Corpus Christi Processions…in the ‘Bad Old Days’

Corpus Christi procession (ca. 1940) at St. Peter’s Church, Phibsborough, Dublin. (KSAP 411: Archives of the Knock Shrine Association)

You really must watch these short but fascinating clips:

Corpus Christi procession in 1925 at the Irish Army Camp in the Curragh, Co. Kildare

Corpus Christi procession in 1941 in Bandon, Co. Cork

Corpus Christi procession in 1930 in Navan, Co. Meath

Corpus Christi procession in 1924 at St. Mary’s College (High School, for American readers) in Galway

Ireland should sever diplomatic relations with the Vatican

A group called ‘Ireland Stand Up’ are campaigning to have the decision to close Ireland’s embassy to the Holy See overturned.  Last Wednesday they met with almost a third of sitting Irish parliamentarians to support their campaign. Records released to the Irish Examiner show that 93% of public responses received by Foreign Affairs Minister, Eamon Gilmore, opposed the decision to close the embassy. The paper’s headline ‘Public decries closure of embassy to the Vatican’ becomes considerably less impressive when you take into account the fact that only 102 responses were received.

Has Ireland Stand Up really contemplated the nature and purpose of the Irish state’s diplomatic relations with the Holy See? Do they genuinely think that it is in the interests of the Irish Church? If so, why? What leads them to conclude that Irish diplomats and bureaucrats are motivated by any concern for Ireland’s spiritual welfare or for the health of the Irish Church? No, as paid servants of a secular government they are charged with acting on mere temporal and political considerations.

Currently seven of Ireland’s twenty-six dioceses are without a bishop and all bar four of the rest have bishops over the age of 65. The next few years will be extremely decisive in shaping the future mould of Irish Catholicism. New bishops who are appointed will be young and in their position for years to come. It is therefore indispensable that those bishops appointed to replace the current lot (who have failed disastrously) are unimpeachably orthodox, supportive of traditional liturgy, and are committed to a re-evangelization of Irish society. How likely is it that the Irish government will want to see such bishops appointed?  

Progressives dominate the Irish ecclesiastical infrastructure. (Orthodox Catholicism is powerless in the Irish Church and without a voice.) They will mobilize and lobby both the Vatican and the Irish state to secure the appointment of progressive bishops and the rejection of conservative ones. Irish diplomats and politicians will sympathize with them on an ideological level but also because outspoken bishops are more likely to forcefully challenge the government’s increasingly liberal social policy. They will lobby the Vatican for or against certain candidates. It was not for nothing that many French anti-clericals opposed the 1905 separation of Church and State, which turned out to be beneficial to the Church in the long run. (Although sadly Pius XI later conceded a veto over episcopal candidates to the French government, which they retain.)

The Irish Church is going through a really historic period of transition, which could make or break or it. It needs maximum temporal freedom from state intrusion in its constitution and internal affairs.

Indeed it would be best for the Irish government to simply break off diplomatic relations with the Vatican completely. By closing their embassy to the Vatican, Irish politicians have already done the Church a massive favour, only they’re too stupid to realize it. Let Irish Catholics be intelligent enough to remain one step ahead.

Ireland’s New Traditional Benedictine Monastery

The monks’ new monastic house: the former Visitation Monastery in Stamullen, Co. Meath

In a comment today on a previous post announcing that the Benedictine Monastery of Our Lady of the Cenacle in Tulsa are moving to Ireland, a member of the community, Fra Benedetto, kindly directed me to their first newsletter, which explains why they are moving:

http://cenacleosb.org/newsletter1/

Rorate Caeli notes that the founder, prior, and currently the sole priest of the Monastery, Dom Mark Kirby OSB, celebrates exclusively the Traditional Latin Mass and his page on vocations also describes the monastery’s liturgical life as:

• Holy Mass (Usus Antiquior) and the Divine Office celebrated in Latin and Gregorian Chant.
• bringing to the forms of the liturgy a diligence and beauty worthy of the holy mysteries.

This is a very exciting development. Please support the monks with your prayers and by other means if you can.

A Catholic Nation and a Catholic Press

What is An Réalt?

Note: An Réalt (‘The Star’) was the Irish language praesidium of the Legion of Mary which was dedicated to recultivating Gaelic spirituality, culture and heritage. Regarding its activities in Wales mentioned on pg. 14, there is a very interesting article here on ‘Irish Catholics and the Welsh language in the 20th century’ which asserts that An Réalt “took a particular interest in the Welsh language. Many An Réalt members were fluent in the Welsh language, while others were learning Welsh in a 200-strong Dublin night class. During the 1950s a representative group led by Fr Diarmuid Ó Laoghaire* visited Wales annually, either to R.O.F. Wynne’s Garthewin estate or to the ‘Welsh Catholic’ parish of Gellilydan.”

*See his pamphlet Our Mass, Our Life: Some Irish Traditions and Prayers. See also The Integral Irish Tradition.

Appeal of Margaret of Austria, Queen of Spain, to Pope Paul V for an Irish College in Rome

The following letter was sent to Pope Paul V by Margaret of Austria, Queen Consort of King Philip III of Spain, and is dated Madrid, 29th February, 1611:

Your Holiness’s very humble and obedient daughter Margaret, by the grace of God Queen of the Spains, of the two Sicilies, of Jerusalem, who kisses your holy feet and hands.

Most Holy Father,

The fervent zeal I know Your Holiness possesses for the service of God and the good of the Church, and the interest you take in everything that conduces to this end, cause me not to hesitate in writing to Your Holiness to recommend to you an object worthy of your zeal.

Such I regard the protection of the seminaries of Irishmen, who now with such courage return after their studies to preach the Gospel in their native land, shedding their blood for the confession of the holy Catholic Faith, and obedience to the Church of Rome. And because just at present the persecution is greatest, it is necessary to procure for them more schools where they may be taught, for the disciples are multiplying every day, so that although in these kingdoms the King my Lord has instituted three, in Salamanca, Lisbon, and Santiago, of Galicia, there is not room in them for all that come; and so some go on to Rome, where it would be a great consolation for them to have a seminary as they have in other nations. And though I am sure the causes that exist for it are quite sufficient when represented to Your Holiness, yet I will not lose what I may gain by supplicating Your Holiness as I do, to favour and assist them that they may have a seminary founded under your protection, which besides being so certainly to the service of God, will be to me a singular favour.

May the Lord guard Your Holiness for the good and happy government of His Church.

The Arrival of the Papal Nuncio (1930)

The papal nuncio attended by a military guard of honour as he arrives for the official Church reception, 14 January, 1930

From The Irish Times, 16th January, 1930:

The arrival of the first papal nuncio accredited to Ireland, Dublin-born archbishop of Tyana Paschal Robinson, was marked with three days of ceremonies culminating in these formalities.

WITH AN escort of mounted troops, sixty strong, Monsignor Robinson, the Papal Nuncio to the Irish Free State, attended at the Viceregal Lodge, Phoenix Park, Dublin, yesterday, where he presented his credentials to the Governor-General [James McNeill]. The Governor-General, in reply, stated that he intended to take an early opportunity of going to Rome, in order to present his homage to the Pope.

In the afternoon the Nuncio visited Government Buildings, where he was received by President [of the Executive Council] Cosgrave and members of the Executive Council. Cardinal McRory visited the Nuncio at his hotel.

A State banquet was held in the evening. President Cosgrave, addressing the Nuncio, said that if there was anyone among the enemies of their country who hoped that political freedom would loosen their ties with Rome, these hopes had been disappointed, and would be disappointed in years to come.

As he left the Shelbourne Hotel, accompanied by Mr. Joseph Walsh, Secretary to the Ministry for External Affairs, and Colonel Joseph O’Reilly, A.D.C. to President Cosgrave, who travelled in his car, the Nuncio was saluted by a military guard of honour and a fanfare of trumpets. . . .

A strong force of Civic Guards was employed in keeping the route clear. At no point in the centre of the city was the crowd very large, but all were anxious to catch a glimpse of the Nuncio, and as he passed he was respectfully saluted and occasionally cheered.

Children from the Roman Catholic schools, having been granted a holiday for the occasion, lined the route in considerable numbers . . .

Large crowds awaited the party at the North Circular gate to the Phoenix Park, and thousands of school children lined that particular section of the route. Cheers were given as the Papal Nuncio drove into the Park, and many people followed the procession right up to the Phoenix Monument, where it entered the grounds of the Viceregal Lodge.

From the main entrance gate of the Lodge to the front of the Governor-General’s residence the carriage drive was lined on both sides with members of the Free State Army, while overhead circled aeroplanes of the Flying Corps . . .

Shortly after noon the Nuncio arrived. He was received by the Comptroller of the Household (Mr. J. Doyle), and conducted into the building, followed by his secretary, Monsignor Borgia.

Almost immediately an Army officer appeared at the door of the Lodge, and by a wave of a handkerchief intimated that the Nuncio was presenting his credentials. The signal was transmitted by a special telephone line to a battery stationed near the Wellington Monument, and a salute of nineteen guns was fired.

You can watch newsreel of the occasion here. See also this separate but fascinating newsreel which shows him receiving the Freedom of the City of Kilkenny.

Here is a nice picture of the nuncio at the 1932 International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin with the then Fr. John Charles McQuaid, President of Blackrock College and future Archbishop of Dublin, to the left, and the new premier Éamon de Valera to the right.

Irish Hierarchy’s Appeal for Palestinian and Syrian Catholics

The Standing Committee of the Irish hierarchy issued the following appeal at a meeting in Dublin on 29th April, 1919:

In response to an appeal made on their behalf by the Holy Father, we think it our duty to commend to the charity of our people the needs of our suffering fellow-Catholics in Palestine and Syria. Owing to the war, large numbers of them have been reduced to a state of extreme want, so much so that many have perished of famine and the survivors are still in a most pitiable condition.

Owing to the frequent calls made recently on our people, we do not find ourselves in a position to order a general collection, but if charitably disposed persons are willing to come to their aid, contributions may be sent to the Bishops of each diocese, who will forward them to the proper quarter.

See also: Irish Hierarchy’s Appeal for German Catholic Refugees (1954)

‘True cross’ relics returned to Holy Cross Abbey

I was very happy to read this. The monks must be delighted:

‘True cross’ relics returned to Tipperary

One of the crosses stolen last October

by GENEVIEVE CARBERY

Stolen relics of the ‘true cross’ were today returned by gardaí to the Holy Cross Abbey in Co Tipperary.

The three relics, believed to be part of the cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified, were stolen from the historic Cashel abbey last October.

The items were recovered by gardaí after searches in the midlands yesterday. The Garda investigation is ongoing.

The relics had been stolen by three men using an angle-grinder, hammer and screwdriver to forcibly open the steel display cabinet they were contained in.

Archbishop of Cashel and Emily Dermot Clifford said measures needed to be taken to protect the relics. It was “a mystery” why the items with little monetary value were stolen, he said.

It was “truly wonderful” that the “precious relics” had been found “relatively unharmed” he added.

Holy Cross parish priest Rev Tom J. Breen said locals, clergy and the abbey’s thousands pilgrims would be “overjoyed”. The return of the items “demonstrates the power of prayer,” he added.

One of the relics, authenticated by the Vatican as a piece of the cross used in Christ’s crucifixion, was handed over to the abbey in the 12th century by King Donal Mór O’Brien, while the other two were presented by St Peter’s Basilica in Rome in 1977.

Dublin in 1961: Some Photos

Well the city certainly looked considerably more presentable back then. Take a look at some of these photos:

http://www.grangemoregolf.com/year-2009/Killerig_2009/Golf_Photos/Dublin_1961.html

There is also a fantastic thread here full of old photos of Dublin. One could spend hours perusing it.

The National Library of Ireland has a great photo collection, with approximately 630,000 photos. You can view many of them online here.

(Incidentally 1961 was also the Patrician Year.)

