Cardinal Basil Hume; Led Britain’s Catholics

Cardinal Basil Hume, leader of the Roman Catholic Church of England and Wales and one of the most admired public figures in Britain, died Thursday. He was 76.

Hume died just hours after a spokesman announced that his cancer had reached its final stages.

Although Catholics are a minority in England, where the established church is Protestant, Hume wielded broad influence and was credited with widening the appeal of the church and bringing Catholicism into the mainstream of English life.

In May, Queen Elizabeth II gave him the Order of Merit, a high honor and one of the few awards she bestows by personal choice rather than the government’s. In 1995, the queen, temporal head of the Church of England, signaled the acceptance of the Catholic Church in the life of the nation when she took the unusual step of attending a vespers service at Westminster Cathedral, Hume’s seat.

A cardinal for 23 years, Hume earned a place in many non-Catholic hearts for the moving prayers he offered at the time of Princess Diana’s death and his passionate support for the Newcastle United soccer team.

“He was goodness personified, a true holy man with extraordinary humility and an unswerving dedication,” Prime Minister Tony Blair said. “He did much to inspire people of all faiths, and [people of] none.”

Hume learned of his cancer in April. He was admitted to London’s Hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth at the end of May, but was able to go to Buckingham Palace on June 2 for a private meeting with the queen.

A funeral Mass is scheduled for June 25 at Westminster Cathedral. A memorial Mass will be held in September, church officials said.

Though he shepherded a flock of just 4.6 million, the cardinal’s ability to cut through complicated moral arguments made his a voice heard beyond his own church.

He surprised some more dogmatic Christians in 1993 when he affirmed the dignity of homosexuals, telling them “not to develop a sense of guilt” and condemning discrimination against them.

He believed in the value of priestly celibacy, but spoke occasionally about its loneliness.

“We are peddling unreal fantasies about what it is to be human,” he said recently. “Our society is very preoccupied with sex.”

George Haliburton Hume was born March 2, 1923, in Newcastle, northern England. He adopted the name Basil after taking his vows as a monk in 1945.

A surprise choice as Roman Catholic primate in 1976, he was abbot of Ampleforth Monastery and former head of its prestigious school, Ampleforth College.

Within a few months of his selection as primate, he was ordained a bishop, then archbishop of Westminster and then cardinal.

Some attributed Hume’s influence with the largely Protestant establishment in part to the fact that he was upper-middle class and English rather than Irish.

He was faced with the toughest test of his leadership in 1992 when thousands of Anglicans turned to the Roman Catholic Church after the Church of England voted to ordain female priests. Hume was praised for skillfully maintaining relations with Anglican leaders while accepting married Anglican clergymen into the otherwise celibate Catholic priesthood.

He had some detractors, who criticized an autocratic style of leadership and a 50% drop in Catholic church attendance during his leadership.

Yet Hume stuck hard and fast to the Vatican bans on abortion and the ordination of women as priests. Despite reaching out to gays and taking other liberal stands, he maintained the confidence of Pope John Paul II, who rejected his offer to resign last year, saying he wanted Hume to continue his work.