Richard Downey

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Richard Downey (May 5, 1881—June 16, 1953) was an English prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Liverpool from 1928 until his death.

Born in Kilkenny, he was ordained to the priesthood on May 25, 1907. On August 3, 1928, Downey was appointed Archbishop of Liverpool by Pope Pius XI, replacing the late Frederick William Keating. He received his Episcopal consecration on the following September 21 from Francis Cardinal Bourne, with Bishops Robert Dobson and Francis Vaughan serving as co-consecrators.

Downey's tenure saw the construction and dedication of the Liverpool Cathedral. In 1929, before the actual construction began, he stated, "Hitherto all cathedrals have been dedicated to saints. 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"^[1]. 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^[2].

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"^[3].