Education
From 1880 to 1881 he attended Saint Thomas" Seminary in Hammersmith, and then went to study in France at Saint-Sulpice Seminary in Paris and the University of Leuven.
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From 1880 to 1881 he attended Saint Thomas" Seminary in Hammersmith, and then went to study in France at Saint-Sulpice Seminary in Paris and the University of Leuven.
He served as Archbishop of Westminster from 1903 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1911. Born in Clapham to an English Civil Servant father and an Irish mother, Francis Bourne entered Saint Cuthbert College at Ushaw Moor, County Durham in 1867 and then Saint Edmund"s College in Ware in 1877. While in Paris, he met the Italian saint Don Bosco, and considered joining Don Bosco"s Salesian Order.
He was ordained to the priesthood on 11 June 1884, and then did pastoral work in Blackheath, Mortlake, and West Grinstead until 1889.
Bourne was rector of the House of Studies at Henfield Place from 1889 to 1891, at which time he began teaching at Saint John"s Seminary in Wonersh, of which he became rector on 14 March 1896. He was raised to the rank of Domestic Prelate of His Holiness by Pope Leo XIII in 1895.
On 27 March 1896 Bourne was appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Southwark and Titular Bishop of Epiphania in Cilicia. He received his episcopal consecration on the following 1 May from Cardinal Herbert Vaughan, with Bishops John Baptist Butt and Thomas Whiteside, in Saint George"s Cathedral.
Bourne later succeeded Butt as Bishop of Southwark on 9 April 1897, and was named Archbishop of Westminster on 11 September 1903.
Archbishop
In defiance of the governmental law banning Eucharistic processions, Bourne gave the benediction from the loggia of Westminster Cathedral in 1908. He was created Cardinal-Priest of South. Pudenziana by Pope Pius X in the consistory of 27 November 1911, and was a cardinal elector in the conclaves of 1914 and again in 1922, which selected Popes Benedict XV and Pius XI respectively. Rather conservative, Bourne was opposed to Modernism.
He also condemned granting greater freedom to divorce and birth control.
He also desired to see the United Kingdom adopt Roman Catholic faith as its official religion. He died from a year"s illness in his archiepiscopal residence in London, at age 73.
Bourne responded to Ramsay MacDonald"s call for an English Catholic prelate"s interpretation of Pius XI"s encyclical Quadragesimo anno, which forbade Catholics from being Socialists, by stating, "There is nothing in the encyclical which should deter Catholics from becoming members of the British Labour Party.." However, the Cardinal continued to warn Catholics to be cautious of the "erroneous principles which sometimes affect parties.".