OBITUARY
Monsignor Dr Antony Francis Maximilian Conlon 14 July 1947 – 19 April 2020
A
ntony Francis Maximilian Conlon was born in Dublin on Bastille Day, which date justifiably annoyed him ever after, in 1947. Educated in Ireland, he came to London, where he worked in the Economist bookshop while discerning his priestly vocation. Living in Westminster, he made the Cathedral his home, and absorbed the rich and glorious liturgical tradition which still prevailed in those days of the 1960s. His vocation grew week by week at Westminster Cathedral, serving Mass and Vespers each Sunday, under the encouragement of the Master of Ceremonies, the excellent Monsignor Peter Anglim. There he made many lifelong friends, who would get together for tea after Vespers, a good tradition of ‘enculturation’ sadly lost. His understanding of friendship invariably extended to his friends’ families, and whenever he could he would travel to celebrate weddings, baptisms, and funerals. It was at this time that he first got to know Viscount Furness, a great benefactor of the Cathedral, both of the sacristy and the Archbishop’s wine cellar, and avid supporter of the Old Mass. They quickly formed a lifelong bond. Lord Furness first encouraged the young Conlon to join the Order of Malta and later supported him financially as a student for the priesthood in Valladolid. Conlon was the only seminarian in his day to have a motorcar, the result of the generosity of Lord Furness; an excellent gift, and as every student knows, an instant ticket to fun and popularity. It was through this great fondness for the Cathedral that he was overjoyed, much later, to be able to offer, as Chaplain of the Latin Mass Society, the first High Mass at the restored High Altar, after the removal of ‘the box’. It gave him immense pleasure and pride. The accident of age meant that Conlon was to bridge the changes from the old days to the post-Vatican II Church while at seminary. In his first year it was strictly
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Mgr Conlon celebrating Mass for the LMS Pilgrimage to Caversham
cassock every day, when visiting a fellowstudent’s room one had to leave one’s biretta on the floor outside, so the Rector knew who was where. Sensible, we might think; a lesson forgotten at great cost. By his second year it was jeans and casual shirts. This, as the liturgical changes, left a profound mark on the young historian, who forever regretted the loss of Tradition and the impoverishment of the Church’s culture. Antony Conlon was no late convert to Tradition, but from the early days before his ordination never lost his love for the church of his childhood, and all that was so tragically lost during his formative years. As the Council Fathers had wanted, his entire understanding of the changes to the liturgy were filtered through the prism of Tradition, and this explains, of course, his great appeal to the young, and his myriad converts. It also, less nobly, explains why many in the hierarchy misunderstood him and his great gifts. He came back to England and was ordained by George Basil Cardinal Hume on the feast of St Philip Neri 1979. A felicitous date, St Philip’s charism was indeed to colour all of Fr Antony’s priesthood, one of constant joy and hard work among the needy and often
neglected. His ordination was the first time he was able publicly to live up to the nickname he was to gain as a student in Rome – ‘Mega’ (short for ‘megaglitz’ a buzzword he frequently used). The procession entered to Parry’s anthem ‘I was glad’, and he was the first man to be ordained in a Roman chasuble (19th century red velvet with heavy gold embroidery) for many years! He spent his curacies first in the parish of Kingsbury; then at Our Lady of the Rosary, Marylebone, where he made another lifelong friend, Canon Michael Brockie, later Parish Priest of Holy Redeemer Chelsea and Provost of the Cathedral Chapter; and later at Our Lady of Hal in Camden Town, a dull church, which he rapidly embellished with his first artistic commission, a vast canvas of a Crucifix, not entirely to the PP’s liking. Cardinal Hume then sent him to the Venerable English College in Rome to study for a Licence in Church History at the Pontifical Gregorian University. On his return he was curate at St Mary’s Cadogan Street, comfortably renewing his contact with many Order friends, and then appointed Parish Priest of St Joseph, Bunhill Row on the edge of the City of London.
AUTUMN 2020
