Francis Bourne

Francis Alphonsus Bourne (1861–1935) was an English prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Westminster from 1903 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1911.

Early life

Born in Clapham to an English Civil Servant father and an Irish mother, Francis Bourne entered St. Cuthbert College at Ushaw Moor, County Durham in 1867 and then St. Edmund's College in Ware in 1877. He joined the Order of Friars Preachers, more commonly known as the Dominicans, in Woodchester but left in 1880. From 1880 to 1881 he attended St. Thomas' Seminary in Hammersmith, and then went to study in France at Saint-Sulpice Seminary in Paris and the University of Leuven. While in Paris, he met the Italian saint Don Bosco, and considered joining Don Bosco's Salesian Order.

He was ordained to the priesthood on 11 June 1884, and then did pastoral work in Blackheath, Mortlake, and West Grinstead until 1889. Bourne was rector of the House of Studies at Henfield Place from 1889 to 1891, at which time he began teaching at St. John's Seminary in Wonersh, of which he became rector on 14 March 1896. He was raised to the rank of Domestic Prelate of His Holiness by Pope Leo XIII in 1895.

On 27 March 1896 Bourne was appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Southwark and Titular Bishop of Epiphania in Cilicia. He received his episcopal consecration on the following 1 May from Cardinal Herbert Vaughan, with Bishops John Baptist Butt and Thomas Whiteside, in St. George's Cathedral. Bourne later succeeded Butt as Bishop of Southwark on 9 April 1897, and was named Archbishop of Westminster on 11 September 1903. As Archbishop of Westminster, he became the spiritual head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.

Archbishop

In defiance of the governmental law banning Eucharistic processions, Bourne gave the benediction from the loggia of Westminster Cathedral in 1908. He was created Cardinal-Priest of S. Pudenziana by Pope Pius X in the consistory of 27 November 1911, and was a cardinal elector in the conclaves of 1914 and again in 1922, which selected Popes Benedict XV and Pius XI respectively.

Bourne responded to Ramsay MacDonald's call for an English Catholic prelate's interpretation of Pius XI's encyclical Quadragesimo anno, which forbade Catholics from being Socialists, by stating, "There is nothing in the encyclical which should deter Catholics from becoming members of the British Labour Party..." However, the Cardinal continued to warn Catholics to be cautious of the "erroneous principles which sometimes affect parties."

Rather conservative, Bourne was opposed to Modernism, but he was prudent in his handling of the Modernist crisis in England. The leading lay English Catholic intellectual at the time, Baron Friedrich von Hügel, was on the moderate wing of the Modernist movement. Knowing of von Hügel's holiness and fundamental loyalty, Bourne told the Baron's daughter Thekla, "I have never got him into trouble and I never will." Michael de la Bédoyère describes Bourne as "a prelate whose wisdom and statesmanship have never been sufficiently acknowledged".

He was not overly supportive of interfaith dialogue nor of ecumenism (he notably opposed the holding of the Malines Conversations between prominent Anglicans and Catholics). He condemned granting greater freedom to divorce and use birth control. He also desired to see the United Kingdom adopt Roman Catholic faith as its official religion.

He died from a year's illness in his archiepiscopal residence in London, at age 73. Bourne was buried at his alma mater of St. Edmund's College, Ware, Hertfordshire, in the chapel he established in memory of the College's members who died during World War I, and his heart was placed in the chapel of St. John's Seminary at Wonersh, Surrey, in June 1935.