Career
He was a Roman Catholic priest, the 7th Abbot of Downside Abbey, one-time Abbot President of the English Benedictine Congregation, an auxiliary bishop of Westminster, an internationally respected scripture scholar, a consistent defender of the priority of the Gospel according to Matthew, and the pre-eminent English-speaking Council Father at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). The next year, he became a monk of the Benedictine community of Downside Abbey – a House of the English Benedictine Congregation – and was ordained priest there in 1933. In 1946 the community elected him as their Abbot, which he remained for twenty years until his consecration in 1966 as Titular Bishop of Nova Barbara and Auxiliary Bishop to Cardinal John Carmel Heenan in the Archdiocese of Westminster.
lieutenant was in his capacity as Abbot President (1961-1966) of the English Benedictine Congregation and as an outstanding scripture scholar, that Butler was called to Rome to participate in Vatican II (1962–1965).
He was one of maybe two dozen "men who made the Council", contributing, often in fluent Latin, to many of the Council"s documents, e.g. The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei verbum) which he regarded as their very underpinning, and subsequently was a strong proponent of the teachings of Vatican World War II