Cardinal Basil Hume

Looking for God with a monastic master in contemplative prayer.

Following Cardinal Basil Hume's death on 17 June 1999, The Times concluded his obituary with a remarkable accolade: 'Few churchman in this century, inside or outside the Catholic Church, have died more deeply loved.' Basil Hume served as Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster for twenty-three years and his holiness and wisdom made him an extraordinary leader. In this enthralling biography, Anthony Howard, who has had unique access to Cardinal Hume's private papers and the people who knew him best, traces his life, from his Newcastle upbringing through to his schooling at Ampleforth and his reign at Westminster, including his long and ultimately successful fight on behalf of the Maguire Seven and the Guildford Four.

This timely volume marks the twentieth anniversary of the death of Cardinal Basil Hume (1923-1999), Benedictine monk of Ampleforth Abbey, Archbishop of Westminster. Hume's Benedictine spirituality and his personal dedication to prayer gave him the ability to relate to other pilgrims who seek the living and true God. Hume, the monk, pastor, and preacher, still speaks to contemporary Benedictines, the wider Church, and the world. Even though, as Hume stated, 'In our public life we move further and further away from God and the things of God', he added, 'in the hearts of men and women I believe that the yearning for God is becoming more and more intense'. That yearning, as this book demonstrates, was at the core of Basil Hume's search for God--for Hume, the way of a pilgrim.

A full, rounded, yet critical study of Cardinal Basil Hume.

This addition to Hodder's 'In My Own Words' series is a tribute to this remarkable man who always focused on his God, never on himself, and who has left a legacy of serenity and joy as a model for life as a Christian.

Cardinal Basil Hume has spent 50 years as a Benedictine monk and, to celebrate, this text looks at the man, his achievements and his vocation. Written by some of the Cardinal's closest friends and associates, it offers an insight into the life and work of the highly respected leader of Britain's 5 million Catholics.

Arising out of a game of "hide-and-seek" that Cardinal Hume played many years ago with two young children, Basil in Blunderland is a book to enchant and inspire. On the day the children invited him to play with them, he had not meditated, and as a monk he was required to do half an hour of mental prayer each day. How, he wondered, could he play hide-and-seek and, at the same time, meditate? As the book unfolds we see how each hiding place in fact became a place to pray and how each suggested thoughts about the spiritual life.

After the persecutions that followed the Reformation, the Catholic Church that re-emerged in the 19th century was a defensive, introspective one, largely made up of working-class immigrants and a handful of land-owning families who kept the faith despite adversity. It was viewed with some suspicion by the English Establishment as something foreign, subversive, to be held at arm's length. But particularly after World War II a new generation of educated Catholics emerged, outward-looking, questioning, anxious to take their places in society. Peter Standford argues that Basil Hume's appointment was a symbol of change. His very Englishness has exorcised some of the nightmares in the national subconscious about the Catholic Church. And in his struggles as a leader with a flock that is not as obedient as once it was, the cardinal has redefined English Catholicism by blending its traditional theological conservatism with a liberal pastoral practice.