Cardinal Newman, Father Ambrose St. John, and Oscar Wilde

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The following two news items and (1 & 3) and the single biographical entry on Oscar Wilde (2) should help us see the extent to which what "happens" inside Dorian Gray's old schoolroom, that is, what is reflected on Basil Hallward's supernatural canvas is still something that troubles the good Christian people of England.

(1) Violating Cardinal Newman's wishes The Pope wants to rebury John Newman separately from the man he loved, Father Ambrose St John [09/04/2008]

(2) "[Oscar] Wilde defeated Edward Carson for the foundation scholarship in classics at Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1874 won a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was influenced by John Ruskin, Walter Pater and Cardinal Newman. He became a disciple of aestheticism, pursuing beauty for beauty's sake; his poem Ravenna (1878) won the Newdigate Prize" [Wilde's biographical sketch]

(3) "Fr. Ian Ker [sic], a priest and biographer of Cardinal Newman, told the Weekend Australian yesterday that homosexulists [sic] were using Newman's close friendship with another priest as a political ploy. 'Clearly' Fr. Kerr said, Newman 'did love his dear friend' but he called it 'ridiculous' to claim, a century after the fact, that they were homosexuals who lived 'as husband and wife.' 'There is no evidence for that whatsoever, and everything he wrote and said suggests he would have thought homosexuality was immoral, not to mention that it was illegal at the time. Theirs was a close friendship that some people are now trying to misrepresent and use for their own purposes'" [09/04/2008]

Sometimes, current events render what we read more dramatic. This is one of those moments.