Cardinal who pointed us to the best.Cardinal Basil Hume George Basil Cardinal Hume OSB, OM, MA, STL (March 2, 1923—June 17, 1999) was an English prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Westminster from 1976 and President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales from 1979 until his death. , the Archbishop of Westminster The Archbishop of Westminster heads the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster, in England. The incumbent is the Metropolitan of the Province of Westminster and, as a matter of custom, is elected President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, and therefore , died on 17 June mourned not just by Britain's Roman Catholics but by many of different faiths and of none. He was in a sense a `reluctant' Archbishop. As the relatively unknown Benedictine Abbot of Ampleforth, he was appalled when his name was first mooted: `Me Archbishop?' he said. `Don't be so ridiculous! I'd make a lousy archbishop.' Yet his sense of obedience was greater than his love of the life of a monk. He thus suddenly found himself not only the leader of the Roman Catholics of England and Wales England and Wales are both constituent countries of the United Kingdom, that together share a single legal system: English law. Legislatively, England and Wales are treated as a single unit (see State (law)) for the conflict of laws. but a voice of faith and conscience for the country--`a towering figure in the moral landscape of Britain', to quote the Chief Rabbi "Chief Rabbinate" redirects here. See also Chief Rabbinate of Israel. Chief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognised religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities. , Jonathan Sacks. `It was because people recognized that he was full of love and humility that they felt ... that he was a man of special value to them,' commented William Rees-Mogg in The Times. Indeed, his was a leadership born of devotion to God rather than confidence in his own abilities. In its obituary, The Times wrote: `His diffident but powerful personality became firmly impressed on the public consciousness ...' `Throughout his life he was more fearful of praise than criticism,' said John Crowley, the Bishop of Middlesbrough The Bishop of Middlesbrough is the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Middlesbrough in the Province of Liverpool. The diocese covers an area of 4,000 km² of the Counties of North and East Yorkshire together with the City of York. , giving the sermon at Hume's funeral: `To a friend whose virtues were being over-sung in his hearing he remarked, "Enjoy that, but don't inhale please!"' For his funeral, Cardinal Hume chose a reading from the Book of Wisdom (Chapter 13, verses 1-9). The Independent writer Paul Vallely described it as `a paean Paean (pē`ən), Paean was an epithet for Apollo, the healer. The paean, a hymn of praise to Apollo and often to other gods, was sung as a prayer for safety or deliverance at battles and other important occasions. to the God responsible for a world of beauty, with a sting-in-the-tale (sic) admonition Any formal verbal statement made during a trial by a judge to advise and caution the jury on their duty as jurors, on the admissibility or nonadmissibility of evidence, or on the purpose for which any evidence admitted may be considered by them. for those who see the former and fail to make the connection to the God who made it'. Crowley commented, `It is a very strong passage, reflecting the Cardinal's deep and growing concern that the judgement on our age might finally be: "We were clever but not wise. If they had the power to know so much that they could investigate the world, how did they fail to find sooner the Lord of these things."' One of Cardinal Hume's last remarks was: `Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven--that's the only thing which really matters. What God wants for us is what is best for us.' It is the clue to how to bridge the gap between cleverness and the wisdom which we so badly need if we are to make a go of this world of ours. |
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