Blessed Dominic Barberi

Dominic Barberi was born near Viterbo, Italy, in 1792 and joined the Passionist Order, urged on by an inner assurance that God called him to work as a missionary in England. He was ordained a priest in 1818 and worked in Italy and Belgium before coming to England in 1841. His first foundation was at Aston Hall in Staffordshire; he established four Passionist houses in all, and received many Anglicans into full communion, the most famous being the Venerable John Henry Newman, who was received at Littlemore near Oxford on 9 October 1845. Blessed Dominic was noted for the personal warmth of his approach to non-Catholics and for his zeal in preaching; he drew crowds in spite of his strong Italian accent. He favoured a higher profile for the small Catholic body in England; he went around in his Passionist habit and, while at Aston Hall in 1844, organised a Corpus Christi procession through the streets of the neighbourhood, which is believed to have been the first public procession of its kind in England in modern times. Blessed Dominic died at Reading on 27 August 1849 and was beatified by Pope Paul VI in 1963.