Interview With Cardinal Gasquet

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 7, 18 February 1925, Page 49

Interview With Cardinal Gasquet

7On the eve of his Eminence’s golden jubilee as a priest (says the London Catholic Times for December 27) our Roman reprej sentative called at the famous Moroni Pali ace, in Trastevere, where Cardinal Gasquet has his residence. Our representative was very graciously received, and was willingly accorded a brief interview, although his Eminence was in the full current of the, congratulatory reception of a busy afternoon. After a few moments’ preliminary conversation, our representative ventured to ask one or two questions. The interview was as follows; Would your Eminence be so kind as to tell the readers of the Catholic Times something about your youth? Most certainly. I was born almost within sound of Bow Bells, and am therefore what people call a Cockney. As a boy I was at school in Downside, and there I became intimate with Dorn Roger Vaughan, who afterwards became Archbishop of Sydney. He made a lasting impression on me as a boy. Owing largely to his influence, I went to the Benedictine novitiate. 1 made my solemn vows as a Benedictine in 1870 at Belmont in Herefordshire, where I also made my ecclesiastical studies. Roger Vaughan was the Prior in my time. Among my teachers there, perhaps the most remarkable was Dr. Hedley. A diligent student all his life, he was also a born teacher, brimful of information and most interested in all his students. A rather brusque manner . somewhat concealed his natural amiability. ! He gave one a real love of study, and succeeded in making more than one of his students a lover of books. He was a very stimulating personality. How did your Eminence first take up historical research ? Strangely enough, owing to a break down in health. I suffered some illness —heait trouble, I believe —through overwork as Prior of Downside, and the doctors gave me six months to live. That was 46 years ago, in 1878. I had to give up my incessantadministrative activity, but on medical advice I kept going gently at the subject which I had been teaching at Downside, namely, history. Just about this time Pope Leo XIII issued his famous Encyclical on historical studies. In a personal request to Cardinal Manning, he asked the Cardinal to get English ecclesiastics to do research work on the origins of the Reformation, because as his Holiness said, knowledge of the facts was one of the best argumentative weapons the- Church in England would have against attacks made in the spirit of the day. I happened to be on the convalescent list at the time, and I got the order therefore from the Pope, through Cardinal Manning, to do some work in that line. That is really how oft I began. The work brought me into contact with all classes of educated non-Catholics in England. It was an experience the memory of which I value. I must say that I never met with anything but kindness and con-

SOME PERSONAL REMINISCENCES,

sideration from those' non-Catholic associates of mine. I think that at any time they would have been prepared to give me any honor in their power to offer; this is especially true of those of my many friends in the, Historical Association. When I became Cardinal my non-Catholic friends in London literally showered congratulations on ,me and gave me every evidence of their good will and pleasure at my elevation to the Sacred College.

What of the present position of Catholicism in England? -■■■ The condition of the Church in England, : to-day is such as to admit of no real comparison with what it was when I was a boy; Catholics are now to ..be .found in every walk of life in England. J think that much of the change in what one might call the social aspect of Catholicism in England is due to the work of Cardinal Newman. I never knew -him- very -well personally, for he was already old when I was -a young priest. But I believe that it was certainly he who "lifted Catholicism in England and gave it the possibility of being the prosperous institution it is to-day.