> Newman's beatification was still dragging on fitfully when Pope Benedict fast-tracked him two years ago. On a wet October day in 2008, an assortment of priest

> Newman's beatification was still dragging on fitfully when Pope Benedict fast-tracked him two years ago. On a wet October day in 2008, an assortment of priests and grave-diggers arrived at the cemetery in Rednal, armed with shovels and a mechanical digger. They planned to transfer Newman's remains to a tomb back at his church in Birmingham. Nothing was found except the brass name-plate and a few bits of rotten wood. A solution to the mystery was discovered in the archives of the Birmingham Post. A journalist at the burial reported that, on Newman’s orders, the grave was filled with compost to hasten decomposition. His corpse (someone described him in great age as toothless and shrivelled like "a shrimp") had apparently dissolved into the soil. He had cheated the relic hunters. https://www.ft.com/content/0e6f301c-baea-11df-9e1d-00144feab49a https://www.ft.com/content/0e6f301c-baea-11df-9e1d-00144feab... for anyone else who was curious :)