Pope declares Cardinal Newman a church doctor and signals Catholic education is a priority

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Saturday bestowed one of the Catholic Church’s highest honors on St. John Henry Newman, the deeply influential 19th- century British convert and theologian, declaring him a doctor of the church and holding him up as a model for Catholic educators.

Only 37 other people have been given the title “doctor” in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church. Newman now joins the ranks of such monumental Christian figures as St. Augustine, St. Therese of Lisieux and St. John of the Cross.

The title recognizes that Newman, beloved in both the Anglican and Catholic churches, has universal appeal and made a timeless, eminent contribution to understanding the Christian faith.

A theologian and poet raised in the Church of England, Newman is best known for his writings and sermons on the development of doctrine, truth and the nature of a university. He is admired by conservatives and progressives alike, because he followed his conscience at great personal cost when he decided to convert to Catholicism in 1845.

Leo pronounced Newman a church doctor on Saturday during a special Holy Year Mass for Catholic teachers and students, during which he also declared Newman a co-patron of Catholic education, alongside St. Thomas Aquinas.

It was particularly fitting: It was Leo’s namesake, Pope Leo XIII, who made Newman a Catholic cardinal after his conversion, and it was the earlier Leo who declared Aquinas a doctor of the church and patron of Catholic education.

Leo’s decision to hold out Newman as a model for Catholic educators suggests that Catholic teaching will be a priority for him going forward, especially as he emphasizes the ethical use of artificial intelligence for future generations.

Earlier this week, Leo penned a new document that cited Newman in his call for Catholic schools to be places for spiritual growth and community, and where the use of technology always keeps human dignity front and center.

In his homily, Leo quoted from Newman’s most famous text, the beloved British hymn “Lead, Kindly Light,” to urge that Catholic educators “shine like stars in the world” in the collective search for truth.

“The task of education is precisely to offer this Kindly Light to those who might otherwise remain imprisoned by the particularly insidious shadows of pessimism and fear,” he said. “We are called to form people, so that they may shine like stars in their full dignity.”

The Catholic Church is one of the world’s leading players in education, operating more than 225,000 primary and secondary schools and enrolling some 2.5 million students at Catholic universities around the globe, according to Vatican statistics.

Leo was educated by the Augustinians, taught math and physics, and is a member of the Augustinian religious order, which places a special emphasis on St. Augustine’s search for truth and the command “Tolle, lege,” which translates from Latin as “Take up and read.”

The Rev. George Bowen, the postulator who oversaw Newman’s canonization and designation as a doctor, said Newman too was confronted with the 19th-century equivalent of the information age, when cheap periodicals were readily available and reading rates shot up. Newman insisted on the need for a wholistic liberal education that included Catholic theology, but also focused on students and teachers interacting in a relational way in the quest for truth and knowledge, he said.

“Suddenly, the world was swimming with information,” Bowen told reporters. “So Newman’s ways of coping with this huge ocean of knowledge and making sense of it, having a connected view, is something very, very relevant today.”

When Newman defected from the Church of England to the Catholic Church in 1845, he lost friends, work and even family ties, believing the truth he was searching for could only be found in the Catholic faith.

And yet even today, Newman remains beloved in the Church of England. His hymns were sung last week in the Sistine Chapel when King Charles III prayed alongside Leo in the historic ecumenical service.

Several important Anglican leaders wrote to the Vatican, supporting his designation as a church doctor, and the Anglican archbishop of York was invited to participate in Saturday's service. It featured the hymn, “Lead, Kindly Light,” which remains a fixture of Anglican services.

“Newman is a big ecumenical figure in the sense that he owes his faith to his upbringing in the Church of England,” Bowen said.

Paul Shrimpton, a leading Newman scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, said it was significant that each of the last popes had promoted Newman in his remarkably quick path to being declared a doctor of the church, underlining his universal appeal to progressive and liberals alike.

St. John Paul II declared him venerable in 1991, in the first step to possible sainthood; Pope Benedict XVI beatified him during a 2010 visit to Birmingham, England; Pope Francis canonized him in 2019 with Charles in the audience, and now Leo declared him a church doctor.

“I think that speaks volumes,” said Shrimpton, who contributed an essay on Newman’s influence on Catholic education for the official Vatican dossier, or “positio” that made the case for him to be declared a doctor. “All very different popes show that he is part of the universal teaching of church.”

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Pope Leo XIV presides over Mass with participants in the Jubilee of the Educational World on the Solemnity of All Saints, in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025, during which he will proclaim St. John Henry Newman a Doctor of the Church. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Nuns attend a Mass with Pope Leo XIV and the Jubilee of the Educational World on the Solemnity of All Saints, in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025, during which he will proclaim St. John Henry Newman a Doctor of the Church. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

A nun attends a Mass with Pope Leo XIV and the Jubilee of the Educational World on the Solemnity of All Saints, in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025, during which he will proclaim St. John Henry Newman a Doctor of the Church. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Leo XIV presides over Mass with participants in the Jubilee of the Educational World on the Solemnity of All Saints, in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025, during which he will proclaim St. John Henry Newman a Doctor of the Church. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Leo XIV presides over Mass with participants in the Jubilee of the Educational World on the Solemnity of All Saints, in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025, during which he will proclaim St. John Henry Newman a Doctor of the Church. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Leo XIV presides over Mass with participants in the Jubilee of the Educational World on the Solemnity of All Saints, in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025, during which he will proclaim St. John Henry Newman a Doctor of the Church. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

HAVANA (AP) — Cuban soldiers wearing white gloves marched out of a plane on Thursday carrying urns with the remains of the 32 Cuban officers killed during a stunning U.S. attack on Venezuela as trumpets and drums played solemnly at Havana's airport.