Historical Scrapbook on Vatican II Changes: Reminder

A few months ago I informed readers that I had compiled an historical scrapbook on the Vatican II and liturgical reforms in the Church in Ireland and invited readers to receive a copy by email. Quite a few readers expressed interest and I sent them a copy. I also added their email addresses to a mailing list, so that they receive each new scrapbook I compile.

I send out a new scrapbook every few weeks or so. If you would like to subscribe and receive these scrapbooks, please email me at shanesemail2010atgmail.com (replace at with @)

Pope Pius XI’s Address to the Irish National Pilgrimage

Pope Pius XI gave the following discourse to the Irish National Pilgrimage in audience on 21 October, 1925, in response to an address of loyalty which they had presented:

This is not the first nor the only group of Irish people We have received during this wonderful Holy Year; for already We have welcomed many of Our dear Irish children, many from that dear land which has always been known to Us as the Island of Saints, the Emerald Isle, verdant as your pilgrimage banner, holy as the infinite number of your Saints. Great, indeed, was the joy with which We received so many of these our specially beloved children — nay more, We may add that Ireland is ever near unto Us, is ever at Our side in that dear and splendid representative, the Irish College, which We warmly cherish close at hand, as Our predecessors have done, ever vying with each other in demonstrating their good-will towards your national College, this special representation of a whole people, of a whole isle, of this well-beloved branch of the great Catholic family. How dear is this College to Us is a secret to none: dear, too, shall it ever remain; and glad shall We ever be to contribute even in a small way to its steady prosperity, so as to be able, even in Our own day, to see the number of Our dear Irish children increase within its walls, and become ever stronger and more representative of this Ireland of Ours.

This pilgrimage of yours, imposing in its numbers, remarkable in its membership, and led by the very head of the State, his Excellency, Mr. Cosgrave, whom We are glad to meet in this, the house of the common Father of Christendom, the worthy representative and worthy governor of a truly pious and Catholic people, this devout Catholic, who not only fittingly represents the faith and piety of his people, but furnishes in his own person an example which is all the finer because of the high position of him who gives it — this pilgrimage of yours, conducted by so many Bishops as to give the happy impression of being a sort of National Council — this pilgrimage of yours in which We notice such a fine representation of the clergy of Ireland, both secular and regular, those of advanced years, and those ripening under Our own eyes and near to Our own heart in this beloved Irish College of Ours, the hope of your people and hierarchy, and Our own cherished hope as well — this pilgrimage of yours in which We see passing before Us in review the representatives of all classes and all conditions — truly this fine pilgrimage, in a unique way, enables Us to imagine that all Ireland, fully and completely represented, is gathered in Our presence, and is kneeling at Our feet.

Irish Peace Conference, 1921: Letter of the American Hierarchy; Resolution of the Irish Hierarchy

On 24th September, 1921, Cardinal William O’Connell, Archbishop of Boston, sent the following cablegram on behalf of the Archbishops and Bishops of the U.S.A. to Cardinal Michael Logue, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland:

Your Eminence,

In this solemn and portentous hour of Ireland’s history, we, the Bishops of the United States, gathered in Annual Conference, feel it a duty incumbent on us to extend to your Eminence and your brethren of the Irish Hierarchy, an assurance of our sympathy, our prayers, and our united good wishes for the happy outcome of the Conference in which the representatives of your people are now engaged. Particularly at this time, we are not unmindful of the tremendous debt the Church in this country owes to Ireland and its people.

For more than a century millions of your race have come to our shores, and by their strong faith and their loyal and generous help they have built up a Church which has become the pride of Christendom and the glory of the country in which we dwell, and even though they have become loyal Americans faithful to the flag under which they dwell, time has never been able to extinguish in their souls the love they bore to the Land of their Fathers — to the little Island from which they parted as exiles destined never to return.

Particularly during recent years, with anxious and expectant hearts, they have watched the trend of events, ever hopeful that Providence in His wisdom might ordain that at last Ireland was to take its place among the nations of the earth. And, indeed, during these later weeks their hearts were filled with pride when they saw the representatives of their race conduct themselves with a statesmanship that has challenged the admiration of the world.

Benedictine Community in U.S. to Move to Ireland

Exciting news:

The Monastery of Our Lady of the Cenacle

Benedictine Adorers of the Eucharistic Face of Jesus

 

About us

Our Monastery is dedicated to the traditional monastic life according to the Rule of Saint Benedict, and to intercession for the sanctification of priests, in adoration and reparation before the Eucharistic Face of Christ.

We were established during the Year of the Priest (2009-2010) by His Excellency, Most Reverend Edward J. Slattery, Bishop of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

By the grace of God, we have been invited by His Lordship, the Most Reverend Michael Smith, Bishop of Meath in Ireland, to move our fledgling community to County Meath, Ireland. God willing, we will complete this move in February 2012.

The Changing Face of Irish Stamps

In my previous post on the Irish College of Leuven Fr Séan Coyle pointed out that the inscription on the College’s entrance, “Dochum Glóire Dé agus Ónóra na hÉireann” (“For the Glory of God and the Honour of Ireland”), was the motto of the old Irish Press newspaper (founded by Eamon de Valera in 1931; ceased print in 1995). I recently came across a postal stamp with the same motto on it from 1944. It is part of a series that was issued by the Irish state postal service, An Post, to commemorate the distinguished Franciscan lay-brother from Donegal, Michael O’Clery, under whose direction the Annals of the Four Masters was compiled. The stamp was designed by the Irish artist, Richard King, and shows the friar at work on the Annals. The series of stamps was in use up until the late ’60s.

Personally I find the design to be aesthetically unpleasing, but most of the old stamps issued by An Post are actually very beautiful and frequently display Catholic icons and images. I’ve included only a very small selection in this post. Here is the stamp issued to commemorate World Refugee Year in 1959 (see also the Irish hierarchy’s statement on same):

Book Review – The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers’ Party

Many thanks to Peadar Laighléis, President of the Latin Mass Society of Ireland, for permitting me to post his review of The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers’ Party.

 

THE STICKIES HAVEN’T GONE AWAY, YOU KNOW

by Peadar Laighléis
Brandsma Review; November-December, 2010

THE LOST REVOLUTION: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers’ Party. By Brian Hanley and Scott Millar. Penguin. 2010.

A friend began his best man’s speech by apologising for bringing the bridegroom late. The reason, he said, was that they couldn’t make up their minds whether to stick their roses on their lapels–or pin them on. The northern bride’s party laughed; as the southern groom’s party pondered. (For the benefit of the mystified, the joke will become clear shortly.)

The Irish Republican Army came into existence in 1916 and has claimed to be Ireland’s legitimate government since 1938. But there have been many IRAs. Trotskyite Saor Éire split from the IRA in 1967 and modelled themselves on organisations such as Baader-Meinhof in Germany and the Italian Brigate Rosse. Saor Éire caused havoc until their leader was killed by his own men in 1971. In December 1969 the defining schism took place between the Official IRA (OIRA) and the Provisional IRA (PIRA). The majority stayed with the OIRA, but the PIRA took more northern groups. The PIRA inflicted the most violence.

Ideologically, the Officials moved towards Marxist-Leninism; the Provisionals maintained traditional nationalism until drifting leftwards in the 1980s. The OIRA conducted a campaign in the North until their cease-fire in 1972. Following this, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) broke away, becoming highly feared, until a feud with their own breakaway group, the Irish People’s Liberation Organisation, in the late 1980s. Later, the PIRA lost the Continuity IRA and the Real IRA.

The Communion of Saints

Bishop Michael Browne on the Prosecution of Bishop Pietro Fiordelli

For background on this case see here

The following statement was issued by the Most Rev. Michael Browne, Bishop of Galway and Kilmacduagh, on 14th March, 1958:

The fact that the Holy Father has cancelled the celebration of the anniversary of his coronation on March 12th, because of a decision given by the Civil Court in Florence against the Bishop of Prato is a striking proof that the Pope regards it as a very serious matter for the Church. For the present Pope is a diplomat, of a very calm and balanced temper, who would not take such strong public action without grave reason. What is the reason? It is a matter of concern to all Catholics.

In Italy the Communist Party is very strong since the War: one-third of the adult population, the voters, support it at elections. They are not all convinced Marxists or convinced Communists. They support it because it has control of many trade unions, and consequently of employment; and because it has great economic power and can dispense much business and patronage. Hence many join for material advantages, without giving up their Catholic faith. The Communist Party, however, is making strong efforts to insist that all members should break openly with religious practice and membership.

The Myth of Irish Catholic Exceptionalism

One of my many bugbears in life is the highly exaggerated emphasis now placed on the (alleged) ‘uniqueness’ and ‘peculiarities’ of pre-conciliar Irish Catholicism. On the Catholic blogosphere the idea that the Irish Church in the 1950s was an insular, peasant-led, anti-intellectual, aliturgical backwater is particularly widespread. While I originally subscribed to this view myself I was forced to seriously question it in the course of my research and found it to be nothing more than a myth.  Hibernicus made some excellent comments on this a few days ago at the Irish Catholics Forum (incidentally if you haven’t already registered there, you really should — the quality of discussion is excellent):

In regard to the people who complain to Shane that Ireland was not “really” Catholic like France – the nineteenth-century French experience was in some ways more like the Irish in the same period than we realise. Much of the French ecclesiastical infrastructure was smashed in the Revolutionary Era and had to be re-created from scratch; the religious orders had to be reintroduced and the process involved a certain amount of trial and error (for example, the Dominicans were brought back by LAcordaire and a section of the Order tried to adopt a very strict regimen of fasting ad experimentam, which eventually had to be abandoned because it left friars who adopted it incapable of carrying out their other duties; Gueranger had to re-create the Benedictines from a blank slate at Solesmes). The Cure d’Ars’ stamping out dancing in his parish and trying to re-create a full devotional life and revive sacramental observance was not all that different from Irish priests of the same era (except the latter would not have encountered such a strong current of anti-clericalism, which would have been seen as selling out to the Protestants). Similarly, excessive attention to French Catholic intellectuals and aristocrats tends to obscure the extent to which the congregations and personnel of French Catholicism came from the peasantry and the lower bourgeoisie; English commentators tended to say the same sort of things about the social background and mindset of the French lower clergy as they did about Maynooth priests.

And of course Irish Catholicism imported a lot of French devotional and spiritual practices in the nineteenth century, and even when these didn’t originate in France they were usually transmitted via France.

One other problem the “Irish Catholicism is not really Catholic as compared to traditional French Catholicism” brigade have is that Continental Catholic culture had some extremely dubious features which were not nearly as pronounced in Ireland. For example, when Sean O Faolain wrote about Irish Catholicism not being really Catholic like the Continentals, part of what he meant was that many Continental male Catholics thought it perfectly acceptable to cheat on your wife while going to Mass (as indeed O Faolain did on his 1940s Italian tour, on which he was accompanied by Honor Tracy, an English Catholic of Bohemian sensibilities. Hubert Butler said that Honor Tracy’s modus operandi was to present herself as a superior being to the English because she was a Catholic, while ignoring the bits of Catholicism that didn’t suit her and sneering at Irish Catholics for taking Catholicism seriously. That was one occasion when Hubert Butler was smack on the button.) Simone de Beauvoir, who was brought up in a devout Catholic family, said that one reason why she left the Church was that while she was expected to remain chaste until marriage and faithful afterwards, her brothers were expected – even encouraged – to fornicate and would have been considered odd had they not done so. This was not the universal attitude among French Catholics in the early C20, but it was pretty widespread.

