The Dublin Regular Priests and their Work.

Chapter XVIII

The Dublin Regular Priests and their Work.

Let us now endeavour to understand what the regular priests in the city of Dublin do. The Augnstinians keep two monastic national schools, for which they receive a grant from the Government. But their main professional duties consist of saying masses in their own church, striking out retreats, or advertising the marvellous efficacy of the shrines in their Thomas Street church to attract people to it in preference to any of the three parish churches within a few paces of where it is situated. They have confraternities and sodalities, whose members are working men and women, whom they induce thereby to become supporters of the Order of Saint Augustine.

It so chanced that I went into the Augustinian Church recently, and when I had passed through the main door, I noticed a darkened recess on my left; but, having freshly left the glare of the street, I could only make out dimly that people were jostling each other in the gloom. I walked up the nave of the spacious church, and, having knelt to say a prayer, surveyed the costly structure and its decorations, which have cost the better part of a hundred thousand pounds. The stiff-ness, want of taste, and uncleanliness which pervaded the edifice, presented an unpleasant contrast to the glory of all things natural and outdoor. I thought of God, and of the boundless blue sky, the white, fleecy clouds, and the fresh air which I had left outside. And I asked myself: What does God think of this, when He must know that every stone of this church has been procured and put into its place by money which was required by the nation for the bare necessaries of life? Does God, the creator of this earth, with all its land and water, its minerals below and its atmosphere above, with its myriad of human beings and numberless myriads of animal life, approve of this ugly, costly house which has been built out of the sweat of His people’s brows-out of their sighs, their tears, their ignorance, their cowardice, their heart-broken misery? Can He, who takes in at a single glance the countless suns and worlds which revolve in the plane of space, approve of this house or feel honoured by what goes on under its roof?

I looked at the dark confessionals, ranged like caves along the walls of the side aisles, and I thought, or tried to think, of what went on within them. I rose to leave, and, as I approached the door, my eyes having got accustomed to the interior light, I saw that the dark corner in which the people still jostled each other contained a large crucifix, with an expiring Christ, and at the left-hand side of the cross was a large statue of the Blessed Virgin, and at the right-hand side a large statue of St. John. And I saw several shabby, woe-begone people, dirty and threadbare, old, middle -t aged, and young, mumbling inarticulately, and pressing up against the rail outside the statues. And I saw them tremblingly put forth their dirty right hands and rub the palms and backs of them against the coloured clay of the statue of the Virgin, moving their hands over its breast and arms and hands. And then I saw them rub their hands, after contact with the statue, against their own dirty foreheads. And they did the same to and before the statue of St. John. And a feeling of disgust ran through me as I beheld; and I thought: Those are my countrymen and countrywomen. Those are the Irish who cannot get on in life. This is the teaching they get; this is the religion to which they sacrifice their lives. This is all they know of God and God’s world. Now I know, and the conviction surges through my whole being, that God does not approve of this costly house and of what is done under its roof.

And I asked myself, Is that idolatry, or is it not? And I had to answer that if that was not idolatry, and if those poor people were not idolaters, then there was no meaning in words. They believed that those pipe-clay images, of their own initiative, by mere contact, infused a something into their beings of which they stood in need. They believed there was power in those idols, let sophists and hypocrites say what they will. And it is a crime beyond measure that ministers of religion should suffer men and women to so deceive themselves.

The Calced Carmelites at Whitefriars Street conduct all the formal religious exercises at their chapel, hearing confessions, saying masses, and holding confraternity meetings on certain week evenings. They have a Carmelite College at Terenure, in which they have a number of boarders, and they have an academy in Lower Dominick Street.

The Franciscan-Capuchins in Church Street do the same class of work, hearing confessions, granting absolutions, saying masses, and managing their confraternities. These priests have a total abstinence society in connection with that church, and of it I am prepared to admit, that, considering it is a priest-managed institution, it is highly creditable to them. Its members keep away from drink, which, in Dublin, is a great gain; amusements by way of lecture and concert are provided in the society’s hall for its members; but, if the same society were under lay management, with just a single clergyman in attendance, its members would derive far more instruction and improvement from it. Whatever gain accrues to them socially from their teetotalism is, to a great extent, counterbalanced by the mental enslavement and unpractical direction with which they are saturated by the priests in power.

The Boys’ Brigade conducted by them is one of those unpractical organisations which has the outward appearance of well-doing, but which effects no real good. Here is a description of the work in connection with it *

“Brigade Mass *at 10 o’clock a.m. - During the week the work of the brigade was carried on with special care and energy. After their physical exercise on each night the boys received a short instruction appropriate to the season of Lent. The rosary was then recited, and each little lad left the hall *penetrated with the spirit of the Church, and determined *to *carry out to the letter her salutary counsel.” *[Evening Telegraph, Feb. 22, 1902]

The Capuchins pride themselves on the fact that Father Mathew, the temperance apostle, belonged to their Order. It would be well for them if they were in a position to do work, even remotely, approaching that of Father Mathew. Father Brophy, O.S.A., in a lecture at Church Street, said that Father Mathew “loved his country with all the warmth of his big Celtic heart, but above his country he loved his God.” [Freeman’s Journal, Oct. 16, 1901.] Why such a distinction between God and country? Is it because the regular priests feel that they do not love their country, and wish to misrepresent their subservience to the Italian priests as being equivalent to a love of God?

The Discalced Carmelites at Clarendon Street hear confessions, say mass, preach an occasional sermon, and manage their confraternities; and that seems to be their work for good in the city. They are entertaining the lay members of their total abstinence confraternity at supper [Freeman’s Journal, August 12, 1901.] in “one of the spacious rooms of the new convent ”- an enormous building just erected, and to make room for which half a street side had to be cleared away. Let us take a glimpse at the proceedings. We are told that:-

“some national, operatic and humorous songs were ably rendered, and a very pleasant couple of hours spent.” Brother J. C. said: ” Their spiritual director had increased the membership and raised the status of the sodality.” Brother M’C., “one of the oldest members,” also spoke, and “offered his tribute of congratulation.” Father Corbett said they were “united in one heart and actuated with one desire, viz. the promotion of God’s glory and the honour of Mount Carmel… Before separating he would ask them not to forget the grand old man in Rome, their holy father, the Pope (tremendous cheers). They were all loyal and devoted children to that great pontiff (applause). They loved him and he loved them, and he (Father Corbett) could assure them that his Holiness heard with evident pleasure of the working of the confraternity, when a couple of months ago it was his privilege to kneel at his feet. Let them ever pray for him that he may be spared many years to continue to guide the destiny of the Church (cheers).” Brother C. then “led the singing of ‘God Bless the Pope,’ which was enthusiastically joined in by all, and three hearty, vigorous, and ringing cheers having been given for his Holiness, the company separated.”

Such a temperance confraternity, without the dominating interference of the priests, and if rationally conducted under lay guidance, on benevolent principles, would be an admirable institution. But there can be no self-improvement, no lasting good capable of coming from such inanities.

