On Wednesday, 3 September 2025, during a Royal trip to Birmingham to open the new Midland Metropolitan University Hospital, King Charles III also made an official visit to tour the Oratory of St. Philip Neri on Hagley Road, Birmingham.
His Majesty was met by the Provost, Father Ignatius Harrison and given a walking tour of the site, first through the Oratory Church, then to the shrine of Cardinal Saint John Henry Newman before passing into the Oratory House to view Newman's library and his private rooms. There, the archivist and curator Daniel Joyce talked through some of the important artifacts connected with the saint, including Newman's copy of the Polyglot Bible and Elgar's score for the Dream of Gerontius.
At the end of the tour, King Charles unveiled a commemorative plaque to mark his visit and commented to Father Ignatius - "I have been trying for five years to come here and to persuade my office to fit it in.”
In October 2019, while Prince of Wales, the King attended the canonization of Cardinal Newman in Rome, where he spoke about Newman's "fearless honesty, unsparing rigour, and originality of thought,” and this visit of King Charles to the Oratory, so soon after the announcement of Newman's elevation to Doctor of the Church signifies the importance to the nation and to him personally of the first English Doctor of the Church since Venerable Bede.
The National Institute for Newman Studies has worked in partnership with the Birmingham Oratory since 2012, collaborating with Father Ignatius Harrison and Daniel Joyce on projects including the archive preservation and digitization, as well as library conservation work.