On July 31, 2025, the Vatican press office reported that Pope Leo XIV will soon declare St. John Henry Newman to be a Doctor of the Church. Newman will be the 38th Doctor of the Church and the second Englishman, after St. Bede the Venerable, who was honored by Pope Leo XIII in 1899.
Among the previous 37 Doctors of the Church, several are informally known as the doctor of some characteristic or attribute of the saint. A few examples include St. Thérèse of Lisieux, known as doctor amoris (doctor of love), St. Teresa of Ávila, doctor orationis (doctor of prayer), St. Thomas Aquinas, doctor angelicus (the angelic doctor) and St. Augustine, doctor gratiae (doctor of grace). These are not official designations, but rather epithets that describe some contributions that these saints have made to the universal Church. In this spirit, I suggest the appellation “doctor of development of doctrine” for St. John Henry Newman.
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