I shall give one or two more examples of the work of the Discalced Carmelites at Clarendon Street. Here, for instance, is a portion of the special work which they do for the Catholic women and girls who attend their Church

“On Sunday next, 23rd February, a retreat for *women, *to be conducted by the Very Rev. M. Somers, C.SS.R., will be commenced in the Carmelite Church, St. Teresa’s, Clarendon Street. The retreat, which will continue for a week, will be opened at the evening devotions at 7.30 on Sunday, and during the week there will be mass, with music, each morning at 7 o’clock, sermon after the 11 o’clock mass; and rosary, sermon, and benediction each evening at 8 o’clock. The sermon on Friday evening *will be on the Brown Scapular, *and there will be a *general enrolment of women *at the devotions that evening. The concluding ceremony of the retreat, on Sunday, 2nd March, will include solemn Renewal of Baptismal Vows and Papal Benediction.” [Freeman’s Journal.]

This is the policy of separating the sexes to which I drew attention in the preceding chapter.

What could be more unpractical and more useless to the women who reside in the neighbourhood of Clarendon Street than an address on the Brown Scapular? Such is the nonsense on which our Catholic women are regaled when they attend the retreats specially prepared for them by secular and regular priests. I do not see the propriety of bachelor priests giving special retreats for women. The Brown Scapular is not the most objectionable theme selected for discourses at such retreats; others are hardly discussable. I think it is going far enough to ask a woman to disclose everything to one of those priests in the confessional, but it is going too far to collect a body of women of various ages and conditions into a church to listen to private addresses from men, who not only themselves have never got married, but who have been reared in ostensible exclusion from women. Such conduct is out of date to describe it mildly and to put no worse construction on it. Here is another example of the Discalced Carmelite at work:-

“On Sunday evening an interesting and impressive ceremony took place in the church of the Carmelite Fathers, Clarendon Street-the opening of a new oratory in honour of the divine child, Jesus of Prague. This devotion of the holy infancy was established in the year 1636 by the venerable Sister Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament, a Carmelite Nun of Beaune (France), to whom it was revealed in an ecstasy that wonderful graces might be obtained by devoutly honouring the Redeemer’s holy childhood. The large and spacious church was filled with a large and devout congregation when the sacred ceremonies commenced. On the conclusion of vespers, Father Stanislaus preached a powerful and eloquent sermon descriptive of the origin and progress of the devotion. This was followed by a procession of the divine child to the new oratory. The sacred ceremonies concluded with benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. On witnessing the piety of the large congregation present one could not but naturally recall to mind the words of the Psalmist: ‘Praise the Lord, all ye nations; praise Him, all ye people. For His mercy is conferred upon us, and the truth of the Lord remaineth for even’ The community of Saint Teresa are to be congratulated on their zeal in encouraging this beautiful devotion to the divine child.” [Evening Telegraph.]

It is not the truth of the Lord that remaineth with the people in such ceremonies as this. Such devotional demonstrations stifle all serious Christian thought and inquiry, and those ecstatic parades come eventually to satisfy every aspiration of the benighted minds of our womenfolk. What would Jesus think of the condition of the poor Catholic children of Dublin if He were to reappear on earth to-day?

The kind of patriotism inculcated under the auspices of the Discalced Carmelites may be gathered from the following. Mr. J. G. is delivering “a lecture on the battle of Clontarf” - a favourite theme - “to the members of the juvenile Irish class, Father Ignatius, O.D.C., presiding.” The lecturer said “that it would be waste of time if they did not learn something from the study of the Irish history at the period of the 11th century.” [Evening Herald, August 7, 1901.] I agree with him; but I fail to see what we can learn from it, except that at that time and ever since we might have had more sense. The lecturer asked, “Would it be possible nowadays for a female to pass through Ireland, nay, through Dublin, without being insulted? He was afraid that the conduct of some of these wouldbe young men led them to think the contrary, and evidenced in a lamentable manner how disreputably low the morality of the country was as compared with the time called ‘the dark pages of Ireland’s history,’ and he believed *the cause of all that was the intercourse with England.” *There I differ with him. I attribute “the disreputably low morality of the country” to the vast army of priests, secular and regular, who have been misguiding us, nagging at us, and obstructing us at every stage of our lives and all periods of our history since the days of Brian Boru, keeping from us the goodness of God and the best virtues of Christianity. It is part of the priests’ business to uphold the race hatred between Ireland and England. It is from them in the schools that the children learn it. The animosity felt by Roman Catholics for their Protestant fellow-citizens is one of the levers by which our Church works on thoughtless British statesmen. Father Corbet pointed out that “the greatest lesson, perhaps, from the consideration of the battle of Clontarf, was that of unity and order. If they would but cultivate Irish songs and Irish sentiment, they would soon present to the world a happy picture, and the historian of the opening years of the twentieth century may have to chronicle the return of that morality, the loss of which is so deeply deplored.” If the Discalced Carmelites deplore the loss of morality amongst Irishmen, and especially amongst Irish womenfolk, why do they not induce the virtuous ladies of their district and the well-intentioned and active laymen to take some measures to purify the moral tone of the city in their immediate neighbourhood? Our priests, save by some dramatic act like the cleansing of North Street in Cork, cannot take the lead in any such movement with permanent success. I attribute no worse motives to them than ignorance and incapacity to deal with the question. It is well to find a lecturer in Catholic Dublin who has the hardihood to speak on morality. If the laymen had a voice in church government, much might be done in this direction; but, as we see, the priests are ever at hand to soften down and hush up and take the edge off the layman’s energy, turning the discourse from morality to ” Irish songs and sentiment” and “unity and order,” as Father Corbet does.

The nature of the labours of the Dominicans - otherwise the Order of Preachers-in Dominick Street may be gauged accurately from the following examples:-

The annual retreat for the members of the Grocers’ Assistants’ Sodality was commenced last evening in the Church of St. Saviour, Dominick Street. [Irish Daily Independent, January 6, 1902.] The devotions commenced at 8.30 o’clock, at which hour there was a very large attendance of the members of the sodality, which’ has done much to further the religious interests of the Publicans’ Assistants in Dublin.”

Most publicans’ assistants are destined to become publicans, and, as a rule, they are generous subscribers to the priests. The rivalry between the Dominicans in Dominick Street and the Jesuits in Gardiner Street for lucrative societies, like this sodality, was never more humorously exemplified than in the struggle between them for the spiritual patronage of the grocers’ assistants. First the Dominicans announced in all the papers that they were going to start a sodality for the Grocers’ Assistants, and summoned by advertisement all the assistants to take part in the great, new, and original, and only genuine society which was to be founded in their sole interests. They started their society accordingly, and the above paragraph records one of its meetings.

But the Jesuits thereupon announced that they had already an old-established Grocers’ Assistants’ Sodality in existence, and they issued advertisements in the papers, calling upon the grocers’ assistants to be true to their old spiritual guardians, the Jesuits. For many months afterwards the rival Grocers’ Assistants’ Sodalities gave considerable amusement to those who took notice of the occurrence. The result of the competition between the Jesuits and the Dominicans for the control of the young publicans was that the Carmelites in Whitefriar Street publicly announced the foundation by them of a third Grocers’ Assistants’ Society; and now the spiritual interests of the future publicans of Dublin are competitively catered for by three orders of regular priests.

