Grander grave for Cardinal Newman

After months of wrangling over a 19th century law which forbids the transfer of bodies from grave to church tombs in the UK, the British government has now agreed to allow Cardinal John Henry Newman to be exhumed.

Finally, the remains of a great Victorian Cardinal who will surely become the first English saint for more than a generation are to be removed from a rural cemetery to a grand urban church.

Pope Benedict XVI has long been admirer of the learned Cardinal's 'theology of conscience' - a formed and informed conscience.

John Henry Newman was born in London in 1801 into a Church of England family and was ordained into the Anglican Church at 23.

He later 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 without respite with the poor. Historians say he also made 56 crossings to and from Ireland in seven years to establish what is known as University College, Dublin.

The date of Cardinal Newman's exhumation is still a secret, but it will take place before his beatification. An application for his exhumation was made in April, at the request of the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Sainthood. Ministers agreed to this request after a meeting of Church and government officials in July.

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