Furthermore, at the time of the abolition of the French Concordat in 1905 (and indeed for some time before and after) Republican anti-clericals made a big song and dance about allegations of priest-teachers abusing boys in Catholic schools and of ill-treatment of inmates in Catholic convent laundries (i.e. Magdalen laundries – these were not a purely French or Catholic invention, there were Protestant-run Magdalen asylums in Ireland and Britain in the C18 and C19). I know about this because British and Irish ultra-Protestants picked up on these reports (that sort of ultra-Protestant was always willing to ally with Continental atheists against Catholicism) and I have read some of their material. Admittedly, the Republican anti-clericals were pretty unscrupulous (I have noted elsewhere that some scholars have noted analogies between the imagery of classic anti-semitism and of French anti-clericalism) but I would be surprised if all these reports were fabrications.

The idea that C19 French traditionalist Catholicism is somehow the gold standard of authenticity by which all others must be judged is pretty shoddy IMHO. Every age is equidistant from God.

Persecution of Catholicism in Ireland: Archbishop Matthew’s Report of 1623

The following is the eighth section of a report on the state of religion in Ireland presented to the Sacred Congregation for Propaganda on 4th February, 1623, by Dr. Eugene Matthews, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin. It gives an interesting and impassioned account of the horrendous injustices inflicted on the Irish Catholics in the reign of King James I, first Stuart monarch of the newly united realm of Great Britain. The tyrannical and genocidal policies pursued by the Stuart kings in Ireland probably exceed in cruelty those of the Hanoverians, or even the Tudors. I have never been able to understand why the Stuarts are so romanticized on much of the Catholic blogosphere, given their long record of heartless inhumanity in Ireland. (The fact that Cromwell was worse is no excuse.)

Although from the very commencement of the schism we have been constantly in the battle-field, and, with the exception of the momentary repose enjoyed during the reign of Catholic Mary, have been unceasingly exposed to the attacks of our persecutors, yet so severe are their late assaults, that, in comparison, all their preceding efforts sink into insignificance. Of this persecution I myself have been a witness and a sharer, and I shall briefly commemorate a few of its chief heads.

Some years ago the heretics strained every nerve to introduce into Ireland those laws which the English parliament enacted against the Catholics of England, and to resuscitate the penal code which had been surreptitiously passed at the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign. A parliament was summoned to attain these ends. The government again sought by every art and violence to secure the election of English or Scotch heretical soldiers. Lest our Catholics might prevail by their numbers, new English and Scotch colonies were planted, and endowed with the privilege of representation. [Following the exile of the Irish Catholic princes Hugh O'Neill and Hugh Roe O'Donnell, who were intending to solicit help from the King of Spain, James I quickly proceeded to confiscate their territories and undertook the Plantation of Ulster, whereby most of the province was colonised with English-speaking Protestant settlers from England and the Scottish lowlands. Ulster had hitherto been the portion of Ireland most insubordinate to English rule and its systematic repopulation with British Protestants was a major milestone in the British conquest of Ireland. Under the terms of the Plantation, the natives, almost all of whom remained Catholic, were banned from buying or renting from the new owners, and the dispossessed Irish, now helplessly deprived of their traditional leaders and exiled to the hills and mountainous areas,  frequently attacked the new proprietors for decades afterwards, culminating in the Irish Rebellion of 1641. The legacy of the Plantation remains very much with us to this day, and is reflected in the partition of Ireland - Northern Ireland's Protestant majority, who are mostly descended from the original planters, espouse a very militant British identity, while its Catholic minority are descended from the native Irish and retain a strong Irish identity. - Shane.]

Moreover, a number of titles were conferred on various heretics, whilst the remonstrances of the Catholics were unheeded. Nevertheless, no counsel can prevail against the Lord. All the heretical efforts were fruitless; and so strenuously did the Catholics defend their sacred cause, that their adversaries did not dare even to propose the penal statutes. The heretics had then recourse to royal prerogative, that thus, without any form of law or justice, they might riot against the Catholics; and so violent is the storm of persecution which they have thus excited, that it almost baffles description.

1. All Catholics are removed from the administration of affairs, and even the smallest offices are given to heretics and schismatics, who may with impunity persecute the Catholics according to their fancies.

2. No Catholic can hold property throughout the entire kingdom; everything is seized on by heretical colonists, and the ejected Catholic proprietors cannot even live as servants on those lands of which they are the masters by hereditary right. For the heretics have learned by experience that there is no people in the world so attached to the faith of their fathers as are the Irish, in defence of which they often had recourse to arms, and risked their fortunes and lives. Seeing, therefore, that penal laws could not suffice to destroy their devotion to the Catholic religion, they had recourse to new arts, and by a disastrous counsel commenced to fill the country with English and Scotch colonies; whilst at the present time, in consequence of the treaties entered into with the continental states, the Irish can hope for no assistance from other powers. Thus, then, the natives, though unaccused of any crime, are, without colour of justice, without any feeling of humanity, without any fear of Him who will punish the oppressors, expelled from the homes of their fathers and from their hereditary estates. Sometimes they are driven to other parts of the kingdom, where small portions of land are assigned to them for their maintenance; sometimes they are compelled to fly from the island, and seek support by entering the armies of the Continent. Heretics being thus introduced into the Catholic lands, a great part of the kingdom is polluted with their sacrilegious impieties; and unless God may avert the dire calamity, the ancient faith will be banished from the whole island. As this evil is propagated by brute force, and as our people have neither skill nor power to cope with our enemies, we must wholly rely for its remedy on the mercy of God.

3. Ministers and preachers were sought out everywhere in Scotland and England, and sent here to pervert our Catholics.

4. All benefices and other ecclesiastical property were, from the beginning, seized on by the heretics. In each diocese there is a pseudo-bishop, and in each parish a pseudo-minister.

5. The Catholics are compelled to repair, for heretical worship, the churches and chapels which these iconoclasts themselves had destroyed.

6. The pseudo-clergy not only seize on all the revenues, but exact payment for the sacraments of baptism and marriage, even when they are administered by the Catholic priests; the sum thus exacted sometimes amounts to four guineas or more, according to the will of the Protestant ministers, who make no account of the poverty and misery of the people. In addition to these exactions, a salary was lately assigned to a certain heretic, to be levied on the births, marriages, and deaths of the Catholics.

7. Four times in the year questors are appointed to explore the Catholics throughout the whole kingdom, and impose fines on all who absent themselves from the heretical sermons and communion. As this fine is not defined by law, the judges and questors display great earnestness and avarice in exacting it, through hatred of our holy religion.

8. On each Sunday, each Catholic father of a family is obliged to pay a pecuniary fine for himself and for each Catholic member of his family. This fine is exacted without mercy even from the poorest labourers.

9. The pseudo-bishops have introduced a new system of excommunicating, indeed, the Catholics; from which excommunication the Catholic cannot be freed, except by recognizing the spiritual authority of these bishops, and thus sacrificing their own faith. Those thus excommunicated are liable to arrest; and should they die, are interred in unconsecrated ground.

10. Those who assist at Mass, incur a penalty of one hundred marks.

11. All our gentry and nobility are obliged to send their heirs to be educated and perverted in England.

12. None of the nobility are now allowed to succeed to their paternal inheritance, without first taking the oath of royal supremacy: otherwise they and their posterity are deprived of their revenues, and thus the dreadful alternative is presented to them of perversion or poverty.

13. It is interdicted to the Catholics to teach school either in public or in private; on the other hand, heretical masters are hired in every diocese, and paid from the revenue of some benefices, to pervert our youth and imbue them with heresy. In fact, the heretics have obstructed every avenue by which our youth could receive instruction in this kingdom; and by their severe penalties and rigorous searches, they seek to render it impossible for any Catholic teacher to remain in the country. Moreover, having created a university in the city of Dublin, the seat of the viceroy and the capital of the whole kingdom, they employ every artifice to attract our children to its schools. Indeed, they could not possibly devise any scheme more iniquitous than that of thus corrupting our youth.

14. The Catholic cities are deprived of their ancient liberties, privileges, and rights, and are reduced to the rank of towns, unless they elect heretics as their mayors and aldermen, or, at least, select such persons as the heretics approve of, as lately happened to the city of Waterford, which holds the second place in the kingdom for its strength and opulence.

Who Made Man?

Merry Christmas…

…to all my readers. And a happy new year!

I’ve now been blogging for one year and four months. When I started this blog I had expected to stay at it for just a few weeks! I don’t know how much longer I’ll continue but I hope you’ll keep reading until then.

The Hero of Catholic Europe who almost became King of Ireland

When Spain, which was then the world’s most powerful empire, planned invasions (or liberations if you prefer) of Ireland in the course of the sixteenth century, one of the dilemmas it was confronted with was confusion over exactly what type of polity would be established in Ireland after a successful Spanish invasion. In an age of imperial expansion, the status quo had become a perilous anachronism. The fratricidal warfare of the native kingdoms and the lack of administrative unity left the country dangerously susceptible to colonial re-conquest. Would, therefore, Ireland become an overseas territory of the King of Spain, represented in Ireland by a viceroy, or would Ireland be granted its own monarch? The Irish nobles and bishops seem to have had little problem in principle with either prospect; the immediate priority for them was centered on repelling English Protestant operations. (It’s also important to note that the strong religious ties between both countries, as well as a shared enemy, buttressed by the then very strong Irish self-conception of being descended from King Milesius of Spain, meant that Spain was not really perceived by them as a foreign power at all, and prospective Spanish rule was acceptable in ways which English rule never conceivably could be.)
 
 

A solution was agreed by the Irish nobles whereby Don John of Austria (in picture above), brother of King Philip II of Spain and son of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, would become King of Ireland. (Don John is most famous for having saved Europe from the Ottoman Turks in the battle of Lepanto.) In a letter to their ambassador at the Spanish Court, Maurice Fitzgibbon, Archbishop of Cashel, (you can read the letter in full here — see also this distinct but related petition to King Philip II from the Irish bishops and nobles) they re-affirm their loyalty to King Philip, stress the perils of disunity in the face of English aggression and confirm their request that the King’s brother be made King of Ireland:

…According to certain Englishmen of the [Privy] Council of England, who have favoured us, albeit clandestinely, it is the intention of the Queen [Elizabeth I] to seek peace with His Majesty [King Philip II of Spain] in order that he may not be moved by his wonted benevolence to realize our danger and to assist us. His Majesty ought to reflect that such a proposal by the English would not be to his advantage but is in fact put forward simply in order the more effectively to ruin us and all Catholics. Having considered among ourselves and with our council this most difficult and important matter, it appears to us that Your Grace should approach His Majesty with a request that his most honourable brother, Don John of Austria, should be proclaimed our King. We would engage ourselves to be His Majesty’s most faithful subjects and vassals, as we have promised in our letters. Concerning all this we have written to the said Don John a letter which Your Grace will hand to him. You will discuss not only with His Majesty but also with the said Don John these intricate affairs so that he may send us his reply to our petition. If it be granted, we trust to God that as soon as Don John sets foot in Ireland all our people will give him their allegiance and will make him not only King of Ireland but also of other provinces which we will subject to his rule. For if we had a King like other nations none would venture to attack us, on account of the spirit of our people in war, the stoutness of their hearts, and the fertility of their soil. Because we have not a King and are divided among ourselves the English attack and rob us daily, and we suffer grievously as a result. Your Grace well knows how they sow enmity between two brothers in order to destroy them individually and seize their possessions…  (1)

While in Lisbon in 1574 the papal nuncio to Ireland, Father David Wolfe, S.J., was commissioned by Don Juan de Borja, the Spanish ambassador to Portugal, to write a Description of Ireland for King Philip II. Fr Wolfe’s work offers a fascinating and comprehensive topography of all the regions of Ireland. In his general overview of the whole of Ireland, he laments in his final conclusion that “one thing alone is lacking in that realm, namely, a Christian King, zealous of the honour of God, who should ever reside in the realm and constrain idle men to work, and chastise the wicked and base, and reward the good and virtuous” and prays that “God give the country a King after His own heart, and not after our transgressions.” He devotes his efforts so that “his Catholic Majesty should not let slip the opportunity of taking so good and beautiful a kingdom.” His section on how Ireland is to be successfully invaded puts heavy emphasis on the necessity for Don John to be crowned King of Ireland in order to put an end to Irish factionalism and to exile the ‘English heretics’ out of Ireland:

In all the island of Ireland, Meath alone excepted, I am sure that no single hundred is to be found but there is war therein: it is village against village, hundred against hundred, brother against brother, kinsman against kinsman; ergo, all that realm, thus divided, is already at the mercy of whosoever chooses to take it.

