What is a Newman?

What is a "Catholic Church on Campus"? Why is the Catholic Church on Campus also called the "Newman Center"? Who or What is a "Newman"? These are questions newcomers often wonder about, but they are also questions posed by many people who have been Newman members for years. Here, at long last, are a few answers. Newman is--was--a real live person who wrote and taught and preached in the 19th century and spent many of his early years at Oxford. He was raised in the Anglican Church, moved through many stages and struggles in his spiritual quest, and finally decided to become a Catholic at the age of 42. He was ordained a priest four years later and matured into one of the keenest thinkers and theologians the church has ever known. Unfortunately, he was often misunderstood in his lifetime--Protestants mistrusted him because he jumped ship, and Catholics were suspicious of him because he started out on the wrong ship. But, despite all the pain that his thinking and writing cost him, Newman never ceased to insist that the life of the mind and the life of the spirit should be connected. Faith and intellect belonged together in Newman's view, and being a "Fool for Christ" never meant that one should withdraw from learning or questioning.
It is hardly surprising, then, that when catholics first started to band together on state university campuses they embraced John Henry Newman as their patron. Until about 40 years ago it was not common for catholics to attend non-catholic colleges. Priests and parents worried that young women and men who did so would quickly lose their faith in the atmosphere of moral decadence and "secular" thinking they presumed existed at state universities. Daughters and sons who went off to college were urged to join college "Newman Clubs" and seek out friendship with other catholics who could support and bolster their beliefs. From the very start, though, the Newman movement throughout the country was committed to freedom of thought and respect for others. The very first Club, established way back in 1893 at the University of Pennsylvania, insisted, in fact, that its members not become "clannish or narrow in a religious sense."
The St. Cloud State Newman Club was established in 1923. In the years that have passed since then, we've been through many changes, and we have evolved into a full-fledged parish. There are, however, some very important things that have not changed. Above all else, we remain committed to Newman's vision that religion and intelligence belong together, and that religious people do not have to be either "very dull or very tiresome." As Newman said to students in his day:
"I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other ... Religion cannot stifle or restrict the intellect, only enlighten and enlarge it."