A grander grave at last for English cardinal tipped to become a saint

The remains of a Victorian cardinal tipped to become the first English saint for more than a generation are to be moved from a rural cemetery to a grand urban church.

After months of wrangling over a 19th century law which forbids the transfer of bodies from graves to church tombs, the Government has agreed to allow Cardinal John Henry Newman to be exhumed.

The Ministry of Justice will grant a licence from today  -  the 118th anniversary of his death in 1890  -  to let undertakers move his remains from a cemetery in Rednal, Worcestershire, to a special resting place of honour at Birmingham Oratory.

It is a victory for the Vatican which wants Newman moved into a setting where he can better be venerated. Pope Benedict XVI has long been admirer of his 'theology of conscience'.

The Roman Catholic Church is close to attributing a miracle to Newman and he is expected in December to be beatified  -  the last step before canonisation.

The miracle concerns 60-year-old Jack Sullivan, a deacon from Boston, Massachussetts, who recovered from crippling back pain after praying to the cardinal.

A second miracle is needed for Newman's cause to progress to canonization when he would be declared a saint.

If that were to happen, he would become the first Englishman to be made a saint since 1970.

Newman was born in London in 1801 into a Church of England family. He was ordained into the Anglican Church at the age of 23, but converted to Catholicism when he was 44 after a succession of clashes with Anglican bishops.

He settled in Birmingham where he founded the first English Oratory and worked with the poor.

He also made 56 crossings to and from Ireland in seven years to establish what is now known as University College, Dublin, after the Bishops of Ireland invited him to found a separate university for Catholics.

As a tribute to his extraordinary devotion, Pope Leo XIII made the unprecedented gesture of making him, an ordinary priest, a Cardinal when he was 78. He died from pneumonia 11 years later.

The date of the exhumation is a secret but will take place before Newman's beatification. Undertakers will open the coffin at the graveside and Newman's corpse, wearing the vestments of a Catholic priest, will be photographed.

It will then be taken to a morgue where Catholic officials from Rome and Milan will remove 'major relics' from the body  -  such as fingers  -  to send back to the Vatican so that pilgrims can pray before them.

Newman's remains will be transferred to a new coffin that will go on show to the public before being placed in a marble sarcophagus at Birmingham Oratory.

The exhumation was applied for in April, at the request of the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Sainthood. Ministers agreed to it after a meeting of Church and government officials in late July.

Peter Jennings, who led negotiation on behalf of the Archdiocese of Birmingham, said yesterday: 'The Ministry of Justice has recognised the importance of Newman as a national figure and as a figure of great importance to the country, the Church and to dialogue between faiths.'