Background
John Heenan was born in Ilford, Essex, the youngest of four children of Irish parents John and Anne Heenan (née Pilkington).
archbishop bishop cardinal priest
John Heenan was born in Ilford, Essex, the youngest of four children of Irish parents John and Anne Heenan (née Pilkington).
Heenan studied at Saint Ignatius College in Stamford Hill, Ushaw College in Durham, and the Venerable English College in Rome before being ordained to the priesthood on 6 July 1930.
He served as Archbishop of Westminster from 1963 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1965. Early life and ordination
He auditioned for Westminster Cathedral Choir School at age 9, but Sir Richard Terry rejected him for his "metallic voice". He then did pastoral work in Brentwood until 1947, at which time he became Superior of the Catholic Missionary Society of England and Wales.
By this time he had published a biography (1943) of Arthur Cardinal Hinsley, Archbishop of Westminster, who had recently died.
Bishop
On 27 January 1951, Heenan was appointed the fifth Bishop of Leeds by Pope Pius XII. He received his episcopal consecration on the following 12 March from Archbishop William Godfrey, with Bishops Joseph McCormack and John Petit serving as co-consecrators. Named the sixth Archbishop of Liverpool on 2 May 1957, Heenan was later appointed the eighth Archbishop of Westminster on 2 September 1963.
Positions during the Second Vatican Council
A participant of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), Heenan showed himself to be of a conservative mind. He opposed Gaudium et spes, the Council"s constitution on the Church in the modern world, saying that it had been "written by clerics with no knowledge of the world".
The English prelate also condemned the periti, or theological experts, who sought to change the Church"s doctrine on birth control.
Cardinal
He was created Cardinal-Priest of South. Silvestro in Capite by Pope Paul VI in the consistory of 22 February 1965. In 1968, Heenan was named President of the Catholic Bishops" Conference of England and Wales. He died from a heart attack in London at age 70, and is buried in Westminster Cathedral, under the twelfth Station of the Cross ("Jesus dies on the Cross").
"A church that is half empty is half full.".
In this position, Heenan criticized the United States for being too concerned about communism, and not enough about spiritual matters.
Quotations:
"A church that is half empty is half full."
"At home it is not only women and children but also fathers of families and young men who come regularly to Massachusetts If we were to offer them the kind of ceremony we saw yesterday in the Sistine Chapel we would soon be left with a congregation mostly of women and children.".