[1] On 3 August 1928, Downey was appointed Archbishop of Liverpool by Pope Pius XI, succeeding the late Frederick William Keating.
A picture of Lutyens proposed cathedral was printed on postcards sold to raise funds.
I hope this one will be dedicated to Christ himself with a great figure surmounted on the cathedral, visible for many a mile out at sea".
[3] The Archbishop also declared that while the cathedral would not be medieval and Gothic, neither would it be as modern as the works of Jacob Epstein, a statement somewhat at odds with the design that was finally realised after his death.
[3] In 1933, after the urn containing the bones of King Edward V and Richard, Duke of York was removed from Westminster Abbey for examination and then returned with an Anglican burial service, Archbishop Downey said, "It is difficult to see what moral justification there can be for reading a Protestant service over the remains of these Roman Catholic princes, even though it were done on the plea of legal continuity of the present Anglican Church with the pre-Reformation Church of Britain".