Believing as I do, that his Majesty desires not so much to extend his temporal dominion as to exalt the glory of Christ, and to extirpate the Lutheran pest from His holy church, and plant there the true Catholic and Apostolic faith, I therefore deem it very expedient, nay, rather, necessary, that he should have the authority and commission (that which was originally granted to Henry, King of England being revoked) of the Apostolic See to enter with an armed force that realm of Ireland, it being, as I have already said, the patrimony of St. Peter. With this authority and commission from the Supreme Pontiff, it would be well that his Catholic Majesty should, as indeed all the lords and nobles of Ireland desire and are fain that he should, ordain and appoint his brother, Don John of Austria, king of that realm. This I am prompted to say for many reasons, the first and chief being the honour of God, since, his Highness being zealous for the Christian and Catholic religion, I doubt not that he would reform the Church of Ireland.

I am also prompted by the advantage to the commonweal of the realm, because, as under the eye of the master the horse waxes stout, so under the eye of the King the realm waxes stout and strong and peaceful, while on the other hand in his absence, dissensions, discords, rebellions, poverty and other innumerable evils are engendered, as is plainly visible in that same realm of Ireland, which has lacked the presence of a King for more than 400 years.

Herein I am also prompted by this, that his Majesty, being standard-bearer and captain general of the Church of God, and having by God’s grace gained several victories over the infidels that are chief among the enemies of God and His Holy Church, has well earned the right to have some reward of the Church, nor know I what reward she could more readily give him than that royal crown of Ireland, which is her own. All other provinces of the Church are already given to other Christian princes; that province of Ireland alone is left; and I doubt not that God has kept it for Don John, and that the Supreme Pontiff will grant him that realm, if his Catholic Majesty will crave and solicit it; for the son of so good a father as was Charles V, the brother and most loyal servant of so great a king as the Catholic King, and the standard-bearer and champion of so holy and pious a mother as the Roman Church, deserves no less a dignity than a royal crown, for thereby are enhanced at once the glory of the father, the honour of the brother, and the dignity and worshipfulness of the mother.

I am furthermore prompted thus to utter my mind by the consideration that his Catholic Majesty’s council would not suffer him to diminish his ancestral inheritance to aggrandize that noble knight, his brother Don John; and so Ireland would be to the purpose. Moreover, the lords of Ireland do not gladly welcome or obey Viceroys, because in truth hitherto the Viceroys of that realm, and indeed Viceroys everywhere else, as one sees in the Indies of Portugal and elsewhere, do nought else but pick and steal the wealth of the kingdom, and at the end of four or five years depart with their bags full; and fresh gifts and presents must be forthcoming for the new Viceroys and Presidents, so that they have despoiled the realm of its wealth. Wherefore the folk of Ireland yearn to have a king in the realm to defend them, and to whom they can yield obedience; and above all they desire for their King Don John, hearing tell of his good repute and fortune, and of his zeal for the honour of God.

Furthermore, I say that in my opinion if Don John were created King of Ireland, he would be a great scourge and terror to the heretics of England, because they hold it to be predicted that the ruin of England is to begin in Ireland. The prophecy in the English tongue is as follows: He that will England win, let him in Ireland begin.

Moreover, the creation and coronation of Don John as King of Ireland would be a great blow to the Flemish heretics, because the victuals and munitions which the Lady Elizabeth is wont daily to send to them in Flanders she would keep in her realm for fear of being attacked in some quarter or another by Don John and the Irish, who would be glad enough to ravage England.

Should his Catholic Majesty deem this business inopportune by reason of the war against the Turk with which Don John is occupied at present, I say that by the authority of the Supreme Pontiff he might readily take possession of that realm with the forces of the Holy League, and having received the oath of fealty with hostages from the lords and nobles of the realm, and left there his Viceroy and munitions in the cities and fortresses, might turn his attention to the war against the Turk.

The lords of Ireland, and also many Englishmen are firmly persuaded that Don John has already received the royal crown of the realm of Ireland from the Supreme Pontiff, and they anticipate with the utmost delight the time when they shall welcome and embrace him as their king.

 
Sixteenth-century Irish history is abundant with lost opportunities and ‘What ifs?’. But surely this must be among the most heartbreaking?

(1) Falls, Cyril (1997). Elizabeth’s Irish Wars. NY: Syracuse University Press. pp. 140-141.

Letter of Pope Paul III to Con O’Neill (24th April, 1541)

To Our well-beloved Son, the Noble Con O’Neill, Prince of the Irish in Ulster.

Beloved Son, Health and Apostolic Benediction —

We have received your Lordship’s letter, dated on the Vigil of All Saints, and brought to us by Our son, your Raymond, who explained matters to us most fully by word of mouth. Our soul has been variously affected by the things We have learned. We have heard with the greatest grief how a modern king [Henry VIII - shane] ravages your Island with the most wanton cruelty and tramples on the honour of God. On the other hand, when We perceived from your letter and from the words of Raymond, that you are the defender of God’s honour, of the Roman Church, and of the Catholic Religion, We exulted with the feelings and joy of a fatherly love.

Therefore, Beloved Son, do We praise you as you deserve, and commend you in the Lord God, whom We thank for having endowed you with so much valour and piety, and for having given you to us at this time, for the preservation of that Island; and We pray to Him that He may preserve you to us for a long time. We have taken that anxious care of you, which We owe to you and to the other defenders of the Catholic Faith. Wherefore in the Almighty We exhort your Lordship, and all the people of Ireland, who look up to your authority and piety, to persevere in the Catholic Religion, which you have received from your Forefathers, and have preserved down to these times with the greatest constancy, and in a manner worthy of yourselves and of the true faithful of Christ. We love that Island with particular charity, and wish it to be preserved in the old worship of holy Faith; and we will never forsake your Lordship, and the others, who imitate your piety, as you shall understand more fully from John and Alonzo our Nuncios, and from your agent Raymond.

Given at Rome, the 24th of April, 1541, the Seventh Year of Our Pontificate.

The Bad Old Days….

Recently His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin gave us a salutary reminder of just how awful and repressive those days before Vatican II really were, you know, the days when priestly vocations were essentially non-existent and Mass attendance was plummeting. As the good Archbishop points out, all that feigned piety wasn’t ‘really’ Catholic, those few backward peasants who actually went to the bother of attending Mass did so out of fear and compulsion, rather than any sense of genuine religious conviction. Thankfully, under Archbishop Martin’s more enlightened pastoral leadership, things today couldn’t be better and the Church in Dublin is now thriving.

To illustrate his point, here are some photos of young Irish Catholics greeting Cardinal Lorenzo Lauri, the papal legate, as he arrives in Dún Laoghaire harbour for the 1932 International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin.

As is evident from their grim facial expressions, the poor little darlings, locked as they are in the iron grip of a backward and quasi-totalitarian Catholic theocracy, are in a state of unrelieved anguish, no doubt in mortal terror that they’ll incur eternal damnation if they fail to exhibit proper decorum.

Don’t they just look so oppressed?
 
 

 
 
More photos and videos here.

On the distorted coverage of the Dutch abuse report

From David Quinn’s blog at the Irish Catholic:

Sat, 17/12/2011 – 14:31

If you want to know why so many members of the public so grossly exaggerate the number of priests who are guilty of child abuse, look no further than the coverage of a new report on abuse in the Catholic Church in Holland released yesterday.

The media are correct in stating that approximately 20,000 Dutch children, possibly more, possibly considerably less, have suffered some form of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests, religious or lay workers since 1945.

But on its own, and taken out of  context, the reporting is highly misleading because it gives the impression, yet again, that the Catholic Church is especially prone to this terrible scandal.

A story in today’s Daily Telegraph is a case in point. It informs us that, “Children involved in church organisations were twice as likely as non-Catholics” to be abused.

But that isn’t what the report says at all. What it says is that children in institutions were twice as likely to abused as other children, but that there was no difference in the rates of abuse between Catholic and non-Catholic institutions.

This could hardly be more different from what The Daily Telegraph has reported.

Here is the exact quote from the Dutch report: “The Commission of Inquiry investigated how great the risk of unwanted sexual contact with children was in institutions (boarding schools, private schools, seminaries, children’s homes). It emerged that the risk was twice as high as the national average, but with no significant difference between Roman Catholic and non-Roman Catholic institutions.”

The Dutch commission, established by the Catholic Church, surveyed over 34,000 people aged 40 or more to determine levels of child abuse in Dutch society.

It found that one in ten had suffered abuse at the hands of a non-family member. (What must the figure be once family members are included?)

Of those surveyed, between 0.3pc and 0.9pc were abused by a Catholic priest, religious or lay worker.

Ironically, the Dutch report warns against media misrepresentation of child abuse by the Catholic Church. It should have saved itself the bother. The report has been used to further exaggerate the scale of the problem in the Church.

The Dutch bishops should not have commissioned this report unless other organisations were doing the same. By commissioning it and releasing it in this way, it has allowed the Catholic Church to be singled out again and damned for having a worse problem than comparable organisations, when this is not the case.

Is it any wonder that people are so inclined to believe that so many Catholic priests have abused children?

David Quinn also had an excellent article in Studies on the Ryan Report back in 2009.

New Catholic at Rorate Caeli reminds us that the Dutch Church was in the vanguard of doctrinal and liturgical innovation, both before and after the Second Vatican Council, rendering implausible claims that the scandals arise from an adherence to orthodox doctrine. I also noted on his comments box that this report from the Netherlands also contradicts the widespread idea that clerical sex abuse in the Catholic Church is in some way a particularly Irish phenomenon, and peculiar to the English-speaking world.

When the child abuse scandals broke out first in America and then Ireland, many people (including a prominent tradition-friendly Cardinal) argued that the whole thing was down to Irish influence and priestly paedophilia was in some way peculiar to the Churches of the English speaking world. Then when the Ryan Report was released in Ireland, the revelations were widely blamed on a non-existent ‘Irish Jansenism’ (see here) and all the supposedly ‘unique’ attributes of pre-conciliar Irish Catholicism. About 2 years ago, abuse revelations suddenly started pouring out of continental Europe, quite undermining that ‘analysis’ and we haven’t heard much of it since. With this report we can have no doubt that clerical sex abuse is a problem for the Roman Church universally (and I would add for all of human society) and not at all confined to any particular ethnic or cultural category.

Sadly so many conservative Catholics, particularly on the blogosphere, are so dogmatically convinced that pre-conciliar Irish Catholicism was ‘uniquely’ defective in all sorts of ways (ie. that it was obsessed by sex, aliturgical, repressive, blah blah blah…) that this narrative is unlikely to go away any time soon.

Republic of Ireland Act, 1948: Bishop Collier’s Statement

In 1948 the Irish government passed (with the support of all the main political parties) the Republic of Ireland Act, which formally declared the Irish state to be a republic. The Act came into effect on Easter Monday, 1949 (the 33rd anniversary of the beginning of the Easter Rising). The Irish state and local authorities organized celebrations throughout the country, while Irish bishops urged their churches to mark the occasion. For example, Dr. Patrick Collier, Bishop of Ossory, presided over a High Mass in St. Mary’s Cathedral, Kilkenny, followed by Benediction, on Easter Monday at 11 a.m. The general public and all public authorities in the diocese were invited to attend. He had earlier issued this statement on 7th April, 1949:

On Easter Monday the Republic of Ireland Act will come into operation. This puts the Legal Crown on the patriotic lawful aspirations and strivings of centuries of national effort directed and led by devoted Irishmen and Irish women of many generations.