It may be safely asserted that not one of those competing orders advises the young men to seek any other way of living, or to be in any respect less keen in pushing the sale of drink when they become masters than they would be if they had not joined the sodalities.

The Dominicans keep up a round of requiem masses, festivals, and other celebrations at their church, of which we will take the following as an instance

“Yesterday requiem mass was celebrated for the repose of the soul of the Very Rev. J. D. Slattery, who was a member of the community, and who died in Trinidad, West Indies, last month. Very Rev. J. D. Fitzgibbon acted as celebrant; Very Rev. T. A. Tighe, Prior of Waterford, acted as deacon; and Rev. H. S. Glendon, of St. Saviour’s, as sub-deacon. The Most Rev. Dr. O’Callaghan, O.P., Bishop of Cork, presided.”

Then follows a lengthened list of priests who attended.

The Dominicans ‘also send out priests to preach charity sermons, in return for a fee, for other “charitable” institutions of a religious nature in Dublin. And Dr. Keane, O.P., is as fiercely indignant as Father Wheeler the Jesuit, that any of the 50,000 insufficiently clothed and fed young Roman Catholics of Dublin should be helped by kindly Protestants. If ever a Jesuit makes a strong statement which attracts public notice, one of the Dominicans always feels bound to say something stronger on the same subject. Dr. Keane is reported as saying:-

“They knew when the bland speech was on their enemy’s lips of fair promises, and hands filled with gifts proffered to the man who apostatised from his allegiance to the revealed religion. The rude programme had been abandoned, the persecuting fires had been extinguished, but Satan’s aim was always the same. He had a ministry of war in this city; they knew the institution which now enshrined his spirit and his work; they knew it under the foul name of the proselytising system, and only the divine mind which fully comprehended the value of an immortal soul could measure and weigh accurately the meaning, the purpose, the air, and the spirit of the thing called die proselytising system. It was Satan’s act. It was an appalling description to utter of work done by human beings who brushed past us in the streets of the city. It was true, and it was for God’s honour that its truth should be recognised and realised. Their work was the devil’s work: it was work designed to destroy the sou.” [Freeman’s Journal, February 17, 1902]

It is stated that one of the objectionable Dublin sacerdotal weekly prints either belongs to, or is inspired by, the Dominicans. Sometimes it is said to belong to the Jesuits. But as there is so little difference between the sentiments of either of those competing bodies of priests, it is not vital to us to know which of them it belongs to or takes its inspiration from. But its persistent denunciations of the “Sour-faces,” as it calls the Dublin Protestants, would seem to be a chip off the same block as Father Keane’s denunciation of the acts of Satan and “devil’s work” done “by human beings who brushed past us in the city.”

The Dominicans do not omit to celebrate the feast of St. Dominick with *éclat. *On the occasion of that anniversary last year, we are informed:-

Solemn High Mass was celebrated at 12 o’clock by the Rev. Father Hanway, O.F.M.; Rev. Father O’Reilly, O.F.M., deacon; Rev. Father White, O.F.M., sub-deacon; and the Rev. Father Butler, O.P., master of ceremonies. There was an overflowing congregation, large numbers being, no doubt, attracted by the announcement that the panegyric of the saint would be preached by the cultured author of “My New Curate,” the Very Rev. P. A. Sheehan, P.P., Doneraile. Nor were those who expected a rare intellectual treat disappointed in Father Sheehan’s eloquent discourse, which was listened to with rapt attention.” [Freeman’s Journal, August 5, 1901.]

Father Sheehan preached a panegyric of St. Dominick; and he is reported as having condemned “the gospel of savage strength and ferocity, of furious pride and rebellion, of Satanic malice and ingenuity-the flower and the fruit” of which were “such heroes as Luther, Mahomet, and Cromwell.” That is almost as hard as Father Keane, or the priests’ weekly paper, on the “Sour-faces”! Father Sheehan writes for the *Rosary, *the Dominican counterblast to the Jesuits’ monthly known as the *New Ireland Review. *His novel appears to have been read by Protestants in the belief that they found in it a true representation of the Catholic priest. It is such an unusual thing to get a readable description of a priest’s life and work from a priest, that Father Sheehan has naturally got many readers. Now, nothing is farther from my intention than to disparage Father Sheehan. He writes fiction: I write fact. But I am quite as competent to speak about Ireland, to put it mildly, as Father Sheehan is. I have lived all my life in Ireland. He, I understand, has not done so. And I feel it my duty to state that there are no such estimable priests in Ireland as the priest in Father Sheehan’s book. Father Sheehan tells us at the opening of one of his other stories, that he was “indulging in a daydream” when he received a letter from his printer in America asking him for copy. I can well believe him.

His books have all the appearance of having been written by a man who was* *“in a day-dream” when he wrote them. It is, to me, a satisfactory discovery to find even one Irish priest spending his day-dreams in writing something readable. So many other priests in Ireland dream away their days in questionable and often reprehensible work. But if the ideal priest in Father Sheehan’s book be an Irish priest, then our priest is double-faced, and keeps his best face for the edification of the stranger and his disagreeable face for Ireland.

The Jesuits, fearing lest some advantage should result to the Dominicans from their connection with Father Sheehan, also took to booming him in a publication of theirs [St. Stephen’s, February 1902.] - a childish magazine, issued in connection with their University College. Father Sheehan, interviewed by one of the Jesuits’ contributors, is reported as saying that he has received “numbers of letters, from clergy of various denominations in England and America ” thanking him “for giving them an entirely new revelation as to what a Catholic priest really is.” Just so, his priests are quite different from the priests that we meet, and they are a “new revelation” not alone to Protestants, but to Roman Catholics. Father Sheehan is urged on by his interviewer to “give to non-Catholics an insight into the ethos of our religion as it is represented by the Irish priests.” That is to say, he is invited to idealise *the religion *for the edification of non-Catholics in the same way as he has idealised *the priest. *Father Sheehan is further represented as saying: “What I fear is that my writings may be read by the ignorant, and, perhaps, perverted to evil purposes.” There speaks the real Irish priest. If he had written only what he believed to be good and true, how could he fear that his writings might be perverted to evil purposes? There he shows the real Irish priest’s terror of seeing knowledge and truth come to the ignorant.

“If I had to acknowledge any master, it would be rather Shelley,” says Father Sheehan. “I mean the poet, not the atheist.” Thus, in our sacerdotal novelist’s opinion, Shelley was also a double-faced man who could doff his religious convictions to suit his poetry. Let me close my remarks about Father Sheehan, which are solely attributable to his appearance in a Dominican pulpit in Dublin-and whom I have no intention of disparaging-by a quotation from himself: “And now if you will allow me,” he said to his interviewer, “I should like to show you my garden, for it is my great delight, and I think if I were tempted to pride myself it would be more on account of my begonias than my books.” Father Sheehan’s fictitious priests are as unlike the real priests as his begonias are unlike the daisies and dandelions of Doneraile.

