No Pope here!

Reasons for opposing the papal visit to Scotland & England by Pope Benedict XVI

4. Procedural. One of the reasons for the papal visit is the beautification of John Henry Newman.

Newman was originally an evangelical minister in the Church of England. In 1816 at the age of fifteen, during his last year at school, he professed to be have been converted. He later wrote that it was ‘more certain than that I have hands or feet’. He went on to be ordained into the Anglican Church in 1824 and professed to be a Calvinist, and held that the Pope was Antichrist. 

Over the next 8 years or so his views began to change and assume a High Church tone. He fervently opposed Non-conformity. 

Newman became a major figure in the Oxford Movement. Over these number of years he drifted towards High Church Anglicanism and on towards Romanism in his views. 'Tracts for the Times' became the publishing arm of the Oxford movement, which wished to return the Church of England to many High Church beliefs and forms of worship. Sometimes it was known as ‘Tractarianism’. 

He continued his work as a High Anglican controversialist until he had published, in 1841, Tract 90, the last of the series, which was a detailed examination of the Thirty-Nine Articles, suggesting that their oppositions were not directed against the authorised creed of Roman Catholics, but only against popular errors and exaggerations. 

Newman eventually converted to Roman Catholicism in 1840s. In February 1843, he published, as an advertisement in the Oxford Conservative Journal, an anonymous but otherwise formal retractation of all the hard things he had said against Rome In 1845 he opening converted to Romanism

He subsequently was made a Cardinal - 'a son of the Church'.

In 1991, Newman was proclaimed venerable by the Roman Church. This was after a thorough examination of his life and work by the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints. One miracle was investigated and confirmed by the Vatican, so he will be able to be beatified on 19th September 2010. A second miracle would then be necessary for his canonisation.

We repudiate this popish nonsense of making saints in this way. God alone is to be venerated. Peter would have no veneration when in Acts 10:25,26 he told Cornelius to stand up: 

And as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him, and fell down at his feet, and worshipped him. But Peter took him up, saying, Stand up; I myself also am a man.

It is Christ that a sinner needs to help them and no one. Newman or any other saint or Mary or any pope are useless. The New Testament message is forgiveness through Jesus Christ alone, Acts 13:38,39:

Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.

Jesus Christ justifies from all things. If that is so, and it is, then there is no need for the help of any worthless saint like Newman. 

Saints are not made this way. In fact every believer is a saint of equal standing for there is no respecting of persons with God.