Nearby, thousands of Cubans lined one of Havana’s most iconic streets to await the bodies of colonels, lieutenants, majors and captains as the island remained under threat by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

The soldiers' shoes clacked as they marched stiff-legged into the headquarters of the Ministry of the Armed Forces, next to Revolution Square, with the urns and placed them on a long table next to the pictures of those killed so people could pay their respects.

Thursday’s mass funeral was only one of a handful that the Cuban government has organized in almost half a century.

Hours earlier, state television showed images of more than a dozen wounded people described as “combatants” accompanied by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez arriving Wednesday night from Venezuela. Some were in wheelchairs.

Those injured and the remains of those killed arrived as tensions grow between Cuba and the U.S., with Trump recently demanding that the Caribbean country make a deal with him before it is “too late.” He did not explain what kind of deal.

Trump also has said that Cuba will no longer live off Venezuela's money and oil. Experts warn that the abrupt end of oil shipments could be catastrophic for Cuba, which is already struggling with serious blackouts and a crumbling power grid.

Officials unfurled a massive flag at Havana's airport as President Miguel Díaz-Canel, clad in military garb as commander of Cuba's Armed Forces, stood silent next to former President Raúl Castro, with what appeared to be the relatives of those killed looking on nearby.

Cuban Interior Minister Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casa said Venezuela was not a distant land for those killed, but a “natural extension of their homeland.”

“The enemy speaks to an audience of high-precision operations, of troops, of elites, of supremacy,” Álvarez said in apparent reference to the U.S. “We, on the other hand, speak of faces, of families who have lost a father, a son, a husband, a brother.”

Álvarez called those slain “heroes,” saying that they were an example of honor and “a lesson for those who waver.”

“We reaffirm that if this painful chapter of history has demonstrated anything, it is that imperialism may possess more sophisticated weapons; it may have immense material wealth; it may buy the minds of the wavering; but there is one thing it will never be able to buy: the dignity of the Cuban people,” he said.

Thousands of Cubans lined a street where motorcycles and military vehicles thundered by with the remains of those killed.

“They are people willing to defend their principles and values, and we must pay tribute to them,” said Carmen Gómez, a 58-year-old industrial designer, adding that she hopes no one invades given the ongoing threats.

When asked why she showed up despite the difficulties Cubans face, Gómez replied, “It’s because of the sense of patriotism that Cubans have, and that will always unite us.”

Cuba recently released the names and ranks of 32 military personnel — ranging in age from 26 to 60 — who were part of the security detail of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro during the raid on his residence on January 3. They included members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, the island’s two security agencies.

Cuban and Venezuelan authorities have said that the uniformed personnel were part of protection agreements between the two countries.

A demonstration was planned for Friday across from the U.S. Embassy in an open-air forum known as the Anti-Imperialist Tribune. Officials have said they expect the demonstration to be massive.

“People are upset and hurt. There’s a lot of talk on social media; but many do believe that the dead are martyrs” of a historic struggle against the United States, analyst and former diplomat Carlos Alzugaray told The Associated Press.

In October 1976, then-President Fidel Castro led a massive demonstration to bid farewell to the 73 people killed in the bombing of a Cubana de Aviación civilian flight financed by anti-revolutionary leaders in the U.S. Most of the victims were Cuban athletes.

In December 1989, officials organized “Operation Tribute” to honor the more than 2,000 Cuban combatants who died in Angola during Cuba’s participation in the war that defeated the South African army and ended the apartheid system. In October 1997, memorial services were held following the arrival of the remains of guerrilla commander Ernesto “Che” Guevara and six of his comrades, who died in 1967.

The latest mass burial is critical to honor those slain, said José Luis Piñeiro, a 60-year-old doctor who lived four years in Venezuela.

“I don’t think Trump is crazy enough to come and enter a country like this, ours, and if he does, he’s going to have to take an aspirin or some painkiller to avoid the headache he’s going to get,” Piñeiro said. “These were 32 heroes who fought him. Can you imagine an entire nation? He’s going to lose.”

A day before the remains of those killed arrived in Cuba, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced $3 million in aid to help the island recover from the catastrophic Hurricane Melissa, which struck in late October.

The first flight took off from Florida on Wednesday, and a second flight was scheduled for Friday. A commercial vessel also will deliver food and other supplies.

“We have taken extraordinary measures to ensure that this assistance reaches the Cuban people directly, without interference or diversion by the illegitimate regime,” Rubio said, adding that the U.S. government was working with Cuba's Catholic Church.

The announcement riled Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez.

“The U.S. government is exploiting what appears to be a humanitarian gesture for opportunistic and politically manipulative purposes,” he said in a statement. “As a matter of principle, Cuba does not oppose assistance from governments or organizations, provided it benefits the people and the needs of those affected are not used for political gain under the guise of humanitarian aid.”

Coto contributed from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Military members pay their last respects to Cuban officers who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, at the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces where the urns containing the remains are displayed during a ceremony in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A motorcade transports urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, through Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Soldiers carry urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, at the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (Adalberto Roque /Pool Photo via AP)

A motorcade transports urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, through Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A motorcade transports urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, through Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

People line the streets of Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, to watch the motorcade carrying urns containing the remains of Cuban officers killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Workers fly the Cuban flag at half-staff at the Anti-Imperialist Tribune near the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, in memory of Cubans who died two days before in Caracas, Venezuela during the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by U.S. forces. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)