-
February 3, 2026The Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has announced that on 3 February 2026, a Decree will be published, adding the memoria ad libitum of Saint John Henry Newman into the General Roman Calendar, together with the related liturgical texts.DECREE
on the Inscription of the Celebration
of Saint John Henry Newman, Priest and Doctor of the Church,
in the General Roman Calendar
The kindly light of God’s grace, which came into this world to enlighten the gentiles (cf. Lk 2: 32), led John Henry Newman to find peace in the Catholic Church and gave him such strength that he was able to say “God has created me to do Him some definite service … I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught”. Throughout his long life Cardinal Newman was unstinting in this service to which he had been called. The service of intellectual enquiry; the service of preaching and teaching; as well as service to the poor and the least.
His lively mind has left us enduring monuments of great importance in the fields of theology and ecclesiology, as well as poetic and devotional compositions. His constant search to be led out of shadows and images into the fullness of the truth has become an example for every disciple of the Risen One. Thus, in a special way, Saint John Henry, having been recognized as a radiant light for the Church on pilgrimage through history, may rightly be numbered among the other saintly Doctors inscribed in the General Roman Calendar.
For this reason, considering the recent declaration of the title of Doctor of the Church which has been conferred upon a saintly pastor of such outstanding significance for the entire community of the faithful, the Supreme Pontiff Pope LEO XIV has decreed that Saint John Henry Newman, Priest and Doctor of the Church, be inscribed in the General Roman Calendar, and that his Optional Memorial be celebrated by all on 9 October.
This new Memorial is to be inserted into all Calendars and Liturgical Books for the celebration of Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours, adopting the liturgical texts attached to the present decree, which are to be translated, approved, and—after confirmation by this Dicastery—published by the Conferences of Bishops.
Anything to the contrary notwithstanding.
From the Dicastery of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, 9 November 2025, on the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica.
Arthur Card. Roche
Prefect
✠ Vittorio Francesco Viola, O.F.M.
Archbishop Secretary