Francis Bourne

Francis Alphonsus Bourne (23 March 1861 – 1 January 1935) was an English prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as the fourth Archbishop of Westminster from 1903 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1911.

Biography

Early life Francis Bourne was born in Clapham to Henry and Ellen Byrne Bourne on 23 March 1861. His father, a civil servant was a convert and his mother, an Irish Catholic. Bourne entered St. Cuthbert College at Ushaw Moor, County Durham in 1867 and then upon the death of his older brother in 1877, it was decided that Francis should move to St. Edmund's College in Ware, which was considered a better location for someone of his delicate health. It was while at St. Edmund's that he decided to become a priest. 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 to study philosophy, and then went to study in France at Saint-Sulpice Seminary in Paris and the University of Leuven. While in Paris, he met Don Bosco, and considered joining Bosco's Salesian Order.

He was ordained to the priesthood on 11 June 1884 at St. Mary's in Clapham, by Bishop Robert Coffin, the same priest who had baptized him at St. Mary's years before. However, the cardinal continued to warn Catholics to be cautious of the "erroneous principles which sometimes affect parties." In a radio broadcast he strongly condemned the 1926 United Kingdom general strike as an illegitimate challenge to the sovereignty of Parliament and as such to "lawfully constituted authority", which represents "the authority of God himself."

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". 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 the use of birth control. He also desired to see the United Kingdom adopt Roman Catholic faith as its official religion.

He died after a year's illness in his archepiscopal 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.