The Dominicans recently started an institution known as St. Kevin’s House, at Rutland Square, the rear of which abuts a lane at the back of their priory. Rutland Square was once inhabited by wealthy people, but is now being rapidly deserted like Gardiner Street. The Dominicans appear to have purchased two of its fine houses with the object, in their own words, “of providing a residence for respectable Catholic girls living in Dublin, either as employees, or as students, seeking to qualify themselves for one or another of the various employments now open to women.”

I have carefully considered this Dominican venture. But I cannot see why those bachelor regular priests should consider themselves qualified to set up a boarding-house for young Catholic girls away from home. I should implore, if my words could reach them, the parents of such girls to put them under respectable lay custody. I attribute nothing in the shape of “devils work,” to use Father Keane’s words, to those Dominicans in respect of this house. The worst that I attribute to such a policy is, that sacerdotal domination over those girls will probably break their spirits, enervate them, and make them failures in life. Catholic business girls are well able to take care of themselves. It is from their “friends” only they need to be saved. Was it not an impropriety to start such a house? The city is full of nuns; and the undertaking would have more appropriately devolved upon one of our numerous orders of nuns in connection with one of their convents. I find from the report of this St. Kevin’s House which is published [Evening Telegraph, 1901], that it is not nuns who are kept in it as managers; which is a strange circumstance seeing that the priests are continually advocating the installation of nuns in our county institutions, such as workhouses, asylums, and so forth. Archbishop Walsh appears to me to display his episcopal inexperience of everything connected with women by giving this Dominican boarding-house for girls his blessing. 1 am inclined to put everything of this sort in the most charitable light, not alone for Archbishop Walsh, but for every priest in Ireland, owing to the system under which they are trained. But it surprises me that he should be found present, supporting by a long speech this novel Dominican venture. He has not a word to say in explanation as to why the Dominicans should have charged themselves with such a delicate duty as the custodianship of young Catholic girls away from home. He is vapoury about his voluminous correspondence, about his exacting duties as censor of stage plays, about the revival of the Irish language, and other inane trivialities, but he leaves the root of the question untouched.

Why are there not Roman Catholic Young Women’s Christian Associations under combined lay and clerical management? What a picture the establishment of this house presents by inference, of Catholic Ireland! In this Roman Catholic city of Dublin, containing so many respectable Catholic families, is it insinuated that decently bred girls cannot safely come up to the city to transact their business or pursue their studies without being placed under the special protection of the bachelor priests of the Dominican Order? I think the establishment of this novel house touches a high-water mark in priestly interference with secular affairs in Ireland. Indeed one could not set limits to the presumption of our priests, if they were not checked by some independent criticism. I happened to be speaking recently to a man who carries on his business not far from this Dominican church - an unpretentious, well-informed Catholic. His words to me were: “If it were not for the check put upon our priests by the intelligence of large cities like Dublin, they would run such a rig with themselves that we would have a revolution in the country in a very few years. Their behaviour, both as to church building and as given forth in their public utterances, is ostentatious and nonsensical, and they stand badly in want of criticism from the better-class Catholics!”

The Franciscans at Merchant’s Quay claim the honour of belonging to an order, of which the superior-general at Rome is an Irishman, the Rev. David Fleming, who “enjoys the distinction of being the first Irishman yet elected as head of the great Franciscan Order, and is one of the most distinguished living sons of the seraphic patriarch. Father David is the 104th successor of St. Francis Assisi as Superior-General of the Order of the Friars Minor. His subjects at present will be over 16,000, friars, of whom 10,000 are priests.” The Irish Catholics, in their pitiable condition, cannot feel much elation at Father Fleming’s promotion. How will it console them for their own position?

It reminds me of a story told to me by an Irish lady, still living, of an experience she once had at Assisi. She had been travelling in the Apennines with her sister, and found herself at Assisi. Her sister was unexpectedly compelled to go to Rome, and the lady was left to her own resources in the town of the seraphic patriarch. She determined to go north to Perugia, having got tired of the poverty and wretchedness of the locality. The only sight worthy of notice was the army of brawny, fat young monks in their brown habits marching out of the large monastery every morning, with their empty begging sacks on their arms, and dispersing themselves all over the country; and their return in the evening with their full sacks containing the day’s gleanings on their shoulders.

The people in the locality were infinitely poorer than in any part of Ireland; but the monks were fat and rich. She determined to depart from Assisi, being weary of the wretchedness of the place; and presented a Bank of England five-pound note to the hotel-keeper to settle her account. He was unable to change it. He tried every shop in Assisi for change, but without success. The lady herself took the note to the railway station, but the station-master could not change it. There was not two pounds’ worth of Italian money in the town. At length the hotel-keeper suggested that Father Seraphino at the monastery should be tried. I do not give the prior’s real name.

Accordingly the lady betook herself to the gigantic establishment of the seraphic patriarch. She spoke Italian well, and, in an interview with the prior, explained her position and asked for change. He at once gave her the money, and when she offered him a gratuity for the order he refused it, exclaiming: “Yerra, Erin go Bragh! Aren’t you from Ireland like meself? Let us talk English. My name is O’Hoolahan [I do not give the real name], and I’m glad to see any one from the old sod. Shake hands!”

The Congregation of the Holy Ghost at Blackrock and at Rathmines own remunerative boarding-schools and day-schools. They employ a certain number of laymen as teachers in those schools, and their pupils earn larger result fees for them than any priests’ pupils in Ireland at the Intermediate examinations. All priestly schools keep Irish laymen out of work, and give an education which, if we may trust Bishop O’Dwyer, produces those *“déclassés *Catholic young men” at whom he sneers. The French priests hear confessions, say masses, and do the formal priestly work of the other orders; they do the needful,” as Father Ebenrecht once publicly described his own action at a *melée *at Glasnevin cemetery.

The Society of Jesus in Upper Gardiner Street does a large business in confessions, masses, retreats, and confraternities. The same society, at Milltown Park, devotes itself to training the novices of the order, and in giving retreats both to “lay gentlemen and to ecclesiastics,” as they put it in their advertisements. They have, at that place, a fine demesne and gentleman’s residence, called Milltown Park-one of the many gentlemen’s residences which have fallen into the hands of religious orders in Dublin - and there, for a given sum per week, any “commercial or professional gentleman” may be boarded, and have all the wants of his soul attended to besides, by the Jesuits. They advertise their retreats at this place with great energy, and they have their regular *clientele *of customers like a fashionable boarding - house or sanatorium. They give separate retreats “for the clergy” and for the laity; and, at certain seasons of the year, the grounds of this demesne will be seen full of country priests taking gentle exercise in its avenues and lawns, and thereby making reparation to God, in the most comfortable way possible, for all the iniquities committed by them during the previous six or twelve months. The advertisement of one of those retreats reads as follows:-

As all the rooms are now engaged for the Ecclesiastical Retreat, beginning 9th September, an extra one will commence at the above address on Monday evening, 16th September. To prevent disappointment, early application for cards of admission is requested.” [Freeman’s Journal, august 24, 1901.]

