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Cardinal Vaughan returns to his Cathedral


Source: Archbishops' House

The remains of the third Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Herbert Vaughan, were reinterred last night in the Cathedral he was responsible for building.

Since his death in June 1903 Cardinal Vaughan has been buried in the grounds of his other great foundation, St Joseph's Missionary College in Mill Hill. Cardinal Vaughan founded the Mill Hill missionaries as a young priest in 1866.

The Mill Hill Fathers, who are reviewing the future of St Joseph's, invited the Cathedral to inter the remains in the chantry chapel dedicated to the Cardinal.

But the move has been delayed until now by what Mgr Mark Langham, Westminster Cathedral's administrator, describes as "a mountain of bureaucracy". Permission needed to be sought from the Home Office, health and safety authorities, Westminster City Council, as well as the Historic Churches' Committee.

The service of prayer and re-internment was led by George Stack, auxiliary bishop of Westminster, in the presence of the Cardinal's descendants.

The remains were brought in a coffin from the marble tomb at St Joseph's to the Cathedral. The coffin was greeted at the West Door by Bishop Stack, who blessed it and committed it to a new grave in the chapel of St Thomas of Canterbury, known as "Cardinal Vaughan's Chantry".

Writing in this week's Cathedral newsletter, Mgr Langham said: "Now, the other side of this mountain of bureaucracy, we are able to lay the Cardinal to rest in the chapel freshly adorned with gleaming mosaic where for a century Masses have been said for his soul."

The re-internment was a quiet, private ceremony. A public celebration will be held on 29 April at 7pm, to which all are welcome.

The memorial to Cardinal Vaughan was designed by J A Marshall and carved by Henry McCarthy, a sculptor who had worked for Bentley, the architect of the Cathedral.

The Westminster Record reports: "It is hewn from pure white Pentelic and the Cardinal faces the altar, his head rested on a pair of tasselled cushions. "Clad in lace rochet and the characteristic skull-cap of prelates, the body is more slender than this imposing figure had been in real life."

Following the death of Cardinal Vaughan, the Cathedral's then publication, the Chronicle, noted that there were "three Cardinal Vaughans" "the stately and dignified prelate; the man known to his household and friends, full of charming kindness; the man of prayer, of solid tender piety."

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