THE 1920 PAGEANT
Cardinal Bourne’s Scrapbook Fr John Scott
The spread of the Covid-19 pandemic and consequent reduction of Oremus magazine to a half-length online-only production for the months of May and June unfortunately prevented this piece from being published to mark the centenary of St Joan of Arc’s canonisation. However, another century cannot be left to pass before the record of the great Canonisation Pageant is looked at again.
On 16 May 1920 a great pageant took place in and around the Cathedral to celebrate the Canonisation of St Joan of Arc. This was widely reported and the Catholic Women’s League worked hard to gather as many images and newspaper reports of the event as they could, finally binding them all into a scrapbook which they presented to the Cardinal: ‘As a remembrance and a record and with [their] affectionate homage .. and a desire to carry out their Cardinal’s wishes, and with the help of the Cathedral Clergy to honour St Joan on the day of her Canonisation’. It is no exaggeration to say that interest was nationwide, indeed if not also noted overseas. The names of a number of the papers are still familiar today – The Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mirror, Daily Mail and the Daily Express – whilst the Daily Sketch, Daily Chronicle and Morning Post have passed into oblivion. The Tablet and The Universe among religious papers are well represented in the scrapbook. In the rest of the country we find the Leeds Mercury, the Manchester Dispatch, the Sheffield Telegraph and the Birmingham Gazette, the Liverpool Courier and the Yorkshire Post. Across the Irish Sea, the Irish Independent reported, whilst north of the border the Glasgow Evening Times. Over the Channel we hear from L’Argus Soissonnais and La Justice, Havre and, from further afield, the Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg. 10
from numerous guilds. A figure representing the martyr’s triumph and the representation of St Joan of Arc on horseback, with attendant pages, were the outstanding features of the procession; but there was much interest in the French peasant children in dress of the period, in the French Embassy representatives, in the members of the French Red Cross, in the Brothers of the Little Oratory, the Ladies of Charity, the Catholic Suffrage Society, the Catholic nurses, several of them wearing the Mons medal, and the Catholic Police Guild, who brought up the rear.
The mosaic shrine, decorated for the occasion
The report of the Morning Post informs us that: ‘To mark yesterday’s canonisation of Joan of Arc as a saint of the Catholic Church, a solemn religious pageant in her honour was arranged by the Catholic Women’s League. It was a striking procession, and was witnessed by huge crowds in the immediate precincts of Westminster Cathedral. There was all the wealth of colour associated with celebrations of the kind, and those who participated in it displayed a religious fervour which vastly impressed the thousands of onlookers. Following contingents of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides there came many children from various schools. Nearly all the girls wore picturesque veils, as did their elder sisters who formed the contingents
Along the greater part of the route hymns were sung by the processionists. The Band of the Irish Guards, stationed outside the Cathedral, played whilst the procession was forming. On returning to the Cathedral there was a service at which Mgr Brown, Fr Smith and Fr Moore officiated, but so great was the crowd that an overflow service was held in the open-air, this being conducted by
St Joan of Arc, prepared for the procession Oremus
November 2020