It is right and fitting that such a great occasion in our national history should be honoured in our churches.

The Archdiocese of Dublin is Dying…

An interesting article in today’s Irish Times. Judging by his comments Archbishop Martin appears to be living in denial.

Archbishop says Dublin diocese facing crisis
PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

IRELAND’S LARGEST Catholic diocese is facing its biggest crisis since emancipation in 1829, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has said.

“The change that will take place between now and the year 2020 – just eight years away – will be enormous. I am more and more convinced that they will be the most challenging years that the diocese has had to face since Catholic Emancipation,” he said.

He was speaking after a report found that weekly Mass attendance in Dublin is down to 14 per cent (164,000 out of a Catholic population of 1,162,000).

The Irish College of Leuven

Inscription on the entrance to the old Irish College of Leuven: “Dochum Glóire Dé agus Ónóra na hÉireann.” (“For the Glory of God and the Honour of Ireland”) 

The Irish Franciscan College of St. Anthony of Padua in Leuven (present day Belgium, then in the Spanish Netherlands) was the scene of one of the most glorious chapters in the history of Irish Catholicism and also of Ireland as a nation. The College’s contribution to Irish history, religion, culture and the Irish language is breathtaking. It was co-founded under the patronage of King Philip III of Spain by the Irish Franciscan theologian Hugh MacCaghwell (Lecturer at the University of Salamanca, later appointed Archbishop of Armagh and tutor to the sons of Hugh O’Neill) and Archbishop Florence Conry, who we met a few weeks ago concerning the Irish College of Salamanca. (Archbishop Conry was also instrumental in establishing an Irish Regiment in the Spanish Army, under the captaincy of Henry O’Neill. The regular presence of Irish troops in the Spanish Netherlands made Leuven an attractive place for Irish students to study.)

The following is an article on the College from the Irish Ecclesiastical Record of October, 1871:

************************************************************************************************************************************

Ireland owes no small debt of gratitude to those self-sacrificing men, who, during the first half of the seventeenth century, devoted their lives to illustrate her annals, and gather together the scattered fragments of her early history. Throughout Elizabeth’s reign, ruin and desolation had fallen upon this kingdom; its monasteries were destroyed, its schools proscribed, its clergy persecuted, its most fertile districts reduced to a desert waste, and nothing was left undone to seize upon or destroy every monument of its ancient glory. Some of the agents of this reckless vandalism were impelled by irreligious fury, for thus they imagined they might turn away our devoted people from the long-cherished faith of their fathers; others were led on by the delusive hope that the national spirit of Ireland would cease to exist when the monuments of her early fame were obliterated and forgotten. “It seemed to you” (thus writes Michael O’Clery, the chief of the Four Masters, when dedicating his work to the O’Gara, of Coolavin [Fergal O’Gara, lord of Coolavin and descendant of the Kings of Sliabh Lugha, was patron of the Annals of the Four Masters --- Shane], in 1636) —

“It seemed to you a cause of pity and regret, grief and sorrow for the glory of God and the honour of Ireland, how much the race of Gaedhal [ie. the Irish --- Shane] have gone under a cloud and darkness, without knowledge of the death of saint or virgin, archbishop, bishop, abbot, or other noble dignitary of the Church; of king or prince, lord or chieftain, and of the synchronism or connection of the one with the other. I explained to you that I thought I could get the assistance of the chroniclers for whom I had most esteem, for writing a Book of Annals, in which the aforesaid matters might be put on record; and that, should the writing of them be neglected at present, they would not again be found to be put on record or commemorated to the end and termination of the world.” (1)

Dr. Petrie, the great restorer of Celtic archaeological studies in our own time, having cited these words in an address before the Royal Irish Academy, adds: —

Address of the Irish Bishops to Cardinal Cullen at the Close of the Fourth Public Session of Vatican I

Out of a total of 744 bishops in attendance at the First Vatican Council (1869–70), some seventy were of Irish birth and about another 150 were of Irish descent. The author of the accepted definition on the highly controversial dogma of papal infallibility was the Archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Paul Cullen — a staunch ultramontane and one of the most influential prelates in the history of the Irish Church. At the end of the Fourth Public Session, some of the Irish bishops presented the following address to the Cardinal:

To His Eminence Paul Cardinal Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin, Primate of Ireland, &c., &c.

May it please your Eminence — On this most memorable day in the history of the Vatican Council, We, the undersigned Archbishops and Bishops, representatives of the Irish race, respectfully approach your Eminence, and offer our heartfelt congratulations on your most able and successful vindication in the Council Hall of the rights of the Holy See, and of the tradition of the Irish Church concerning them.

‘Ireland, you have been robbed of the Mass’ (in full)

Thanks so much to my Polish friend at Słowianin w Irlandii (Slav in Ireland) for sending me the link to this.

‘Ephemerides Liturgicae’ Report on the Liturgical Movement in Ireland (1968)

The Liturgical Movement in Ireland is vigorous and growing year by year. A good deal of credit for this must be given to the courageous and enlightened policies conceived and put into action by the monks of Glenstal Abbey, and the Editor of The Furrow. Diocesan liturgical conferences are frequent, and many enlightened directions are being issued by the competent authorities. Of great interest is the Pastoral Directory on Baptism for the Archdiocese of Tuam, printed in full in The Furrow (September, 1967). This Directory legislates for the celebration of Baptism within the Mass. The existing law (Canon 770) should be so interpreted that the mother can be present as a participant when her child is baptised. The Christian community is invited to take an active interest in the baptism by presenting two sponsors to have a special care on its behalf, along with the parents, of the child that is introduced into the People of God. Detailed instructions are given concerning the construction of the baptistery and its reorganization, all in the spirit of the Constitution on the Liturgy Par. 70. This is an example which should be followed by the Hierarchies as a whole.

The above article is from a report in Ephemerides Liturgicae in 1968 on ‘The Liturgical Movement in Ireland’. It was republished in The Furrow, March, 1968. The mention of the work of Glenstal Abbey refers to the Irish Liturgical Congresses. Founded in 1953, they were addressed by (among many distinguished Irish speakers) most of the leading figures in the post-war Liturgical Movement on continental Europe, including Jungmann.

The history of the Liturgical Movement in Ireland and its legacy is truly fascinating, both in the 19th and 20th centuries, though it is much misrepresented and misunderstood on the Anglophone Catholic blogosphere. Fr Séan Finnegan of Valle Adurni wrote a series on the topic that I strongly disagree with but which serves as a useful summary of the prevailing view. The harsher and more common treatments usually involve recirculation of the claim (maintained by Thomas Day in Why Catholics Can’t Sing) that there existed a dearth of hymnody in Irish Catholicism and that this owes its origins to the Penal Laws. (The musical scholar Helen Phelan soundly debunked this nonsense in an excellent article ['Hymns and Irish Catholicism: A New Perspective'] in The Furrow of February, 2002.) I posted recently about the developments at diocesan level but it’s important to remember the role of the Irish Liturgical Congresses and The Furrow (see here) as a force for change in the pre-conciliar Irish Church on a national level. The Furrow declined drastically in quality after the death of its founding editor in the 70s, and has transformed since then into more of a theological review (now published bimonthly), but back then it was a serious journal of the Liturgical Movement and was widely read abroad.

Lecture on the Nine Years War

The Institute of Catholic Culture has a really fantastic collection of downloadable lectures on all things Catholic, with a particular focus on ecclesiastical history. I recently noticed two lectures by Dr. Timothy O’Donnell, President of Christendom College, on the Nine Years War, which was the most decisive turning point in modern Irish history and ended in English victory against the forces of Hugh O’Neill and Hugh Roe O’Donnell (and their Spanish allies), leading to the complete collapse of the Gaelic order, the Flight of the Earls and the Plantation of Ulster. You can listen to the lectures by clicking on the play buttons below or, alternatively, you can download them in MP3 format here and here. Dr. O’Donnell has also written a book on the topic: Swords Around the Cross: The Nine Years War: Ireland’s Defense of Faith and Fatherland, 1594-1603. I have not read it but it might be worth buying as a Christmas present. (The Amazon blurb presents it as “one of the few full-length treatments of the heroic struggle of the Irish clansmen in their effort to defend their faith and country against English encroachment and conquest in the sixteenth century. This book has infuriated establishment academics for its honest and thorough treatment of the Irish past. In so doing, the image of a “golden age” under Elizabeth I is dealt a serious blow.”)

A Glimpse Back into 1930′s Ireland

Secularist Ireland

Below is an editorial in the current issue of Catholic World Report that is worth considering. Unfortunately it’s gone to print too late to note that the Irish Government has just established a group of medical experts to re-examine the country’s abortion laws. A recent study on the attitudes of Irish doctors to abortion found that 52% favour legislating for abortion on demand, while only 11% (at most) support retaining the status quo. We are undoubtedly living under the most secularist government in the history of the state and — following the departure of the Spanish socialists — the most secularist government in Europe.

Secularist Ireland

By George Neumayr (editor@catholicworldreport.com)

Adorning books about Ireland’s storied past are such titles as How the Irish Saved Civilization. Today’s Ireland, however, is busy losing it. In recent decades secularism has coursed through the country, transforming a pious island that once dispatched missionaries to foreign lands into an agnostic muddle that now needs them.

The news of November brought yet another illustration of secularism’s dismal triumph in Ireland: its government decided to shutter the country’s Vatican embassy. The Irish government will henceforth maintain remote diplomatic ties from Dublin, a move widely seen as a snub to the Vatican.

As if to underline the small-minded materialism that now holds sway over the Irish elite, Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Gilmore explained the decision on grounds of crass and dubious economics. “While the embassy to the Holy See is one of Ireland’s oldest missions, it yields no economic return,” he said.

Ireland has reaped spiritual and cultural riches from its close historic relationship with the Vatican, not to mention material ones through a tourism industry heavily dependent upon the country’s charming Catholic past. But Ireland’s cocky secularists don’t care. Like third-rate Jacobins, they seek to rebuild Irish society from scratch, using the Church’s recent disgraces as an anticlerical pretext to turn their backs on history, tradition, and faith.

A Short Account on the State of Ireland by the Archbishop of Cashel, Some Jesuit Fathers and other Important Persons to the Superiors of the Irish Colleges of Spain, 1612

In July of last year, 1611, a new and furious persecution commenced against the Catholics of this Kingdom, excited principally by two heretical bishops, the one a Scotchman called Knox [the infamous Andrew Knox was Protestant Bishop of Raphoe - shane], the other an Englishman named Babington [Brute Babington was Protestant Bishop of Derry - shane], whose miserable end became soon after notorious. The one died suddenly, and the other was lost at sea, after they had satisfied their rage on an Image of Our Lady renowned for its miracles, which was the pride of the Christians of that part of the country which it adorned. This image the heretical bishops twice cast into the fire with their own hands, for none of their servants would venture to do so, and it came out on both occasions as safe and sound as ever. They then bored holes in it which they filled with chips and tar, and then our Lord permitted it to burn, repaying the miserable bishops for this great sacrilege with the deaths mentioned above. Others write to say that an arm of this image has been saved, which the Catholics carried off, while the heretics carefully scattered the ashes of the image lest anyone might collect them. This happened last September, 1611.
 
The native and Catholic magistrates, and other ministers of justice, have been deposed from their offices, and declared ineligible for any other under Government, for refusing to take the oath of the supremacy of the King [James I, first (Stuart) King of Great Britain and whose Plantation of Ulster saw the confiscated lands of the exiled Gaelic princes planted with British Protestant settlers - shane] over the Church, and absenting themselves from the sacrilegious meetings of the heretics; others are in prison, and the lives of many of them run a great risk. Cruel edicts have been published against the Catholics, and particularly against the alumni of the foreign seminaries, their parents, relatives, and friends, as also against all such as contribute to their education. In opposition to your colleges the heretics have established various schools, though till lately they had closed the door of all such establishments, and have placed heretical masters in them to corrupt the children from their tender infancy.

