions that had once troubled Newman.
On August 28, 1866, Hopkins wrote to Newman. He told him he wished to become a Catholic and asked for his help. It was a short act of trust in a man he had never met in person.
Part II
Newman’s Answer and the Visit to Birmingham
Newman replied on September 14, 1866. Hopkins then traveled to Birmingham in September to meet him, and the two spoke face to face at the Oratory.
Newman’s counsel in these weeks was practical. Hopkins was still an undergraduate with his degree ahead of him and with a family at home who would not welcome the news. Newman was known for caring about what a conversion would cost a young person and the people around him.
This is the pattern the letters show: a famous older priest taking a young stranger’s question seriously and answering it with patience rather than pressure.
Part III
October 21, 1866: Received at the Oratory
On October 21, 1866, Hopkins was received into the Catholic Church at the Birmingham Oratory, and Newman himself received him.
Hopkins was twenty-two. His family reacted with distress, and the break with his father in particular was painful. He returned to Oxford to finish his studies.
Newman had himself been received into the Catholic Church in 1845, after a long struggle at Oxford. Now, twenty-one years later, he was standing at the font for another Oxford man who had followed a similar road.
Part IV
The Oratory School and the Jesuit Novitiate
After taking his degree, Hopkins spent a short time teaching at the Oratory School, the school Newman had founded in Edgbaston. In 1868 he decided to become a Jesuit and entered the novitiate.
Hopkins also made a hard personal decision at this time about his own poetry. He set aside the writing of verse as he began Jesuit formation, and for years he wrote little. Verse returned in the 1870s with “The Wreck of the Deutschland.”
Newman had been a model of a convert who had given up a great deal for the Church. Hopkins gave up a different kind of comfort, and both choices cost them.
Part V
Two Lives that Kept Crossing
Newman and Hopkins did not become close daily companions. Hopkins lived the Jesuit life, moving between assignments, while Newman remained at the Oratory in Birmingham.
Their lives did cross again in Ireland. Newman had been the first rector of the Catholic University of Ireland in Dublin, and in 1884 Hopkins was appointed professor of Greek at University College Dublin, the institution that grew out of it.
Hopkins found Dublin hard. He wrote of exhaustion and loneliness in the later “terrible sonnets,” and he died there of typhoid fever on June 8, 1889.
Part VI
What Each Man Left
Newman died on August 11, 1890. He was made a cardinal in 1879 and was canonized by Pope Francis on October 13, 2019.
Hopkins published almost nothing in his lifetime. His friend Robert Bridges brought out the first collection of his poems in 1918, and he is now counted among the great poets in English.
Read together, the two lives show what a conversion looks like when it is received with patience: a famous man answers one young letter, and the young man goes on to become one of the great religious poets in English.
Part VII
Timeline
- 1801: John Henry Newman is born in London.
- 1844: Gerard Manley Hopkins is born in Stratford, Essex.
- 1845: Newman is received into the Catholic Church.
- August 28, 1866: Hopkins writes to Newman.
- September 14, 1866: Newman replies. Hopkins visits Birmingham that month.
- October 21, 1866: Newman receives Hopkins at the Birmingham Oratory.
- 1868: Hopkins enters the Society of Jesus.
- 1884: Hopkins becomes professor of Greek in Dublin.
- 1889: Hopkins dies in Dublin on June 8.
- 1890: Newman dies on August 11.
- 2019: Newman is canonized on October 13.
A Letter Answered with Patience
Newman did not argue Hopkins into the Church. He answered a letter, met a young man and received him. If you are carrying a question about faith, the Saint John Henry Newman prayer card is a quiet companion for that road.
View the Prayer Card →Frequently Asked Questions
