“I wish you would consider whether you have a right notion of how to gain faith. It is, we know, the Gift of God, but I am speaking of it as a human process and attained by human means. Faith then is not a conclusion from premises, but the result of an act of the will, following upon a conviction that to believe is a duty. The simple question you have to ask yourself is "Have I a conviction that I ought to accept the Catholic Faith as God's Word?" if not, at least, "do I tend to such a conviction?" or "am I near upon it?" For directly you have a conviction that you ought to believe, reason has done its part, and what is wanted for faith is, not proof but will. We can believe what we choose.”
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John Henry Newman was a Roman Catholic priest and cardinal who converted to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism in October 1845. In early life, he was a major figure in the Oxford Movement to bring the Church of England back to its Catholic roots.
Eventually his studies in history persuaded him to become a Roman Catholic. Both before and after becoming a Roman Catholic, he wrote a number of influential books.