Thoughts on the Raphoe Report

Today five Irish dioceses (Raphoe, Ardagh and Clonmacnoise, Kilmore, Dromore and Derry) and one Archdiocese (Tuam) published the reports on child protection practices undertaken by the independent National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church (NBSCCC).

The NBSCCC was asked by the Irish Episcopal Conference, the Conference of Religious of Ireland and the Irish Missionary Union to undertake a comprehensive investigation into the handling of abuse allegations throughout all dioceses and Church authorities on the island of Ireland. When considering the handling of abuse allegations, it is important to remember that the Church in Ireland does not exist as one unitary and uniform entity, but rather as a complex weave of 188 separate Church authorities, 26 of which are dioceses, while the remainder are religious orders, congregations, pontifical prelatures, etc.

Church Music in Ireland

When perusing old Irish Catholic newspapers and archives from before Vatican II, one thing that always strikes me is the constant and industrious efforts made by Irish clerical musicians, and even secular musical organizations (eg. Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann), to promote and improve the standard of Sacred Music, particularly among schoolchildren. I’m beginning to suspect that the established narrative of this subject that prevails on the Catholic blogosphere has little (if any) basis in the historical reality. For example, yesterday I was checking out the notices for the months April, May and June in the 1939 Irish Catholic Directory and took note of some of them:

April 26 — Over 2,000 schoolchildren took part in the Liturgical Festival of the Archdiocese of Tuam held to-day. The Festival, which is under the patronage of Most. Rev. Dr. Gilmartin, Archbishop of Tuam, and Most Rev. Dr. Walsh, Bishop of Cela, was held for the first time last year with the idea of bringing Tuam into line with the Liturgical Movement inaugurated by Pope Pius X.

The Sacrifice of the Mass Worthily Celebrated

Memorial of Hugh Roe O’Donnell and Hugh O’Neill to King Philip III of Spain Concerning the Irish College of Salamanca

“Hugh Roe O’Donnell leading his army” – at the Battle of Kinsale (1601), which saw the defeat of Irish and Spanish forces and ultimately the end of the Gaelic order. The defeat prompted this particular visit to King Philip.

The following memorial was sent to King Philip III of Spain in 1602 by Hugh Roe O’Donnell and Hugh O’Neill, kings of Tyrconnell and Tyrone respectively. It was presented personally to the King by O’Donnell and the remarkable Fr. Florence Conry (later appointed Archbishop of Tuam and founder of the Irish College at Leuvan). The following is the original, underneath it is a translation:

Un Memorial de la parte del Collegio de Salamanca que ha dado el Conde Odonel, a 22 de Mays del año 1602.

S. C. R. Magd.,

El Conde Odonel de Irlanda besa los pies de V. Magd. y dice que en los Reynos de V. Magd. ay algunos Collegos o Seminarios para instruir los estudiantes Irlandeses que por la persecucion de los hereges no pueden ser enseñados en la sana y Catholica doctrina, y en particular tiene V. Magd. un Collego en Salamanca, para este effecto sustentado con la limosna que V. Magd. le hace, y la que juntan los que le tienen a cargo de los prelados y Titulados de Hespaña.

En este collego preside un Religioso de la Compañia Irlandes y natural de las provincias subjectas ala Reyna y por consiguiente Sçismaticas, el qual no tiene pia afficion a los Irlandeses de Ultonia y Conaçia [Ulster and Connaught - shane] y Catholicos declarados y que tantos años ha que tienen las armas en defensa de la Fee: y a esta causa no quiere recibir los estudiantes de aquellas provincias, siendo verdad que estos mas que otros delrian ser sustendados de las limosnas de los fideles, lo uno por ser verdaderos Catholicos y vasallos de la iglesia y de V. Magd., por lo qual se espora haran mas fructo que los que se han criado con tan mala leche como la obediencia de la Reyna y entrañable armor a sus cosas, y fuera del gremio de la iglesia, que es fuerça que volviendo entre los suyos se haed de dexar llevar de la corriento, y hace mucho mas daño que sino huvieran estudiado. Por que estos enseñan que se puede obedecar ala Reyna y tomar armas contra V. Magd., y a los que hacen confiesan y absuelven y admetten alas missas y divines officios.

Mas estos estudiantes son communmente hijos de mercaderes ricos que podrian a costa de sus padres estudiar, y sino fuese para ahorrar la costa imbiarian a Ingalaterra al estudio como otros de los mismos haçen y dentro de Irlanda en aquellas provincias sujetas ala Reyna tienen alguna comodidad para estudiar. Pero los nuestros son Catholicissimos tienen entrañada la obediencia de la iglesia, y desde la cuna aborrecen la maldita seta de la Reyna y predican contra ella: por los guerras continuar no tienen modo ni aparato alguno para estudiar, los que vienen a Hespaña son hijos de nobles que han perdito sus haciendas por la Fee y no tienan comodidad por proveer los.

Por estas y otras raçones supplico a V. Magd. de parte de Onel [O’Neill – shane] y mia y que de aquellas dos provincias de V. Magd. mande que el dicho Seminario de Salamanca se reciban porlo menos la metad de los estudiantes de Ultonia y Conaçia [Ulster and Connaught - shane], y para que se execute sera neçessario remoner de la administraçion el religioso que esta en ella que se llama Thomas Vitus y que se ponga Rector Hespañoe que puntualmente obedezca lo que se le ordenare, porque este padre escierto que siempre pondra excusas aparentes, y quando los reçiba por fuerça, les hara tal tratamiento que no le podran suffrir, y en esto hara V. Magd. gran servicio a nro. señor, y los verdaderos Catholicos de Irlanda grandissimo beneficio y mersed singular.

Mauricio Ultano de la tierra del Conde Odonel y Edmundo Donaldino de la tierra del Conde Onel, hijos de basallos Ricos y Honrados de los dichos, que han perdido toda su hacienda y serviendoles por no ser admittidos a ningunas casas de estudios que los Irlandeses tenian en estas partes, Piden que su Magd. leshaga md de alguna comodidad en Salamanca con que puedan estudiar, su Magd. podia remediar esta necessidad de estos honrados estudiantes y de otros muchos que vernan adar enfado a esta corte, mandando que se reciba luego estos dos estudiantes en el Seminario Irlandes de Salamanca, y sera de mucha importancia y convendria para el bien da aquel Reyno que tambien mande expressamente que se recibaro en aquel seminario en adalanto tantos de la provincia de Conaçia y Ultonia quanteo de Monia y Laxenia pues aquellas dos tienen tanta tierra como los otras, y su Magd. fundo aquel collegio no para sola una provincia sino para todo el Reyno, y para que la dicha orden se guarde inviolablemento no no basta mandarla sin que señale su Magd. una persona del consijo por defensor y proctetor de aquel seminario.

Las raçones que al pe fr. Florencio le parece que ay para hacer esta reformacion son muchas de las quales algunas auia que no dexan de causar lastima en coraçon tan Catholico como el de su Magd. y en los muy Christianos coraçones de los de sus consejos.

To His Catholic Royal Majesty,

The Count O’Donnell, of Ireland, kisses the feet of Your Majesty, and says that, in the kingdoms of Your Majesty, there are several colleges or seminaries for the instruction of Irish students, who, through the persecution of the heretics, cannot [in their own country - shane] be instructed in the sound and Catholic doctrine; and that in particular Your Majesty has a college at Salamanca, which is maintained for this purpose by the charity of Your Majesty, added to the funds set apart for its support by the bishops and titularies of Spain.

Over this college presides a religious, a member of the Irish order of Jesuits, and a native of those provinces that are subject to the queen, and consequently schismatical, who does not entertain a pious affection for the open and avowed Irish Catholics of Ulster and Connaught, who have for so many years held arms in defence of the faith, and on this account does not wish to receive the students of those provinces; the truth being, that they more than any others ought to be sustained by the alms of the faithful, because of their having remained true Catholics and vassals of the Church and of Your Majesty, on which account it may be expected that they will produce better fruit than those who have been reared on such bad milk as obedience to the queen and an affectionate love for her interests, and [for people - shane] outside the pale of the Church; the result being, that, when they return among their own people, they will let themselves be carried with the current, and thus do much more evil than if they had not studied at all, because they teach that it is permissible to obey the queen and to take arms against Your Majesty; and those that do so, they confess and absolve, and admit to Mass and the divine offices.

But those students are usually the sons of rich merchants, who could be educated at the expense of their parents, and who, if it were not to save the cost, would be sent to pursue their studies in England, like others of the same class. Even in Ireland itself, in those provinces subject to the queen, there are considerable facilities for study; but ours are Catholic of the Catholic, who cherish in their hearts obedience to the Church, and who from their cradle abhor the accursed sect of the queen, and proclaim against it. Owing to continual wars, they have no means or opportunities of study; those who come to Spain are the sons of the nobles who have lost their properties for the faith, and have no means of obtaining the advantages possessed by the others.

For these and other reasons I supplicate Your Majesty, on the part of O’Neill and of myself, and on behalf of those two provinces, that Your Majesty will command that the said seminary of Salamanca shall receive one-half of its students from Ulster and Connaught. For the carrying out of this arrangement, it will be necessary to remove from the administration of the college the religious who at present directs it, whose name is Thomas White, and to appoint a Spanish rector to preside over it, who will punctually obey the orders he shall receive, because it is certain that the father referred to will always be prepared with plausible excuses for rejecting those students; and even should he be compelled by force to receive them, he will treat them in a way that will be impossible to be endured. In thus acting, Your Majesty will do a great service to our Lord, and confer the greatest possible benefit and an especial favour on the true Catholics of Ireland.

Maurice Ultan, of the country of the Count O’Donnell [Tyrconnell – shane], and Edmund Donaldino, of the country of the Count O’Neill [Tyrone – shane], sons of rich and honourable vassals of those lords, who have lost all their property in their service, and who, in consequence, were not admitted into any of the houses of study which the Irish have in these parts, entreat His Majesty that he may be pleased to make some arrangement for their studies at Salamanca.

His Majesty could remedy this necessity of these honourable students, and many others who are suffering much anxiety at this court, by commanding that these two students be received forthwith into the Irish seminary of Salamanca; and it would be of great importance, and would materially tend to the advantage of that kingdom, if it were expressly commanded that, for the future, as many students should be received into that seminary from Connaught and Ulster as from Munster and Leinster, since the two former divisions contain as much land as the two latter, and because His Majesty founded that college, not for one province alone, but for the whole kingdom. And that the said order may be carried out in its integrity, it is not enough that His Majesty should command it, but that he should name a member of the council to be the defender and protector of that seminary.

The reasons which seem to the father friar Florencio to require this reformation are numerous, some of which cannot fail to move the compassion of a heart so Catholic as that of His Majesty, as well as of the very Christian hearts of the members of his council.

George Weigel on the Irish Church’s Crisis

George Weigel, a prominent American Catholic commentator, has an article on the Irish ecclesiastical situation in the current Denver Catholic Register – the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Denver. Weigel touches on the claim in this week’s Irish Catholic newspaper that the Irish bishops are resisting Vatican proposals for an amalgamation of Ireland’s dioceses.

The article suffers from all the same flaws that have come to characterise the state of discourse on Irish Catholicism. This is a sad legacy of the institutional and intellectual self-decay that has afflicted Catholicism in this country over the last 50 years. Certainly it has not always been this way: the Irish Church once boasted an articulate and robust Catholic intelligentsia, to whom Irish Catholics could look trustingly for guidance and leadership. The last half-century has seen a meaningless and altogether unnecessary disintegration of these once mighty foundations, leaving the helpless faithful discarded to their own devices. It is regrettable (but no less true on that account) that serious and intelligent discussion concerning the future mould of the Church in Ireland is confined to liberal groups, such as Pobal and the Association of Catholic Priests. These organizations are as yet unrivalled by an orthodox analogue, allowing them to exert influence all out of proportion to their miniscule membership. Into this vacuum, an audacious and all-assuming arrogance has supplanted the position rightfully reserved for conservative churchmanship.

