Archbishop of Birmingham, Most Rev. Bernard Longley, seeks universal recognition of Blessed Dominic Barberi ‘as a saint.

The Archbishop of Birmingham has highlighted the holiness of Blessed Dominic Barberi in the hope that the Catholic Church might soon declare him a saint.

The Most Rev. Bernard Longley (pictured above with the tomb of Blessed Dominic to the left) has a strong personal devotion to the Italian Passionist who received Blessed John Henry Newman into the Church in 1845.

Since 1987 he has made repeated pilgrimages to Blessed Dominic’s shrine in Sutton, St Helens, Lancashire, and last year made him patron of the Year of Faith in the Archdiocese of Birmingham.

On Blessed Dominic’s feast day on Monday, Archbishop Longley travelled to the Church of St Anne and Blessed Dominic to preach at his tomb, where the priest is buried alongside fellow 19th century Passionists Fr Ignatius Spencer and Shrewsbury-born Mother Mary Elizabeth Prout, whose causes for canonisation are being examined by the Vatican.

There, he asked hundreds of pilgrims, some of whom had travelled from the Italian town of Viterbo, near the birthplace of Blessed Dominic, to pray that the missionary would soon be recognised as a saint.

“We all have that cause in mind today, praying that one day Blessed Dominic will be recognised for his holiness of life and his effective ministry and we will call upon him as a saint,” he said.

“We come to honour the memory of a great pastor, somebody who loved England and to pray that he will receive universal recognition in the Church as a saint.”

Archbishop Longley’s comments come just two months before the 50th anniversary of the beatification of Blessed Dominic by Pope Paul VI on October 27 1963, during the Second Vatican Council.

The event will be marked by a Mass celebrated on Sunday October 27 at the tomb of Blessed Dominic by the Most Rev. Joachim Rego, the Rome-based Superior General of the Passionist order.

Many Catholics are hoping that such events will trigger a resurgence of interest in the life of Blessed Dominic that may lead to the discovery of the single miracle needed for his canonisation.

Already, there are indications of a such a revival with the St Anne’s so crowded for his feast day Mass that there was standing room only.

Father Peter Hannah, the parish priest, told the congregation that since Archbishop Longley had made Blessed Dominic diocesan patron of the Church’s Year of Faith there had been a stream of “hundreds” of pilgrims visiting from Birmingham.

In his homily, Archbishop Longley explained why he believed Blessed Dominic was an ideal patron for the Year of Faith, which runs until November 24, and also the perfect example for the Church’s project of new evangelisation.

“The Year of Faith was inaugurated by Emeritus Pope Benedict as a response to the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council,” he said.

“It is no coincidence that Blessed Dominic of the Mother of God was beatified 50 years ago during that Council.

“One of the central themes of the Council was that the Church should come to understand afresh the world in which she is called to witness to Christ – so that we can find new and effective ways to preach the good news, so that we can understand what it is that people hear when we preach the Gospel, so that we can find ways of touching their hearts by our Christian witness.

“Blessed Dominic knew how to touch the hearts of others,” he continued. “He went about winning people to Christ by his faithful, loving and cheerful example.

“By the manner of his life, by his words and gestures, people were drawn to him and they came to realise as they were close to him that they could see Christ himself present and acting within Blessed Dominic. He drew them to the Lord.”

Such people included, most famously, Blessed John Henry Newman, who was beatified in Birmingham in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI.

He became a Catholic, Archbishop Longley explained, after discovering in the person of Blessed Dominic a holiness that confirmed his intellectual conviction about the truth of the Catholic faith.

The encounter at Littlemore, Oxfordshire, on October 9 1845 was an event still “full of consequences for us today”, the archbishop said.

“Blessed Dominic’s life reminds us that the world still needs these moving examples of goodness and holiness if our preaching today is to be accepted and understood and for the message of the good news to take root afresh in our contemporary world,” he said.

He prayed that both Blessed Dominic and Blessed John Henry would be recognised as saints “forever able to lead men and women to love and serve Christ crucified”.

Blessed Dominic died in the now-demolished Railway Tavern at Reading, Berkshire, on 27 August 1849, aged 57, after he suffered a heart attack on a train.

Besides Blessed John Henry Newman, there is strong circumstantial evidence that Blessed Dominic also received Elizabeth Prout, foundress of the Passionist Sisters, into the Catholic faith when her family lived just two miles from the chapel he established in Stone, Staffordshire, in 1842, shortly after his arrival in England.

At the Mass, Archbishop Longley mentioned Elizabeth Prout on two occasions. He began the Mass by asking the congregation to keep her cause in their prayers as well as that of Fr Ignatius.

Before the veneration of the relics (pictured left) he concluded the Mass by thanking pilgrims from the Diocese of Shrewsbury, and elsewhere, for making the journey to Lancashire for Blessed Dominic’s feast day.

Click on this link to hear an audio recording of American Passionist Sister Elissa Rinere report on the progress of the Cause for Canonisation of Mother Elizabeth Prout.

(Pictures by Simon Caldwell)

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