A secular beatification

Cardinal Hume is being venerated by. an unbelieving world hungry for icons, argues Michael McMahon

THE tumult and the chanting dies; the captains and the kings - or, at least, their representatives - depart. The televised obsequies for Cardinal Basil Hume OSB, OM, are over, and the man is now buried in his box. May he rest in peace. I only met him once, 20 years ago, but it was such an extraordinary meeting that it is as fresh in my memory now as if it had been, like his funeral, last week. I had just been elected chairman of the Latin Mass Society, which had been founded to preserve the ancient liturgy rejected and vilified in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, and my first official duty was to present myself to the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.

It was not a happy encounter. As I entered the Cardinal's study, his face registered surprise. How old was I? Twentyfive, I told him. He then launched into what I can only describe as a tirade, asking me how someone of my age could dare to lecture him on the liturgy, not allowing me time to tell him that I hadn't, and informing me that 'traditionalists' were all the same: we had no concern for the things that should really be exercising Christians, such as social justice and the plight of the urban poor. (Not true, I would have said, if he had let me.) Moreover, we were all in danger of becoming schismatics - `and schism is worse than sex, you know!' he spluttered. Taken aback as I was, I managed to say that I thought I knew what he meant.

When he finally stopped, I was allowed to ask questions - permissions for an oldrite Mass here, and another one there - to each of which he snapped an unqualified 'No'. And then it was over. A secretarypriest appeared and I was shown to the door. But the Cardinal insisted on accompanying me down the main staircase of that sombre outbuilding of the uncompleted basilica that casts such a drab shadow over the McDonald's piazza. As we descended, he softened visibly.

'I am not,' he said to me kindly, `always like this, you know.'

`Your Eminence,' I replied, 'I am very glad to hear it.'

And, indeed, as one has read almost everywhere recently, he wasn't. He was, by most accounts, a saint - a judgment which it is not my purpose to dispute. Even saints are entitled to have their off days, and it is, paradoxically, encouraging for us very much more worldly types to discover that the holiest of men can sometimes show the same weaknesses as the rest of us. But, that said, the fact that my one meeting with him this side of Heaven was an unpleasant one at least meant that upon learning he had died I was able to retain my critical faculties. For, while acknowledging the man's goodness (and, after all, it is only that which ultimately matters), there are some interesting observations to be made about the general reaction to his death.

Copyright Spectator Jul 3, 1999
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