The Jesuits, not to be outdone by the St. Kevin’s House branch of the Dominican business, started a branch of the Society for the Protection of Catholic Girls, a London institution, in Dublin. The Jesuits had the astuteness to bring the French Sisters of Charity into the scheme along with them, and Father Thomas Finlay, S.J., sparing a few moments from the Royal University and Technical Instruction department, moved:-

“That a general committee be appointed, consisting of the following ladies, who had kindly consented to act: Lady Castlerosse, Lady Margaret Domville, Lady Dease, the Hon. Mrs. Ross of Bladensburg, Lady Cruise, Mrs. Carton, Mrs. Bacon, Mrs. Brown, Miss Boland, Mrs. Aliaga Kelly, Mrs. Charles Martin, Mrs. Moore, Miss Mulhall, Mrs. M’Grath, Miss O’Connor, Mrs. O’Brien, Mrs. Pratt, Miss Power, Mrs. Plunkett, Miss Scallan, and Miss Scully.”

If those ladies had taken the initiative in this matter themselves, and if they had really intended to do any practical work in connection with the society, why could they not act without the Jesuits? And, oh, why are they never called together to do some real good to the thousands of dejected, poor, Catholic women who live upon the Dublin pavements in misery? The object of this society seems to be to watch better-class Catholic girls who leave Ireland for America and the Colonies, hunt them up at their own homes before starting, put them under priestly custody, and hand them over to the priests’ care in the lands to which they emigrate-a foreign and colonial branch of the business of which St. Kevin’s House represents the home department. The end assured is, that the girls remain pliable subjects, under the priests’ influence even when they get out of this Irish pandemonium. Father Delany - a possible provost of the new Priests’ University - drew an awful picture of “an individual” who was arrested on board one of the German Transatlantic liners, in the act of kidnapping “two quite young girls.” This “individual” had “over 20,000 francs in his possession, and also jewellery to at least equal value.” Why should Catholic girls be so especially weak; so particularly destitute of capable friends and relatives to advise them? It is amazing that Catholic ladies of position can be found ready to be drawn into every undertaking which our regular priests find it to their own advantage to take up. If the priests gave our Catholic ladies and laymen the management of the hospitals of Dublin, or some representative and responsible share in any important matter connected with their own church, it would be well for the community. But instead of playing the game in most of those priestly schemes, our ladies are dead pawns on the sacerdotal chessboard.

The Jesuit Society at Stephen’s Green conducts the remunerative institution known as the University College. Five of the Jesuit priests have been appointed, without examination, to the position of Fellows of the Royal University, at the combined salary of £2,000 paid out of the national purse. It is stated that a Jesuit once presented himself for examination for a Junior Fellowship, which is equivalent to a studentship, and was beaten by a young lady who secured the prize, £200 a year for a given number of years. It is also stated that the Jesuit was soon afterwards appointed, without examination, to a Senior Fellowship at £400 a year! As half the entire number of Fellows of the State-subsidised Royal University teach at this Jesuits’ College, receiving £400 each per annum for so doing, the result is that the lectures and courses of study at the place are crowded with students about to present themselves for examination at the Royal University, knowing that they stand a good chance of being examined by the lecturing Fellows. There is, as may be supposed, no representative or lay authority in this college. Though it is supported by Government money it is entirely managed by the priests; and the Catholic lay Fellows of the Royal University who teach in it, have no place in its governing body.

Things are done in Ireland which are done nowhere else out of Bedlam; and the endowment and management of this Jesuit emporium afford an illustration of the fact.

The Jesuit Society has a very large school, called Belvedere College, at Great Denmark Street - one of the many noblemen’s houses which now belong to religious in Ireland - which acts as a feeder for their University College at Stephen’s Green. Both institutions are lucrative, and deprive the Dublin Catholic laymen of much sadly-needed employment. Poorly paid lay teachers do the hardest work in all priestly schools, but the priests get all the honour and profit. The priests do *their *work, amongst other things, in saturating the boys’ minds with blind “faith” in sacerdotal infallibility.

Illustrative of the Jesuits’ “work” in their chapel at Gardiner Street, I happened to attend a meeting held in one of the side-chapels there one evening. It was a meeting of young men, and was addressed by the “spiritual director” of the guild or sodality. After formal prayers had been gone through - the recitation of the rosary at lightning speed, I think it was, and the singing of a hymn - the spiritual director addressed the meeting. He said

“There are two members of our community, two devoted priests, two saintly and holy men, lying dead in this church to-night; but though their bodies are dead, their souls are in heaven with God, to live in bliss there for ever as the reward of their saintly lives upon earth. Oh, the holiness, the piety, the sanctification of those two good priests! What do not the people of Dublin owe to them? Their life was one continual act of glorification to God. Many of you who are listening to me, and if not you, then others who are not listening to me, perhaps owe your baptism to the ministrations of those two holy priests. It was they who received you into the Church and cleansed you from the stain of original sin. How grateful you should be to them, to those holy p nests, who, at that early stage of your existence, saved you from all the consequences of your first parents’ fall. And then, when you became a little older, it was they, perhaps, who heard your first confession and granted you absolution, and enabled you to make your peace with God after you had offended His majesty for the first time. And then, again, whenever you chanced to fall it was to them you came to get absolution and forgiveness, so that you might be saved from the natural punishments of your sins. And when your soul was cleansed after the pronouncement of absolution, it was from their hands that you received the body and blood, soul and divinity, of Christ in the holy sacrament of the altar. From their hands, the hands of those two pious priests, you received the divine body and blood of our Lord Himself into your very beings. Perhaps it was by the efforts of those two holy priests, by their prayers and by their holy masses offered up to God, that the souls of your beloved fathers, mothers, or other near and dear relatives were speedily released from the fires of purgatory. Perhaps, too, it was by the ministrations of those two holy priests that your fathers, or mothers, or dear deceased relatives received extreme unction and participated in the all - powerful rites of our holy mother the Church, which enabled them to go before their last Judge with confidence. Oh, what do you not owe, what do not thousands of others owe to the ministrations of those two holy priests who are now lying dead upstairs! What nobler or grander life could be imagined than theirs, offering up masses every day of their lives, at which the stupendous miracle of transubstantiation was performed times without number, glorifying God, absolving sinners, and administering sacraments! Their whole life was one act of praise and glorification of Almighty God. May they rest in peace!”

If all this had been merely said once, and if he had gone on to give the young men some practical instruction, there would not be so much to object to. But every statement was repeated a dozen times, and he dawdled, like a beagle dwelling on scent, over the praises of his two colleagues, who had chanced to die on the previous day. The moral of it for the young men listening to him was that, if all the miraculous work done by those two priests was necessary to secure an entrance into heaven, then assuredly the bulk of those present had a very small chance of ever getting there, except by the intervention of the priests. The Jesuit invited the assembly to kneel down and *pray for *the repose of the souls of the two dead priests; and then he said that they might assume that the priests were in heaven, and he asked the young men to join him in *praying to *the priests, and asking the priests, from their position close to the throne of God in heaven, to help the young men in their struggles in life!

