BAINES, PETER AUGUSTINE

BAINES, PETER AUGUSTINE. - Apostolic Vicar of Western England, b. at Kirkby (Liverpool) on 25 June 1786, d. at Prior Park on 6 July 1843. In 1798 he went to Hanover to pursue ecclesiastical studies at the Benedictine abbey of Lambspring. He remained there until 1823, when the abbey was secularized and occupied by the Prussians. Returning to England with his brethren, he was received by Lady Anna Fairfax at Ampleforth, where the Benedictines of Lambspring founded the well-known college of St. Laurence. In June 1804 B. donned the habit of St. Benedict. Five years later he was ordained priest. In 1817 he was chosen for the mission at Bath on account of his particular gifts as a preacher and controversialist. In 1823 he became coadjutor to Bishop Collingridge, Vicar Apostolic of the Western District, and was consecrated titular Bishop of Siga in Mauretania. In 1826 he came to Rome, where he preached with great success in the church of the Gesù and was especially beloved by Pope Leo XII, who appointed him his domestic prelate and assistant at the pontifical throne. Upon the death of Bishop Collingridge in 1829, B. returned to England and succeeded him as Vicar Apostolic of Western England, a position he held until his death. Cardinal Wiseman, relying on highly authoritative testimony, states that Bishop B. “was the person intended, in the designs of Leo XII, to be the first English cardinal,” but the sudden death of Pope Della Genga in 1829 frustrated this plan.