Letter of Hugh O’Neill to King Philip III of Spain Concerning the Irish Seminary at Douai

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The appeal below for the Irish seminary in Douai was sent to King Philip III of Spain in 1599 by Hugh O’Neill, King of Tyrone and then also regarded by his supporters in the war against Queen Elizabeth as the rightful King of Ireland. (Significantly, when the Spaniard Mateo de Oviedo was appointed Archbishop of Dublin the following year, Pope Clement VIII sent with him a crown made of peacock feathers for O’Neill.)

The Irish seminary at Douai (then part of the Spanish Netherlands) was founded around 1577 by Fr Ralph Cusack. King Philip endowed the Irish seminary in 1604 with 5,000 florins. (Incidentally it is little understood today just how crucial the support and generosity of the Kings of Spain was to the survival of Catholicism in Ireland.) After the Flight of the Earls, Hugh O’Neill would stay at the seminary in 1607 on his way to Rome (where Paul V welcomed him lavishly and the same King Philip awarded him with a substantial pension).

Dungannon,
31 December, 1599.

Since nothing can be more beneficial to a Christian commonwealth than to have men, eminent in learning and virtue, to sow the word of God, instruct the people, and eradicate vice from the minds of men; of which men, alas, this realm is destitute, owing to a lengthened war [see here - shane] and the activity of heresy; wherefore, most powerful King, nothing could be more desirable for our commonwealth than to have such men, whom we cannot possess, unless Your Majesty, in your wonted kindness for the welfare of the whole commonwealth, the exaltation of the Catholic faith, and the extirpation of heresy, assign some allowance to our college at Douai, containing nearly one hundred students, living solely on the liberality and alms of others.

Almighty God long preserve Your Majesty to the universal Christian commonwealth and to us Irishmen.

Your Majesty’s most faithful subject,

O’NEILL.

Nihil Innovatur

Fr John Fennelly, parish priest of Greystones, was one of the most vocal clerical champions of the Liturgical Movement in the Irish Church of the 1950s. He was an active proponent of liturgical participation and an improved standard of congregational singing. The following poem of his was published in Worship in December, 1956:

The strangest things are happening to the rubrics of the Mass!
Old men like me don’t understand, we thought our days would pass
Without disturbance of the way we learnt to celebrate.
Now worship, like the world itself, is in a dreadful state.

Some time ago the priest was sure of what was his to say,
And also that the altar-boys would answer up his way:
Now anything can happen from a hold-up to a strike,
Or someone making comments through a nuisance-making mike.

The people used to keep their place, and did not interfere
Except perhaps to cough or sneeze or snore, but in the rear:
They wouldn’t dream of singing out or butting in with noise,
Or talking up in Latin like the Clerk and altar-boys.

Young Curates now don’t seem to mind if Mass is started late,
Provided that the people who are there “participate”:
And some would like motets, and psalms and hymns and chants,
Distracting to the celebrant and pious maiden aunts.

A plague upon those liturgists and all their fussy ways,
There’s nothing solid in them, ’tis a passing whim or craze:
Old men like me have battled for our faith and fatherland
With nothing but the Scripture and the Sacraments in hand.

Of course we had the Liturgy, a makeshift to be sure,
And more or less a native growth, but still Tradition pure;
We said the Mass and let the people pray as best they could,
That was the way in Penal times, and surely it was good.

The world is moving on, no doubt, and times have changed a lot,
The Church of Christ must follow — if her net is in a knot
She’ll never catch the fishes that are milling round the boat:
She needs a change of tackle, sweeter bait and lighter float.

So say professors and divines, who ought to know a lot:
Perhaps old trowlers like myself should try to change our trot:
I’ll read that journal “Worship” and some book on Liturgy,
And maybe when I understand ‘twont seem bizarre to me.

Fr Kevin Reynolds, RTÉ defamation case settled

From RTÉ News:

An action for defamation taken by a Co Galway priest against RTÉ over a Prime Time Investigates programme has been settled at the High Court.

Fr Kevin Reynolds, 65, the parish priest of Ahascragh in Co Galway, sued RTÉ in relation to the programme broadcast in May.

The programme falsely alleged that he had sexually abused a teenage girl in Kenya in 1982, fathered a child by her and abandoned the child.

The Irish Trilingual Ritual of 1961

In response to permission granted by the Holy See to various national hierarchies for greater use of the vernacular in the administration of the sacraments, the Irish hierarchy appointed a committee of experts in 1957 to commission a draft Collectio Rituum to be submitted to the Irish bishops and subsequently to Rome for approval. The new trilingual Ritual was approved by a rescript from Rome on December 12, 1959, and was introduced into Irish parishes on the Feast of St. Brigid, February 1, 1961. (For those interested in the background to the Ritual, Canon J.G. McGarry – who was on the committee – wrote an article explaining it in The Furrow in December, 1961.)

The Ritual has been scanned online here. Many thanks to RevDBH – a curate in rural Ireland – for sending me the link. Father would be grateful if any priests or lay people familiar with the traditionalist scene in Ireland could confirm whether this is used by priests in Ireland nowadays and, if so, do you know where a hard copy could be acquired? If you can answer either of these questions, please send an email to me at shanesemail2010atgmail.com (replace ‘at’ with @).

Letter of Pope Pius XII Concerning the Irish Hierarchy’s Appeal for Maynooth (1949)

To Our Venerable Brother

JOHN D’ALTON

Archbishop of Armagh

Ever solicitous for the proper formation of candidates for the priesthood, We have learned with deep paternal interest of the appeal which you and your Brethren in the Hierarchy have made on behalf of Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth.

We are well aware, Venerable Brethren, of the noble part which Maynooth College has played for more than CL years, not only in training worthy priests for the Dioceses of Ireland, but also in providing zealous, self-sacrificing labourers for the distant vineyards of the Lord in the English-speaking countries beyond the seas, and even in the mission fields of far-away China and Africa.

The Irish people, both at home and broad, have always been noted for their generous charity towards every deserving cause. We feel confident, therefore, that despite the many demands being made upon them, they will not fail to contribute in a worthy manner towards the needs of their National Seminary — a cause which surely merits their whole-hearted support — so that Saint Patrick’s College may be enabled to continue its all-important work of forming priests to personal sanctity and of endowing them with the learning and science required for their holy vocation.

It is Our earnest prayer that Our Divine Lord may reward with very special graces and favours all those who respond to your appeal, and, as a toke of Our interest in this praiseworthy initiative, We cordially impart to you, Venerable Brother, and to the Superiors, Professors, students and benefactors of the College Our fatherly Apostolic Benediction.

From the Vatican, January 26, 1949.

PIUS PP. XII.

Note: Pope Pius XII attached to this letter a personal subscription of £10,000 to the Appeal.

God Thirst for Our Love (reposted)

 

St Thérèse of Lisieux

The following was a sermon preached by Fr. Noel Dermot O’Donoghue, O.D.C. on the occasion of the Final Profession of a Carmelite nun, 6^th August 1958. Father O’Donoghue was professor of Ethics at Maynooth before becoming a Carmelite. At the time of this sermon he was attached to the Abbey, Loughrea, Co. Galway.

Many of the saints speak of God’s thirst for our love. St. John of the Cross tells us that, however greatly the soul desires union with God, God’s desire for this union is still greater. St. Thérèse of Lisieux does not hesitate to say that God has need of our love. “He is so parched that He awaits a drop of water from us to refresh Him” (Letter LXXXVI).

Now this Divine need or thirst is surely a most extraordinary and mysterious thing. For God is absolutely sufficient to himself; he lacks nothing; he has need of nothing; in the Trinity of Divine Persons there is no loneliness, no desire for other company. If none of us ever existed, God would still be perfectly himself, perfectly complete, perfectly happy. In the forty-ninth Psalm the Holy Spirit says to the Jews who thought they were giving something to God by their sacrifices: “I do not need your calves and goats For all the beasts of the woods are mine. I know all the fowls of the air; and with me is all the beauty of the field.” What can such a poor creature as man give to the creator of the vast universe, the millions of starry worlds, the innumerable multitude of angelic spirits, any one of whom could destroy the whole fabric of this world.

And yet there is one thing that God seems to need, one thing that he thirsts for. That one thing infinitely desired is the love of our hearts. In the forty-ninth Psalm which I have just quoted the Holy Spirit continues: “Offer to God the sacrifice of praise : and pay thy vows to the Most High.” The sacrifice of praise is a loving communication of our hearts with the heart of God.

The Humble Address and Remonstrance of the General Board of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, 1818 (and the Reply of Pope Pius VII)

Pope Pius VII

The Irish hierarchy assembled in Dublin on 23rd and 24th August, 1815, issued an uncompromising protest against proposals to give the British Crown a veto over the appointment of bishops in Ireland (which had been floated as a quid pro quo for Catholic Emancipation) and instead resolved that “it is our decided and conscientious conviction, that any power granted to the Crown of Great Britain, of interfering, directly, or indirectly, in the appointment of Bishops for the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, must essentially injure, and may eventually subvert the Roman Catholic religion in this country.” This stance contrasts with the pliable approach of just a few years earlier: in a 1799 communication to the old pre-union colonial Irish government, four Archbishops and six Bishops declared that “in the appointment of Prelates of the Roman Catholic Religion, to vacant Sees, such interference of Government, as may enable it to be satisfied of the loyalty of the person appointed, is just, and ought to be agreed to.” This transformation in attitudes reflects the increasing confidence and self-assertiveness of the Catholic middle class, as well as growing nationalist sentiment in the wake of the Act of Union (1801).

Protesting Britain’s undimmed ambitions and diplomatic endeavours in Rome to secure a veto, the General Board of the Roman Catholics of Ireland sent the following letter to Pope Pius VII in 1817:

Board Room, Dublin,
July 19, 1817.

Most Holy Father;

The General Board of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, with sentiments of veneration, which are due to the Supreme Head upon Earth, of the Roman Catholic Church.

They desire to assure your Holiness, that no change of circumstances shall ever induce them to interrupt that spiritual connection with the Holy See, which they esteem to be essential to the Catholic Communion, and which their ancestors protected and preserved in defiance of most cruel persecutions, and the most seductive temptations.

It is, therefore, with deep regret that they find themselves called upon to submit to the paternal consideration of their Holy Father, any expression of disappointment or dissatisfaction; but their zeal for the preservation of their religion compels them to unfold to His Holiness the subjects of their anxiety, and the sources of their affliction.

They could not, with safe conscience, admit, that they discover, in the recent conduct of the advisers of the See of Rome, any proof of an existing reciprocity of attachment. It would seem to have been forgotten, that the conduct and perseverance of the Roman Catholics of Ireland had entitled them to any share of regard, or even of favourable consideration — the martyrs of three centuries appear to be already forgotten, and the zealous perseverance of the present generation is not esteemed worthy of being taken into account.

We put forth no claims to gratitude. What the Catholics of Ireland did in support of their religion, they did it not from human respect, but for God’s glory and their own sanctification; and with cheerful hearts do they avow the gratitude which they owe to Providence for their preservation, notwithstanding the continued dangers of persecution and neglect.

The Catholics of Ireland have observed, with painful emotions, the marked disinclination evinced at Rome, to entertain their most humble solicitations for attention. Nearly two years have elapsed since they forwarded to the Holy See, an Address and Remonstrance, by the hands of their Delegate, the Rev. Richard Hayes; to this respectful communication, to the sentiments of which they unalterably adhere, no answer has been obtained, nor has any inclination been manifested to cherish those Catholic principles which induced that address; this sense of indifference is much aggravated, when the Catholics of Ireland observe an active anxiety evinced to forward the wishes, and accomplish the purposes of that power, which persecuted our ancestors, and still oppress their posterity, on account of their adherence to the Catholic Faith. The consummation of our disappointment is accomplished by the banishment of the faithful Delegate, of near six millions of the most constant and attached members of the Catholic Church.