Carlyle somewhere defines paganism as “a bewildering, inextricable jungle of delusions, confusions, falsehoods, and absurdities, covering the whole field of life.” It has often occurred to me, after hearing such sermons as this Jesuit’s, that our Roman Catholicism, as preached by most of our priests, is equally bewildering and confusing. An outsider might be inclined to think that the young men who attended that meeting went away with confused minds upon the subject of the dead priests. But that is not so. When they put on their hats at the church door they instantly forgot all about the incident. “Theirs not to reason why !” They must march into the valley of death without ever exercising their reasons upon such questions.

Father Kane, the Jesuit whom we have quoted from before, is reported [Freeman’s Journal, February 28 1901.] as uttering the following words in the course of “an impassioned appeal” in Upper Gardiner Street pulpit. It will serve as another illustration of Jesuit work. He is dealing, in a special sermon, with the subject of the eucharist, and there is not a single member amongst his congregation, or in the region surrounding Upper Gardiner Street Church, who feels inclined to dispute any of the dogmas preached in reference to the holy eucharist. Yet he beats the empty air with idle hands and brings all the passion and power that he possesses, as if he were speaking to an audience of erudite sceptics, to bear upon the threadbare statements of Catholic belief:-

“He would make three statements - No. 1, showing his hand, he would say, ‘this is my hand’; No. 2, showing a statue in the street, he would say, ‘this is O’Connell’; No. 3, showing a, large note, he would say, ‘this is £5.’ Statement No. I was a plain statement of plain facts in a plain way. Granting Christ’s omnipotence, His statement, ‘this is My body,’ was a plain statement of a plain fact in a plain way. In statement No, 2, he would not say that the bronze was O’Connell, because he was not talking about the material of the statue, but about the likeness. It was the thing represented by the thought that was O’Connell, for by the very nature of things a statue was a sign of something else. Now, was bread a statue or likeness of Christ’s body? Was bread, by the very nature of things, a sign of Christ’s body any more than it was a sign of anything else? No, certainly not; and therefore Christ’s words were not like his, when he said in the presence of a statue, ‘this is O’Connell.’ As to No. 3 statement, ‘this is £5,’ a bit of paper was not £5, but men had come to an understanding that certain bits of paper, stamped and marked in the lawful way, were value for money.”

I am quite sure that any Jesuit is even a keener authority on stamped paper than he is on sacerdotal dogma. But, in this case, he is flogging a dead horse in thus expending his force in Upper Gardiner Street upon “an impassioned appeal” to prove the real presence of Christ in the eucharist. Nobody listening to him doubts it. There are hundreds amongst his audience, such is their “faith,” who would believe him if he elaborated a chain of reasoning to prove there was no such thing as poverty or ignorance or vice in Dublin. If there be a few masculine people listening to him who do not quite believe all he says, they are indifferent people, and do not really care whether his statements are true or false. They think it highly probable that what he says may be true, but they cannot see how it affects them one way or the other whether it is true or false. Father Kane goes on:-

“This should be thoroughly understood beforehand, and explained in the most clear, emphatic, and unmistakable manner. Did Christ explain beforehand in a way absolutely clear and utterly unmistakable” as referring “to the bread over which He spoke with such strange love, and with such solemn mystery these divine words, ‘This is My body,’ that they were only the same as with the bank-note? The mere thought of it was to the mind absurd, and to the heart blasphemous!”

Father Kane will not entertain the possibility of there being an honourable difference of opinion-a phase of mind characteristic of ignorant and bigoted people. It appears to me that it is “to the mind absurb, and to the heart blasphemous” - I say it without calling the truth of the doctrine into question - that our priests should be preaching such unnecessary and threadbare trash, trying to prove things which nobody wants them to prove, and denouncing unbelievers who do not care a rap about their denunciations while there is so much practical Christian work undone, and human degradation crying aloud to Heaven for amelioration in their immediate neighbourhood. The effeteness of sacerdotalism is well exemplified by such polemics. They show us the priest at his real work. It is not because Christ instituted the eucharist, on the awful night preceding His crucifixion, that the believers in Christianity in the Mecklenburgh Street area should continue as they are while rich Orders weave their rhetorical spells, with no other consequence than the collection of money from the credulous people attending their churches? Granted that the sacrament is really the body and blood of Christ. What then? What have the Jesuits got to do with that fact any more than the rest of us? That is no reason why priests should shirk their proper work and make money by idle, useless speechifying, while tens of thousands of lay Catholics for whom they are responsible, as they boast, fester in unhappiness and vice before their eyes. Granted that every Roman Catholic doctrine is true; that is no reason why priests should be idle, rich, and comfortable, while thousands of our Catholic people are miserable and vicious all around us. Granted that God created the world, and created man; granted that our first parents fell; granted that God redeemed the world; granted that the Blessed Virgin was conceived without original sin; granted that God is really present in the sacrament of the altar, the institution of which was one of the most formal and least practical acts of His life; granted that Pope Leo XIII. is 93 years of age; granted that he has twice renewed the College of Cardinals; granted that the Duke of Norfolk is a Catholic; granted that the Earl and Countess of Fingall are Catholics; granted everything which the priests gesticulate and orate about, why should *they *claim credit for the existence of those facts? Why should those facts relieve *them *of the onus of performing Christian work; for ceremonial is not Christian work? If Christ and the Apostles had been arrayed in shining broadcloth, drinking expensive wines, smoking high-priced tobacco, walking through life on velvet, while a Mecklenburgh Street area, peopled by Christians, one of the most immoral dens in Europe,” reeked under their nostrils in Palestine, would the best men on earth worship Christ to-day? If Christ and the Apostles had been intriguing with Pilate and his wife, temporising with Caiaphas, fleecing instead of feeding the multitudes, encouraging the people to revolt against Pilate and the Empire he represented, while they boasted of their secret influence with Pilate in securing pay and place for their friends, who would be low enough to reverence Christ and His Apostles today? What a fall from the humility and self-sacrifice of Jesus to the body of men who style themselves the Society of Jesus, for instance in so many parts of the world to-day! What a fall from Him to all the Irish priesthood as a body! How many legacies did He receive from dying believers in His divinity? What building contracts did He sign? What price did He charge for His mediation with His Father?

Our Irish public boards exult in lauding the achievements of great men and nations whom they flatter but do not imitate. Those boards have ample duties of their own; yet we continually find that they neglect them. So do our Roman Catholic secular and regular priests behave towards Christ. They have Christlike duties to perform and many useful functions in the social system. But they do not discharge them. They make free with His name; but they do not imitate His conduct. Indeed, if divine justice decided to destroy the Mecklenburgh Street area, the priests of Dublin could not secure exemption by presenting a self-audited account of their stewardship. If a search were made in that *imperium in imperio *for a number of just men, for whose sake the region might be saved from impending doom, the presence of the duty-shirking priests alone would hardly save it from destruction. I am quite sure there are many just men, and women too, in the neighbourhood; but the priests, by their indolence and bigotry, would have a doubtful claim to consideration. But to resume - it is not a pressing duty at this age of the world’s history to prove, by “an impassioned appeal” made in a Dublin church, that Christ is present in the sacrament. That is an axiom of Catholic faith. But all priests find it easier to deliver ”impassioned appeals” upon abstract subjects, which audiences will accept, than to do Christlike work by elevating the poor Catholic people who are wallowing in sin at their thresholds. *“Listen to Luther, an apostate priest,” *again cries father Kane, “Mrs. Luther being a runaway nun… Listen to Zwinglius, an apostate priest who had been expelled from his parish for his immorality.” [Irish Catholic, March 1, 1902.] Who can prove the preacher’s chastity for us? I do not impugn it. But, if Luther was bad, which I do not believe, we must not forget that Luther was a priest, and that every slur cast upon him is an apersion on sacerdotalism.

