Overruled

Yesterday, October 13, 2019,  the Roman Catholic Church canonized John Henry Newman.

In his John Henry Newman, Ian Ker quotes his subject, who "Amused as well as embarrassed by a lady who called him a saint... remarked"

I may have a high view of many things, but it is the consequence of education and of a peculiar cast of intellect--but this is very different  from being what I admire. I have no tendency to be a saint--it is a sad thing to say. Saints are not literary men, they do not love the classics, they do not write Tales. I may be well enough in my own way, but it is not the 'high line.' People ought to feel this, most people do. But those who are at a distance have fee-fa-fum notions about one. It is enough for me to black the saints' shoes--if St. Philip Neri uses blacking, in heaven.

(Chapter 8, Controversy and Satire, section 4)

One might raise various objections here: St. Jerome was troubled in conscience about his love of the classics; St. Thomas More is remembered for his tale Utopia; etc. But now one can use an argument Newman steadily returned to: Securus judicat orbis terrarum.