Basil Hume
Cardinal Basil Hume OSB ( born March 2, 1923 in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom, † June 17, 1999 in London), actually George Haliburton Hume, was a monk of Ampleforth Abbey and Archbishop of Westminster, and from 1979 to 1999 the President of the Bishops ' Conference of England and Wales.
Life
Basil Hume was born in 1923 when George Haliburton Hume, the son of a Scottish doctor and a French Catholic mother. He had three sisters and a brother. At the age of 16, he first thought about it, join the Dominicans, but was finally in September 1941 novice in the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of Ampleforth in Yorkshire; there he received the religious name " Basil ".
Hume had been on the Ampleforth Abbey College, a public school in England, students as early as 1933/34, and studied now following his novitiate at St. Benet 's Hall, Oxford and the University of Fribourg ( Switzerland ). In 1945 he made his final vows on Ampleforth Abbey, 1950 he was ordained a priest. According to studies by Ampleforth returned, taught Father Basil Hume there modern foreign languages. In 1963 he was elected abbot of his monastery, which he did. Up to his elevation to Archbishop of Westminster ( 1976) by Pope Paul VI remained. This choice surprised many, because he was not a plausible candidate for this office because he lacked practice in terms of leading a diocese and he was therefore seen as an outsider. On May 24, 1976 it took Paul VI. as cardinal priest with the titular church of San Silvestro in Capite in the College of Cardinals. In the Vatican, he becomes a member of several Roman dicasteries. From 1978-1987 was Cardinal Hume also President of the Council of European Bishops' Conferences.
During the Conclave, was elected to the Pope John Paul II, Hume was, in the opinion of many classified to favorites and was also in the following years as a bishop with high chances of the papacy.
He was honored by Queen Elizabeth II with the Order of Merit in 1999. In the same year he died at the age of 76 years from the consequences of a cancer suffering and was buried in Westminster Cathedral.