accepted the validity of love between gay people. Moreover, he was opposed to women priests but described most detractors of Humanae vitae as "good, conscientious and faithful". Despite that comment, Hume supported Humanae vitae and regretted that the British government would rely on using condoms to address AIDS. Hume's time in office saw Catholicism become more accepted in British society than it had been for 400 years, culminating in the first visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Westminster Cathedral in 1995. He had previously read the Epistle at the enthronement of Robert Runcie as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1980. It was also during his tenure in Westminster that Pope John Paul II made a historic visit to England in 1982. In 1998, Hume asked John Paul II for permission to retire, expressing the wish to return to Ampleforth and devote his last years to peace and solitude, fly fishing and following his beloved Newcastle United Football Club. The request was refused. In April 1999, Hume revealed that he had terminal cancer. On 2 June of that year, Queen Elizabeth awarded him the Order of Merit. He died just over two weeks later, June 17, in Westminster, London, at age 76. After a funeral service broadcast live on national television, he was buried in Westminster Cathedral. John Paul II, in his message of condolence to the Church in England and Wales, praised Hume as a "shepherd of great spiritual and moral character". Hume was the last Archbishop of Westminster to employ a gentiluomo. The gentiluomo were a form of ceremonial bodyguard who accompanied the archbishops on formal occasions. As the role had become archaic, no new gentiluomo were appointed after the death of Hume's gentiluomo, Anthony Bartlett OBE, in 2001. Hume was accused of "hushing up" a suspected sexual abuse scandal at Ampleforth College by not calling in the police when he received a complaint from parents in 1975 about Father Piers Grant-Ferris, the son of a Tory peer at Gilling Castle Prep (now St Martin's Ampleforth). In 2005, Grant-Ferris admitted 20 incidents of child abuse. This was not an isolated incident and involved other monks and lay members. The Yorkshire Post reported in 2005; "Pupils at a leading Roman Catholic school suffered decades of abuse from at least six paedophiles following a decision by former Abbot Basil Hume not to call in police at the beginning of the scandal." In