Taipei, Taiwan, Oct 30, 2025 /
07:00 am
St. John Henry Newman has inspired many “Newman converts” to follow his path of conversion from Protestantism to Catholicism, including a 24-year-old Taiwanese man who is an ardent devotee of the 19th-century English saint.
When Kao Chih Hao, a recent convert to Catholicism living in Taipei, heard the news that Pope Leo XIV had decided to name Newman a doctor of the Church, he said the announcement moved him deeply.
“After hearing this news, I almost cried,” Kao said. “It’s the happiest news for me in this year since I admire him so much.”
Kao, who works in sales for a computer hardware manufacturer and goes by the English name “Newman” after his favorite saint, spoke recently after Sunday Mass at Holy Rosary Parish in Taipei about how St. John Henry Newman helped inspire his conversion.
A lover of history since high school, Kao said a line from Newman’s “An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine” caught his attention: “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.”
Newman, born in 1801, was a respected Oxford academic, Anglican preacher, and public intellectual before his conversion to Catholicism in 1845. His decision to become Catholic was controversial in Victorian England, costing him many friends — including his sister, who never spoke to him again.
He became a Catholic priest in 1847 and founded the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in England. Dedicated to education, he established two schools for boys and founded the Catholic University of Ireland.
His work “The Idea of a University” became a foundational text on Catholic higher education. He was a prolific author and letter writer, dying in Birmingham, England, in 1890 at the age of 89.
As Kao was discerning his own conversion, he said he felt inspired by Newman’s courage to give up his position at Oxford University to follow his convictions.
“Even if you are a chaplain of Oxford University, if you experience the real presence of Catholic faith of the Eucharist, you must pursue [it],” Kao said.
Pope Leo XIV will formally declare St. John Henry Newman a doctor of the Church on Nov. 1. The pope also named Newman a co-patron of Catholic education this week, putting him alongside St. Thomas Aquinas.
Kao was fully received into the Catholic Church, receiving his first Communion and confirmation in October 2023. He said Aquinas’ theology helped him understand the mystery of transubstantiation.
“After reading the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, I started to know that it is the real presence of Jesus Christ,” Kao said. “And the real feeling for me to experience Jesus Christ in Eucharist is also in Eucharist adoration.”
Kao is one of many young “Newman converts” around the world. At Newman’s canonization in 2019, a 24-year-old American convert told CNA how she had decided to become Catholic two years earlier after a friend loaned her a copy of Newman’s “An Essay on the Development of Doctrine.”
As an enthusiastic new Catholic, Kao has set three goals: to make the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, to read St. Thomas Aquinas’ “Summa Theologica,” and to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land with the Franciscan friars, who have ministered there since 1217. He recently completed his first three-day Ignatian retreat.
His advice to anyone considering conversion to Catholicism is simple. “If you experience the real presence in the Eucharist, just pursue it. Just pursue Jesus. Just go to Jesus, go to church, find a priest, talk about the Eucharist and Virgin Mary, and do not be afraid,” he said.
(Story continues below)
Subscribe to our daily newsletter
Reporting for this article was supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan.
Courtney Mares is a Rome Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. A graduate of Harvard University, she has reported from news bureaus on three continents and was awarded the Gardner Fellowship for her work with North Korean refugees. She is the author of “Blessed Carlo Acutis: A Saint in Sneakers” (Ignatius, 2023), https://ignatius.com/carlo-acutis-sscap/.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.