The Catholic Intellectual Tradition

St. John Henry Newman Papers

John Henry (Cardinal) Newman was one of the leading intellectuals of the 1800s, a renowned theologian at Oxford University, and an Anglican priest at a time of intense anti-Catholic sentiment in the English-speaking world. His conversion to Catholicism in 1845 was a national scandal in England and he was forced from his teaching position. Nevertheless, he continued to write and preach and exert a powerful influence in church affairs for the rest of his life.

Today, Newman is still the subject of scholarly research more than a century after his death. He was canonized by Pope Francis on October 13, 2019, and his feast day was designated as October 9 – early in the fall academic semester – recognition of his deep interest in Catholic higher education.

At the Mount, Sister Catherine Anita Fitzgerald, CSJ, head librarian and a Newman scholar, formed the Friends of the Library in 1960 and promptly raised funds to purchase, at auction, an entire library of Newman titles, including many first editions. They were the centerpiece of the Newman Seminar Room until 1995 when they were moved to Special Collections. Sister Catherine Anita also collected rare portraits, many journals and offprints with Newman-related articles and a dozen handwritten letters to and from Newman and a few of his fellow converts at Oxford.

Students, faculty, and staff are invited to explore the Newman Collection, housed in Special Collections in the Charles Willard Coe Memorial Library on the Chalon Campus. Please contact University Archives and Special Collections at (310) 954-4377 to make an appointment.

The Newman Collection at MSMU

Special Collections at the Mount Libraries holds more than 200 books by and about St. John Henry (Cardinal) Newman, considered by many the father of modern Catholic higher education and a newly canonized saint of the Catholic Church. Please contact MSMU Special Collections at (310) 954-4377 for information.

Sister Magdalen Coughlin, CSJ, Papers

Sister Magdalen Coughlin, CSJ, a historian and president of the Mount from 1976 to 1989, was among 18 American participants invited to the Vatican in April 1989 to discuss a new draft of a forthcoming papal statement on Catholic higher education. The gathering lasted for a week and involved delegations from 34 countries, including the United States. This draft became, on August 15, 1990, the "Apostolic Constitution of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II on Catholic Universities," known better today as Ex Corde Ecclesiae (for the document's opening phrase, "Born from the heart of the Church").

On her death in 1994, Sister Magdalen donated to the Mount Archives a collection of letters, handouts, and handwritten notes relating to the conference in Rome. The collection may be viewed in the University Archives and Special Collections in the Coe Library. For information, contact the archives at (310) 954-4377.