Cardinal Basil Hume and Archbishop Rembert Weakland: Friends who Turned a Stranger into A Friend

Cardinal Basil Hume and Archbishop Rembert Weakland: Friends who Turned a Stranger into A Friend Gertrude Feick O.C.S.O. (bio) Something said about Cardinal Basil Hume (1923–1999) shortly after his death remains with me, especially as the Church commemorates the centenary of his birth, followed by the 25th anniversary of his death. While researching topics for a doctoral thesis some years ago, I found these words spoken by Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (1948–2020): When I think of Cardinal Hume, I recall the words of Judaism's early sages. They asked: "Who is a hero?" They answered: "One who turns strangers into friends." That was his great gift. He drew people to him by his love of God and his deep feeling for humanity. While you were with him, you felt enlarged. He was a friend, and we were lucky to have him. . . . Serene in life, serene in the face of death, Cardinal Hume was a man of God who turned strangers into friends.1 At that moment I decided that I too wanted to turn strangers into friends. As it turns out, however, it is Cardinal Hume who continues to turn strangers into friends even after his death on June 17, 1999. The purpose of this article is to honor and keep alive the memory of two Benedictines, both public figures and highly influential Churchmen, namely, Cardinal Basil Hume and Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland (1927–2022). They became friends in 1966, three years after they were elected abbots in their respective monasteries: Hume at Ampleforth Abbey, York, United Kingdom, and Weakland at Saint Vincent Archabbey, Latrobe, Pennsylvania. "Baby abbots," as Archbishop Weakland called them, they met at the first meeting of abbots in the world after the Second Vatican Council. Both were monks and abbots; then Basil Hume "was appointed" Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, and Rembert Weakland was elected End Page 67 Abbot Primate of the Benedictine Confederation and later appointed Archbishop of Milwaukee. Throughout the years, their relationship was one of mutual support and respect and one into which I had the distinct honor and privilege of entering when I began formal research for my doctoral thesis in 2013.2 As part of my research, I conducted nineteen interviews with people who knew Basil Hume in a variety of capacities; the first was with Archbishop Weakland. The interview was foundational for my work and one for which I remain both highly indebted to Archbishop Weakland, and grateful to Cardinal Hume for turning two strangers into friends. My hope is that by sharing this edited and condensed interview here,3 more strangers will be turned into friends and be enlarged; the Church is graced to have both men to intercede for us. REMBERT G. WEAKLAND4: I was thinking, Gertrude, if I were to do what you are doing, something about Cardinal Hume and his spirituality, I think you would almost have to preface it on the spirituality of the English Benedictines that he was a part of. I say that because it is unique. It is not the same as the USA Benedictines. He comes out of the English; most of us come from more of a Germanic form of monasticism. His is English, which again is not Solesmes, even though it is true that the monks were in France for such a long period of time. I can't say that the spirituality dominated, but they had and still do have a very strong strain of medieval English, I'll call it mysticism, that we don't have in the USA. And it's a wonderful combination I have always admired because it has connected them with their school work. They seem to be able to keep these two together and I can't imagine anybody in the USA (especially our school monasteries) having that kind of deeper contemplative tradition to work out of. Yet I have always felt that Basil and the monks I knew from Ampleforth were imbued by it. And I brought this copy of Holy Wisdom by Augustine Baker with me because it was one of the only times I personally was influenced by it. It was something that Basil...