GREAT PRELATE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18597, 7 January 1935, Page 7

GREAT PRELATE

CARDINAL BOURNE

PONTIFICIAL REQUIEM

500 CLERGY ATTEND

(British Official Wireless.) Rec. 10 a.m. RUGB\, Jan. 4

When the remains of Cardinal Bourne rTils morning were carried into Westminster Cathedral from nearby, where they had lain in state, crowds knelt in prayer on the pavements and roadway.

At least 500 robed Catholic clergy ot all orders and from many parts of the world filed into the Cathedral after the coffin for a solemn Pontificial Requiem, which preceded the burial at St- Edmund's College, Ware, Hertfordshire. The Lord Mayor of London, Sir Stephen Killick,' attended in semi-state. Cardinal Bourne, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, who was in his seventy-fourth year, had been ill almost continuously for two years. Francis Bourne, who became CardinalArchbishop of Westminster, was born in London in March, 18LM, the son of a high official in the Post Office. A somewhat delicate hoy, lie was •educated for the priesthood at Usliaw College and St. .Edmund's College, Ware, going later to Cardinal-. Manning's seminary at Hammersmith and to St. Sulpice, Paris. After a course at- Louvain, lie. was ordained in 1884. His first important post was that of rector of the Southwark Diocesan Seminary. In 1895 he was given the dignity of nionsignor, and in 1896 consecrated Bishop of Epiphania. In the following year he became Bishop of Southwark, and on the death of Cardinal Vaughan in 1903, the Pope nominated Francis Bourne as Archbishop of Westminster, where he consecrated the great new Byzantine Cathedral. He was raised to the cardinalate in 1911. In the early days of the war Earl Kitchener declined to allow as many chaplains to proceed to France as Cardinal Bourne considered necessary but he induced Mr. Asquith to have his wishes carried out. The cardinal several times visited the troops on the Western Front and the fleet at Scapa Flow. In October, 1928. the cardinal celebrated his silver jubilee as archbishop and ill June. 1934, his golden jubilee as a priest, fin both occasions he received ’ many tributes both from Catholics and non-Oatholies. The cardinal, who was friendly with the late Primate of the Church'of England, Dr. Davidson, was tlie first man in his position to dine with the King- and Queen at Buckingham Palace. His policy was to extend the influence of Catholicism by having erected a number of small churches so that everyone should be within easy reach of Mass. A patriotic Englishman, he opposed the idea of setting up a Roman Catholic, university or starting a Roman Catholic party. • While he was against modernism, Cardinal Bourne was not hard on individual modernists. Ho was a highly efficient organiser and a skilful diplomatist. He did much to strengthen fiTe position of the Roman Catholic Church in England.