Cardinal John Henry Newman, an influential 19th-century Anglican theologian who converted to Roman Catholicism, moved a step closer to possible sainthood Friday after the pope approved a miracle attributed to his intercession.

Pope Benedict XVI ruled that the recovery of a Boston-area resident who for years suffered from a spinal disorder was miraculous, meaning Newman can now be beatified. A second miracle is necessary for him to be declared a saint—an event which, if it happens, would make Newman the first English-born saint since the Reformation.

Newman, a hero to many Anglicans and Catholics alike, was one of the founders of the so-called Oxford Movement of the 1830s, which sought to revive certain Roman Catholic doctrines in the Church of England by looking back to the traditions of the earliest Christian church. Anglicans split from Rome in 1534 when English King Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment.