The Archbishop of Liverpool, Mgr. Downey, will celebrate the Solemn Requiem Mass this (Friday) morning in St. Anne's Cathedral for Mgr. John Henry Poskitt, Bishop of Leeds, who died on Sunday morning.
The Bishop of Salford, Mgr. Marshall, will preach the
panegyric.
Several other members of the Hierarchy will be in the sanctuary.
Of yeoman stock, Mgr. Henry Poskitt was born at Birkin, a farming village near Pontefract, on September 6, 1888, ordained to the priesthood on July 15, 1917, and consecrated as Bishop of Leeds by the Archbishop of Liverpool on September 21, 1936.
He was the second Anglican priest from Leeds to become a Catholic Bishop, the first being Bishop Wilkinson of Hexham and Newcastle.
After ordination he was attached to the Middlesbrough diocese and was a citrate at Scarborough and parish priest at Bedale before he became rector of St. Joseph's Seminary, Leeds, a post he held up to his elevation to the bishopric. When he first became ill two years ago rest was enjoined by his medical advisers but rest was alien to one of his spiritual ardour and he carried on his duties with undiminished zeal and spirit until he collapsed at Lourdes last Whit Tuesday whilst leading the Leeds pilgrims in the Stations of the Cross.
Organiser
He made a partial recovery and was able to return with the pilgrims to Leeds where he was given a vociferous reception. That was his last public appearance. Two days later he had a cerebral haemorrhage and was anointed, and had been more Or less seriously ill since.
He excelled as administrator and organiser, and although public life apart from Catholic affairs made little appeal to him his sympathies were deep and wide. His love of Holy Church and his apostolic mission for its welfare and expansion was shown by the founding of numerous missions and Mass centres C. power-houses of the Faith," he called them).
Catholic organisations found in him a never-failing source of help and encouragement in time of stress or difficulty, particularly such as the C.W.L. in their work of rescue and the care of orphan and friendless children, the K.S.C. in their help for probationer boys (he founded St. John's Hostel at Leeds) and the C.P.E.A. in their fight for parental rights and justice for the schools.
" Be attractive"
In his pastorals he vigorously warned of the dangers of atheistic Communism, denounced State encroachment on family life, the spread of easy divorce and its attendant evils.
One of his lobbies was beeculture, at which he was an acknowledged expert. He avoided publicity but when the Press sought his views on Sunday openings of cinemas in Leeds he declared his warm support of the innovation.
Mgr. Poskitt was very keen that Catholic young men and women, while developing personal sanctity, should also develop their physical health and stamina by exercise, particularly hiking.
He told Catholic girls that they should not imagine that frumpishness is a virtue ; they should make themselves as attractive as God intended them to he.