Thomas Kenneth Augustine Hoey, universally known as Fr Augustine, died just short of his 102nd birthday on 22 September 2017, in St Peter’s Residence, Vauxhall in the Archdiocese of Southwark. He is buried in the Churchyard of St Mary’s Church, Walsingham in Norfolk.
Fr Augustine spent much of his life as an Anglican and as a member of the Community of the Resurrection (CR), living and working in the mother house of the Community in Mirfield, West Yorkshire and also in South Africa, Manchester, Sunderland and London. He developed a reputation across the Anglican Communion for leading parish missions and schools of prayer as well as for his preaching, hearing confessions and giving spiritual direction.
After much prayer, and indeed, as he saw it, the intervention of Our Lady Herself, he asked to be received into the Catholic Church in the early 1990s, thus occasioning his withdrawal from CR. Cardinal Basil Hume, who received him, recommended that he associate himself with Order of St Benedict, which he did by making his Benedictine Oblation at Cockfosters Priory. Cardinal Hume subsequently ordained Augustine to the priesthood of the Catholic Church and he resumed his life as a confessor, spiritual guide, preacher and teacher of the art of prayer.
Throughout his life, Fr Augustine exhibited a deep and intimate love of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of her Shrine at Walsingham. Through this relationship, he came to understand the imperative of Christian unity and worked constantly through prayer to make that a reality. He felt strongly that dialogue and debate about doctrine were of themselves insufficient and that what was urgently needed was a spirituality of ecumenism. This fuelled a burning desire to establish an ecumenical house of prayer in Walsingham; something he never achieved in the way he desired but undeterred, at the age of 98, he himself left the security of sheltered accommodation in London to live a predominately solitary life, in Walsingham, and to be a personal apostle of unity by praying in the buildings of the various ecclesial denominations there on a daily basis.
In 2015, family and friends gathered with him in Walsingham to give thanks for his 100th birthday at a Mass presided over by His Eminence, Vincent, Cardinal Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster. The Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI sent a personal message for the occasion and His Holiness Pope Francis created Fr Augustine a Chaplain of His Holiness, granting him the title Monsignor and the right to the use of a purple fascia and trim to his cassock. For many years the outdoor Roman Hat or Saturno had become a hallmark of Fr Augustine and on becoming Monsignor Hoey he decorated it with a purple cord and tassels, to the delight of his many friends.
Many of Fr Augustine’s spiritual children and those who came into contact with him testify to his personal holiness and supernatural insight into the difficulties of their lives. For many of them it’s impossible not to believe that Fr Augustine has already been welcomed into heaven by God and will one day be recognised as a saint by the Church.
The purpose of this website is to make Fr Augustine, his spirituality and his writings better known and to encourage those who recognise his extraordinary holiness to pray for his eventual beatification and canonisation.
Msgr Augustine Hoey obl OSB 