On the site of Cardinal Newman's Cause today, they have a new article up for the occasion which shared an address given by Pope Pius XII in 1945 for the centenary of Newman's conversion.
In that piece, Pius XII refers to Newman as "the pride of Britain and of the universal Church."
Pope Pius XII continues:
One quality especially seems to Us to call for close attention and study in the career of the great man whose happy return to the Christian fold you are commemorating. He ‘gave up his whole life to the truth’ (Juvenal. Sat. iv. 91); all his efforts, all his untiring labours, were dedicated to that end. A time came when the beauty of Catholic teaching revealed itself clearly to his longing eyes; with that, no obstacle of any kind—his old prejudices, loss of prospects, the protests of his friends—could hold him back; nothing must stand between him and full adherence to the truth he had now mastered. He held to it ever afterwards with unshaken consistency, made it the guiding principle of his whole life, found in it, as in nothing else, full contentment of mind.
Beyond question... among the many important gifts which will make a later posterity honour the greatness of John Henry Newman, this is his chief title to fame.
To read the entire address, see: Pius XII on the Anniversary of Newman’s Conversion