The Marist Fathers at Lower Leeson Street keep a paying day-school, attended by a number of pupils, taking work and wages thereby from the laity, and fastening the rule of the priests on the children.

The Oblates of Mary Immaculate at Inchicore work at a routine of confessions, absolutions, communions, masses, and confraternities; but pride themselves especially upon their success in organising pilgrimages from Dublin to Rome. The order has its novitiate in one of the loveliest positions in the vicinity of Dublin, at the top of Galloping Green Hill, outside Stillorgan, and the junior Oblates, before they are fit for the glories of Inchicore, pass their time at Belcamp Hall, Raheny, both sites being gentlemen’s places purchased by the order.

The business of the Oblates may be gathered from the following samples of their work:-

Church of Mary Immaculate, Inchicore. Visit the entombment. On view in the Crib building every day until Holy Saturday. The representation of the entombment of the Lord consists of 14 life-size figures made by the French artist who modelled the famous group for the Inchicore Christmas Crib.” [Freeman’s Journal, March 1, 1902.]

The Oblates make a specialty of waxwork and plaster exhibitions, arranged on the principle of Madame Tussaud. At Christmas time it is the Crib, representing the birth of our Lord in the stable at Bethlehem; at Easter time, as we have seen, it is the entombment. Even at Madame Tussaud’s I have always felt that such exhibitions are misleading, and a familiarity with great personages which only a showman could be guilty of. How much grosser is the familiarity when the actors in those scenes, represented in wax and plaster, are the most sacred personages in Church history, and when the events dishonoured by such celebration are the birth and death of the Redeemer of the world. But, notwithstanding, we hear that - “the beautiful Church of the Oblates was crowded yesterday with large congregations at all the masses… The Crib was, of course, a great centre of pious devotion during the day. Crowds visited the building in which it is arranged from the hour at which it was opened until the divine service had concluded. It is truly a wonderful sight. The principal picture group is artistic in its completeness and perfection. The figures of the various personages who had the inestimable privilege of coming ace to ace with one of the grandest mysteries of the Church, and of seeing the Redeemer of the world in the lowly stable at Bethlehem, stand out lifelike and real amidst surroundings redolent of the atmosphere and the magical charm of the East.”

Thus the incarnation of God the Son, instead of being a divine fact, is claimed as “a mystery of the Church.” What rubbish! but what an amount of money it must draw into the safe-boxes at Inchicore! Another sample of the Oblates’ work, and we are done with them:-

“After 12 o’clock mass to-morrow, two new altars of the Sacred Heart, and of St. Joseph and the Holy Souls will be solemnly blessed. The new altars are magnificent specimens of Irish workmanship. The high altar, unlike many modern high altars, is in perfect proportion to the church, and does not dwarf the chancel. It is composed of specially selected Sicilian marble, with tabernacle and throne in purest Carrara, and shafts of columns in various coloured marbles… . Above the tabernacle is the throne, which is a gem in itself. It consists of a carved octagon cap and moulded base in Carrara marble, with an octagonal shaft in most delicate marked Mexican onyx. The altar of the Sacred Heart has been erected by Mr. J. O’C. as a family memorial. The altar of St. Joseph and the Holy Souls is a memorial to the Rev. Father Brady, O.M.I., erected by the Women’s Branch of the Immaculate Conception, and by friends of the Oblate Fathers. The statues of the Sacred Heart, of St. Joseph and of the angels at the high altar, as well as the beautiful tabernacles, are the gifts of various benefactors.”

The Inchicore women could have employed the money expended on this altar more advantageously in the interiors of their homes. The Oblates also go in for outdoor processions every Sunday in the month of May, in which the children of the neighbourhood take part and at which thousands of idle people attend to hear the brass bands and while away the afternoon. Collections are made, and a great deal of money is received on such occasions.

The Passionist Fathers at Mount Argus spend their time in the same way as the other orders:-

“During the week large congregations attended the services of the Mission at the above church, and great numbers approached the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. [Freeman’s Journal, February 28, 1902.] On this evening a special sermon will be preached on the ‘Sacred Heart,’ after which the congregation will be solemnly consecrated. The Mission will conclude on Sunday evening next with renewal of Baptismal Vows and imparting of the Papal Blessing.”

Their great specialty consists in outdoor processions on Sundays during May in honour of the Blessed Virgin, at which brass bands and hundreds of poor children attend, as at Inchicore.

Like Cardinal Vaughan, they go in for keeping “relics,” and set great store by them.

I happened to be in the smoke-room of the House of Commons one night in company with a group of Irish members, who belonged to the party of Mr. Parnell. It was at the time when Mr. Parneill was at the zenith of his power, and he was regarded by the general body of the Irish members and the great mass of the Irish people much in the same way as Napoleon Bonaparte was regarded by the French. Irish affairs are petty compared with the affairs of the French nation; and the position of Mr. Parnell, great as it was, was insignificant compared with that occupied by Napoleon. But I believe the inferiority did not lie in Mr. Parnell as compared with Napoleon; one man, opportunities considered, was as capable as the other. But the Catholic Irish are immeasurably inferior to the French, and that made all the difference. When a Catholic Irishman emancipates himself from the fear of the priest or from *the hypocrisy of fear, *which is worse, and from the superstitious practices inseparable from that fear, he becomes a good man. But the mass of stay-at-home, Irish Catholics, who live and die in the shadow of the example and teaching of the priests, are so contemptible a body politic that, looking over their past, many sincere Irishmen deeply regret that the accident of birth and descent should have made them members of such a nation.

The group of Irish members were talking as they sat around the well-known stove in the smoke-room of the House of Commons. Mr. Parnell suddenly came in, pale, erect, self-centred; and those who were in the vicinity of the stove arose instantly to their feet. He did not address any of his colleagues, or appear to recognise them; but he took the chair which was vacated for him in front of the stove and sat down. A waiter came up to attend to him. He ordered a lemon-squash, and, when it arrived, he placed it on a ledge near the stove. He then put his hand into the tail-pocket of the morning-coat which he happened to be wearing, and pulled forth a bundle of letters. I was quite close to him, and I noticed that the letters were all unopened.

An awestruck silence supervened amongst the members of his own party, with whom I was sitting. If they ventured to make a remark it was in a whisper, and they seemed quite cowed by the close presence of Mr. Parnell. I was very young at the time, and I felt a great respect for Mr. Parnell as I do at present for his memory; but I was not so overawed as the members of Parliament. Mr. Parnell placed the letters in his lap and went through them one by one, examining the writing on the envelopes, and, in some instances, feeling a letter between his thumb and fingers. He selected two or three letters from the bundle, and placed the rest on the top of the stove. He opened and read the selected letters, and then burned them.