We sincerely lament the necessity which obliges us to address this Remonstrance to your Holiness, whose character we venerate with unequalled attachment; we cannot for a moment entertain the belief, that the conduct, against which we complain, could have been approved of by the Head of the Catholic Church, or sanctioned by him.

We cannot suppose that your Holiness would willingly discountenance the prayer of the Irish Catholics to preserve their faith and discipline, from the intrigues and hostilities of the avowed enemies of their Church. Neither can we entertain the opinion, that your Holiness would direct, or willingly admit, that the Delegate of so large a body of Catholics, whose conduct was most earnestly approved of by his constituents, and who possesses, as he well merits, their confidence, esteem, and gratitude, should have been consigned to an ignominious exile, without the institution of any judicial proceeding, or without any representation of misconduct being attempted.

This Board can feel no difficulty in ascertaining that this offensive indignity did not arise from any misconduct on the part of the Irish Delegate; on the contrary, they attribute it to the too successful intrigues and influence of the enemies to the Catholic Religion in Ireland, who considered the expulsion of the Rev. Mr. Hayes from Rome, a necessary preliminary step towards the accomplishment of their hostile purposes.

For we have learned with regret, that a lay interference has taken place at Rome, in the affairs of the Catholics of Ireland. We solemnly protest against the interference of the statesman, to whom, in particular, we allude; and we distinctly renounce any submission to him or his measures. We will not yield to a minister what we would not concede to his master — the right of interfering in our temporal affairs. Our intercourse with Rome is exclusively confined to spiritual concerns; and we never can agree to have that intercourse regulated by the interests of the court, or to have it directed by the political minister.

We cannot avoid declaring to your Holiness, that our apprehensions of undue and temporal interference are much increased, by learning that your Holiness is soon to be addressed in person, by one of the most active opponents to the independence and purity of the Irish Catholic Church, Sir John Cox Hippisley. We earnestly conjure your Holiness to give no credit to his representations of any portion of the Irish people. He has exhausted all the resources of his ingenuity to find precedents of degradation and despotism in Ecclesiastical matters, in order to apply them to the prejudice of the Catholic Claims in Ireland.

We implore you, Most Holy Father, to protect, by timely interposition, the Catholics of Ireland against the dangers which impend over them. We entreat your Holiness to allay all rational alarms, by establishing such a Concordat with the Bishops of our Church in Ireland, as will render the election of their successors perfectly domestic and purely Catholic; and will, at the same time, ensure the institution to the person so to be elected. We urge this measure the more earnestly, because we know it to be approved of by every class and rank of Catholics, ecclesiastical and laical, in Ireland. Such a measure would satisfy the doubts of every Protestant mind, not bent on the annihilation of the Catholic faith, and would, at the same time, remove all the sources of disunion which generate hostility in the Catholic body.

Most Holy Father, we further pray your Holiness to cause to be revoked the order of banishment which has been issued out against our Delegate. With a view to allay the feelings of dismay which now universally and more powerfully agitate the minds, and affright the consciences of your long persecuted and ever faithful Catholic Children in Ireland.

Signed by order,

EDWARD HAY,
Secretary of the Catholics of Ireland.

Pope Pius VII sent the following reply:

To our beloved Children of the General Board of the Catholics of Ireland, Dublin.

PIUS PP. VII.

Beloved children — health and apostolical benediction!

In your letter, dated the 19th day of last July, which our Venerable Brother Laurence, Cardinal Litta, of the Holy Roman Church, Bishop of Sabinum, and Prefect of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, delivered to us, you complained that we had given no answer to the letter, in which you had, two years before, recorded your Remonstrance concerning the subject of the election of Bishops. But you should by no means have inferred from this our silence, that we have less at heart the interest of the Catholic religion in that kingdom, or that our disposition is less favourable or less prompt towards the people of Ireland, whose constancy in the faith, unshaken by any adversity, and whose distinguished merits in the cause of religion, we acknowledge and admire, for the unwearied solicitude which, it appears from public records, we had devoted to the interests of all churches, even in the midst of perils and of difficulties; and which we now devote with increased energy, and even your own approved faith and religion, should have furnished you with abundant proof, that there existed another cause why it appeared inexpedient to answer your letter. In truth, we then had a double reason for adopting this course: for, in the first place, whereas, at the same time, there was brought to us, along with yours, a letter also from the Irish Bishops, relating to the same subject, and, as we stated to those Bishops, as well by personal communication to their Delegates, as well as by our letter, dated the 1st of February, 1816, our opinion concerning the proposed difficulties, and the subject of your alarm; we thought it by no means necessary to repeat the same to you, which you could have so easily learned and ascertained from them; secondly, the tenor of the letter which you addressed to us on that occasion, contributed, in no small degree, to induce us to act towards you in that manner. For though many assurances of your devotion to the Catholic faith were mingled with your expostulations, yet, contrary to our expectation, we observed, that you frequently gave expression to such language and sentiments as seemed, by no means, in unison with that devotion and zeal which the people of Ireland have, at all times, manifested towards the Apostolic See, from which they justly glory, that they have derived the light of the faith.

Therefore, as, on the one hand, your many and illustrious merits induced us to act kindly towards you; and, on the other, we could neither approve nor altogether suppress our opinion of those matters, which, contrary (as we are persuaded) to your intention, had crept into your letter, we thought it better to send you no answer, especially when, as we have already stated our opinion and judgment as to the proposed difficulties, could have been fully made known to you by other means. You have then, the causes of our silence, which we do not now hesitate to disclose to you, that we may deliver you from all anxiety, and that henceforth you may never imagine, that it could be our will to reject your prayers.

With respect to the transactions discussed in that your letter, you should ever feel persuaded that all our efforts and solicitude — (we, to whom the deposit and protection of the faith, and the rule of the whole Church have been committed by Divine Authority) are directed to no other object than to secure by all means the integrity and advancement of the Catholic religion. Therefore, when we signified that we would permit those things, if the British Government would pass an act of emancipation, which should entirely favour the Catholics, we were induced to it by no temporal considerations or political counsels, (of which it would be criminal even to suspect us) — but we had solely in view the interests and well-being of the Catholic religion. We proposed to ourselves, that, in consideration of the faculties to be conceded by us, the desired emancipation would be granted to the Catholics by the repeal of the penal statutes; and thus that wretched condition, in which those Catholic churches have been placed for nearly three hundred years, would be terminated; peace and liberty would be restored to the Catholics: they would be rescued from the temptation to apostatize from the orthodox faith, to which human frailty is exposed; and finally, that the fear of the laws now in force against Catholics, which might, perhaps, deter separatists from entering the bosom of our Holy Mother Church, would be removed. In our aforesaid letter to the Bishops of Ireland, we have proved, fully and clearly, that our proposition was altogether harmless, and guarded by such limitations and conditions, that, if they should be observed, no room could remain for abuse.

But it is fit that you should particularly remark, that we promised the before-mentioned things only as we have said in the event that and after the aforesaid act of Government should pass; nor did we by any means command that, even on those terms, the matter should be concluded, but we only declared that, after emancipation should have been completed, we, on our part, would feel no reluctance to concede them, that by such our declaration, we might, in some degree, facilitate the attainment of the aforesaid emancipation.

As to the suspicion and alarm, which we learn from the conclusion of your letter, you entertain concerning the ecclesiastical affairs of your country, we order you to be at ease; for you ought to consider, we have well viewed and weighed the manner in which we should conduct ourselves in regard to those matters, whenever an opportunity should present itself, and that we shall never deem any thing of higher importance than the interests of the Catholic religion.

Now to proceed to what relates to Richard Hayes, of the order of the Friars Minor of St. Francis; you have complained that we expelled him from our territory, though, as you write, he had given us no cause of complaint. You even seem to think, that we were driven into that measure, perhaps, by foreign influence, lest the statements which he had to make in your name, should obtain easy access to our ear. When you wrote this, you were little acquainted, as it seems to us, with that man’s mode of conducting himself; for, having abused that hospitality which he enjoyed in the city, he furnished us with many and weighty causes of grief and vexation, as well as his deportment altogether unbecoming a man professing a religious institute, and by incessant aspersions on our Government, as by writings disseminated in every direction, overflowing with calumny and rancour, no less injurious to us and to this Holy See, than to his own government, of which he boasted every where, and publicly, that he was the author, until, at length, he proceeded to such a degree of arrogance and audacity, that he did not blush to offend ourselves by injurious expressions; so that we could no longer suppress our sentiments, without the abandonment of our personal dignity. Wherefore, though we could have proceeded with severity against him, nevertheless, acting towards him with lenity, the causes of complaint which we had, having been declared by our orders, some without any difficulty, he did not blush to acknowledge, and others, indeed, he could not deny. We caused it to be notified to him, that he should, of his own accord, depart from the city; which intimation of ours, when he altogether and obstinately refused to obey, we ordered, at length, that he should be removed, even by force, beyond the limits of our territory. Wherefore, as we were induced to act towards him in this manner, by motives quite different from those which you imagined, and these of weighty moment, you have no reason to complain, as if by this act we had inflicted an injury on the affairs of the Catholics, which are dear to us, for most essential reasons. In the mean time, that same man, of whom we speak, since his return to his own country, has not changed his line of conduct; for, in the public journals of the 17th of last December, printed in Dublin, we have seen a report delivered by him to you of his proceedings in this city; like his former writings, it is full of falsehood and calumnies, to which report, therefore, we most unreservedly declare to you, that no credit should be attached.

To conclude, assuring you of our paternal charity, we impart to you, from our heart, the apostolical benediction.

Given at Rome, at St. Mary Majors, this 21st day of February, 1818, of our Pontificate the XVIII.

PIUS P.P. VII.

Progress and Catholicity in Ireland (1905): Fr Michael O’Riordan Debunks ‘Ireland in the New Century’

Read here.

See also: Priests and People in Ireland

An Account of the Decrees and Acts of the Conciliabulum Held by the Four Heretic Archbishops of the Kingdom of Ireland in the Year 1611, in Dublin, to Extinguish the Catholic Faith, and Establish their Impious and Perfidious Sect, Remitted by Persons of Credit to the Superiors of the Irish Colleges of Spain; to which are Added Some Strange Cases, and Some Notice of the Preceding State of Things

The following resolutions were adopted at a meeting in Dublin in 1611 by the four Protestant Archbishops of Ireland. This Spanish transcript was sent to the Irish Colleges in Spain by Fr Richard Conway (1573-1626) and is translated here by Fr William McDonald, Rector at the Irish College of Salamanca from 1871 until 1876. The report is headed with the (long!) title of this post. (Note that there is an English equivalent of this statement which does not differ from the following except in its antiquated phraseology.)

In as much as the king our lord [this refers to the Stuart King James I, first monarch of the newly united Kingdom of Great Britain and much hated by Catholics in Ireland at the time for his ruthless policy of confiscation and plantation - shane], with his usual care and religious zeal for the advancement of the true faith and religion in this kingdom of Ireland, has commanded us, the archbishops and bishops of said kingdom, by his royal letters of the 12th of last April, to come together to confer and treat about the means to carry out and put in execution his Majesty’s will on this head; we, the four archbishops of this kingdom, summoned by the viceroy according to the directions he had from his Majesty for this purpose, having met here in Dublin in discharge of our consciences before God Almighty, and in compliance with the sacred royal commands of his Majesty, to whom we owe loyalty and obedience in temporal and spiritual things according to our oaths, after due deliberation, do swear and undertake, in order to realize the end his Majesty has in view, as far as in us lies, to procure the observance as well in our dioceses as in those of our suffragans the following statutes and ordinances: