After Ampleforth, Hume went on to study at St Benet's Hall, Oxford, a Benedictine institution, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in modern history.

[7] On 9 February 1976, Hume was appointed Archbishop of Westminster, the highest ranking prelate in the Catholic Church in England and Wales, by Pope Paul VI.

"[6] Hume received his episcopal consecration on the following 25 March (the feast of the Annunciation) from Archbishop Bruno Heim in Westminster Cathedral.

"[9] After the death of Bobby Sands in May 1981, debate over the moral aspects of the strike in The Tablet and whether or not it constituted suicide took place.

Following the deaths of Patsy O'Hara and Raymond McCreesh later that month, Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich asked the British government to acquiesce to the hunger strikers' basic demands, seeking to focus more on the question of injustice leading to such an event, while the English Catholic Church preferred to focus on the question of suicide more heavily.

[14] Despite that comment, Hume supported Humanae vitae and regretted that the British government would rely on using condoms to address AIDS.

[15] Hume's time in office saw Catholicism become more accepted in British society than it had been for 400 years, culminating in the first visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Westminster Cathedral in 1995.

In 1998, Hume asked John Paul II for permission to retire, expressing the wish to return to Ampleforth and devote his last years to peace and solitude, fly fishing and following his beloved Newcastle United Football Club.

John Paul II, in his message of condolence to the Church in England and Wales, praised Hume as a "shepherd of great spiritual and moral character".

In 2005, the Yorkshire Post reported: "Pupils at a leading Roman Catholic school suffered decades of abuse from at least six paedophiles following a decision by former Abbot Basil Hume not to call in police at the beginning of the scandal.

"[19] In 1984, Hume nominated Jimmy Savile as a member of the Athenaeum, a gentlemen's club in London's Pall Mall.

[20] Hume was regularly named Britain's most popular religious figure in opinion polls and this was attributed by some to the great humility and warmth with which he treated everyone he met, regardless of their religion or background.