He then took down the bundle of unopened letters from the top of the stove and placed them carefully in the centre of the stove fire, ramming them in with the poker until he saw the entire mass of unopened correspondence in a red flame, undistinguishable from the lighting coals. It occurred to me at the time that some of those letters might have covered remittances by cheque; but the members dared not make any comment.

Having done so much, Mr. Parnell paused for a moment, took a sip of his lemon-squash, and then he condescended to look around and scrutinise his neighbours. Having apparently recognised them for the first time as members of his own party, he addressed one of them, the late Mr. Peter M’Donald, member for Sligo, and said, “Good evening, M’Donald.” Mr. M’Donald replied with the greatest deference, “Good evening, sir.” Mr. Parnell then said, “Have you heard anything recently about X.?” At that time Mr. X. was acutely ill, and doubts were entertained as to his recovery. He was one of Mr. Parnell’s ablest lieutenants, but is not now a member of the Irish party. Mr. M’Donald replied, “Oh yes, sir, the accounts I had to-night were that he is much better, and that hopes are entertained of his recovery.” Mr. Parnell then inquired what doctor Mr. X. had, and Mr. M’Donald informed him that it was Dr. Kenny, who at that time was a member of Mr. Parnell’s own party, and who after the Split, as it is called, was one of his most enthusiastic supporters. Dr. Kenny was one of those few straightforward, if impulsive, Catholic Irishmen who had the courage to express his conviction that the priests were the great and abiding cause of Ireland’s distress and trouble. He was for many years physician at Maynooth College, and must’ have known many things worth telling. He used to say that he would not have a Catholic University, if its control wore placed in the hands of the priests. He was universally respected, and, to its credit, the Dublin Corporation elected him to the position of City Coroner, despite, or in consequence of, his hostility to the priests.

Mr. Parnell then said, “I think X. ought to have the best advice procurable in Dublin. I would not depend on one doctor entirely. I always make it a rule myself, and I think every man should do the same, if I get ill in a strange place, always to find out from the general opinion of the place who is the best doctor in that particular place; and I send for him. X. ought to have the best advice procurable in Dublin.” Parnell did not mean to depreciate Kenny, but to convey that he ought to have the best assistance in consultation. Then Mr. M’Donald said, “I am informed in tonight’s letter, sir, that Father Charles from Mount Argus visited X. last week, and brought the relics of St. Paul of the Cross to the house with him, and I am told that, since the relics were applied, X.’s condition has materially improved.”

This Father Charles was a well-known member of the Passionist Order at Mount Argus. He was a Dutchman, who had been resident in Ireland for over a generation, and he used to “give out the relics,” as it is styled, at Mount Argus, on a stated day every week. Crowds of people used to come to touch those relics; just as people visit the Prophets’ Tombs in the East, or make pilgrimages to Knock in the county Mayo; and the cures effected by the ” relics” at Mount Argus were not less marvellous than those claimed for the Prophets’ Tombs, or for Knock.

I carefully watched Mr. Parnell’s countenance when Mr. M’Donald informed him of the bringing of the relics to Mr. X. It betrayed a half-suppressed smile; then, as if recollecting himself, he looked with intent seriousness at the tumbler of lemon-squash, and he said slowly and deliberately, “I believe, yes, I believe that if a man believes in that kind of thing, then, when he is in a very low condition of health, that sort of thing will very likely do him good. It will soothe his nerves.”

I agree with Mr. Parnell, that if a man intensely believes in such things, they may help towards his recovery in an illness. The gentleman to whom they were applied in this instance is now one of the most parasitic flatterers of the priest’s organisation in Ireland. There is no sacrifice which he is not ready to make for them. Was he cured by the relics? I can well believe that their application eased his mind, gratified his longing, and, therefore, did him good. It has been so in every age. Every religion that was ever heard of provides numberless instances of where its nervous votaries have been cured by means of that kind. But the whole body of evidence on the point only proves that nervous diseases, acting upon the mental condition of the patient - even when a politician - and being for the most part highly imaginary, are operated upon in turn by imaginary cures.

If Mr. Parnell had succeeded in obtaining political domination in Ireland, under the Home Rule Bill he probably would have given Father Charles free play with his relics; but he would have kept him out of the school, and would have excluded him from the technical instruction committees and asylum boards; and would have taken away his endowments under the Industrial Schools Act, and encouraged lay schools to obtain the endowments under the National and Intermediate Education Acts. The weak strand in Mr. Parnell’s character was hatred of England, impatience with Englishmen - envy of Englishmen, if you will. And there he found himself in agreement with the priests.

I too received, and wore for a while, a relic from Mount Argus. It was a drop of the blood of St. Paul of the Cross enclosed in a heart-shaped nickel trinket. The priests seemed to have an abundance of these trinkets with drops of blood which they gave away or sold. How they could all be genuine drops of blood was and is now a mystery to me. But enough of the Passionists.

The position of the Vincentians at Phibsborough, owing to the fact that there is no parish church near them, resembles that of secular priests. The locality is not a bad one, and they find themselves in the midst of a respectable population. They pride themselves upon their organ, and upon the singing of their choir. At Castleknock the order conducts a remunerative and a rather well-kept Catholic boarding-school, to which I have the same general objection that any one who loves his country must feel to all priest-governed schools. Though I spent three years at school with the Vincentians at Cork, I judge them by their public behaviour and utterances, and not at all from personal experience, and should be inclined to say they are the least objectionable of the many different classes of regular priests in Ireland. They have a novitiate at Blackrock for the young Vincentians; and such is the confidence reposed in them by the bishops that they are the official confessors at Maynooth. It is they who manage All Hallows College at Drumcondra, in which priests are educated for the Foreign Mission; and they also manage the new training college for the Catholic National teachers at the same place, bringing up the future State-paid teachers in a spirit of proper subjection to the priests, which is bad for the teachers, the pupils, and the country.

It is easy to understand from the foregoing summary why the work done by our secular and regular priests neither alleviates nor decreases the vast amount of vice, poverty, and misery found coexistent in Catholic Dublin with such a large force of clerics. The better-class Catholic laity have no option but to delegate all responsibility for the condition of their poor brethren to the priests, monks, and nuns.

The laity are, to use Milton’s expression, “church-outed” by the priests. There is no church organisation in which philanthropic laymen may find a scope for active benevolence; they are only called upon for money. If a committee of complacent parishioners is formed when a building is in progress, its members may only ratify the decisions of the parish priest, and have no real authority. The laity can never discuss such questions as the morals, or the conditions of life under which the poor majority exist. The well-to-do Catholics are altogether estranged from the poor of the parish, and take no interest in them. The priests avoid the poor as if they were infected. A priest, as a rule, does not wish to be seen in friendly conversation with his poor parishioners; nor would a poor parishioner, when in trouble, dare to accost his parish priest. The members of the Catholic parish entirely lack that cohesion and community of interest which are so characteristic of church organisations in the Reformed Churches. Our poor, therefore, remain derelict; or, what is even worse, they are exploited in orphanages, industrial schools, workhouses, and hospitals for the profit of the priests.

Chapter Index. Home.