THE MANCHESTER ILLUMINATOR. AND GENERAL CATHOLIC RECORD; FROM DECEMBER 15th, 1849, TO JUNE 29th, 1850, INCLUSIVELY. EDITED BY WILLIAM FRANCIS CLEARY, AUTHOR OF "Two TREATISES ON THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH," "LETTERS OTH DLEI “Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est. Hoc est etenim vere proprieque VOL. I. MANCHESTER: PRINTED AND Published by EDWARD STAVELEY, 117, BEDFORD STREET, HULMY. 1850. A DEDICATORY EPISTLE ON THE UTILITY AND ADVANTAGES OF THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH; KNOCKTOPHER, COUNTY OF KILKENNY, IRELAND. REV. FATHER, I begin my Epistle to you with the words of the great Doctor St. Bernard,-" Quod ab illá (viz. Ecclesia) didici securus teneo." What I have learned from the Church I securely hold. I wish to live and die an obedient child of our Holy Mother. At a very critical period of my very chequered life, I was obliged to leave the beloved land of my fathers, to seek a settlement in this country, by the performance of duties which my Irish pride would not permit me to perform at home. I came here without freight, but not without ballast. Money I had none, but having received an early, good, religious education, I was fortified against the many violent temptations which beset my path in every direction. Human eloquence would be powerless to pourtray the awful impressions which the demoralized state of society here made upon my mind. I had visited the Continent four times, and had seen many countries. I was quite familiar with Minorca (one of the Balearic Islands) in the Mediterranean Sea, and it was there I was taught reading, but it was through the medium of the Spanish language. The islands of Sardinia, Corsica, and the cities of Cadiz, Seville, Barcelona in Spain, Lisbon in Portugal, Calais, Boulogne, Havre, Grenoble, Paris, Beauvais, Lyons, Toulon, &c. in France, Switzerland, Genoa, Turin, Leghorn, Florence, Sienna, Viterbo, Rome, and other places in Italy, were well known to me, but nowhere had I discovered anything comparable to the horrible and disgusting demoralization which was spread through all the ramifications of society in this land of Bibles and crime. This country has proved the ruin of many a young Irish Catholic, and by mixing much with society several have become victims of heresy, infidelity, or demoralization. The laws of the country too, when I came here in 1831, were corrupt and demoralizing, and especially in relation to marriage. For although matrimony might legally be contracted by two Catholics in their own Church at home, the contract ceased to be binding when parties emigrated to this country. I myself have witnessed in too many instances the infamous effects of such laws, when men who sailed from Ireland with good intentions, leaving their families at home in order to procure employment here, became corrupted by wicked associations formed in an evil hour: they have been tempted to take shelter under the protection of antichristian laws, and have proceeded to contract what was called a second marriage in the Churches of the Establishment; and when their lawful wives came here and took legal proceedings against their unfaithful partners, they could obtain no redress, they were treated as mere concubines, and their innocent children were accounted bastards. Thank God, these laws are now abolished, and this fruitful source of crime has been banished from society. Unhappily the Irish people here are removed from those wholesome restraints which in every district of their native land are beneficially imposed and most cordially submitted to, except in some very rare instances. The Catholic clergy in this country, as a body, are amiable, laborious, and persevering. They labour, especially in towns and cities, Rev. Father, it is worthy of observation that from the moment of Christ's appearance amongst mankind, their opinions with regard to Him were so divided, and their feelings so discordant, that, if we may so speak, none adopted a middle opinion. His admirers exalted Him to the stars, his enemies depressed Him to the abyss. Some adored Him as the Son of God, others abhorred Him as a child of the devil. Some flocked to hear Him as a prophet, others rushed to seize him as a madman. Some wished to crown Him as a king, others conspired to stone Him as a criminal. Some proclaimed Him a saint, others stigmatized Him as a blasphemer. He was the love and delight of some, the scandal and horror of others. And, as St. John remarks, there was always great dissension among the people on his account; "and there was much murmuring among the multitude concerning him." For some said "He is a good man; and others said, No, but he seduceth the people." Let no person however be surprised at this. Such (if we reflect attentively) has ever been the fate of all great things: to please no person partially-but to excite extreme love or extreme hatred. Whether it is that the human mind is fond of opposition, and therefore unreservedly condemns whatever others unreservedly extol, or whether it is that objects of great esteem are likewise objects of great envy, or whether it is, in fine, that ordinary things are like a half-extinguished fire, which but slightly warms the chill, and scarcely incommodes the warm-whereas great things are like a great flame, which by the very same virtue invites the shivering to approach, and compels the warm to fly. But the fact being certain, how obvious is the reason why the Religious, of which you are an illustrious member, have always had the same fortune as Christ, their first Head! Among their members they have had many illustrious men, and therefore it is not strange that as they have had many devoted friends who would draw the sword in their defence, so they should have relentless persecutors who wage against them an eternal war. Should have, did I say? Is it not a fact that in this country, at this time, and perhaps amongst the readers of the Illuminator, whilst I now write-it is my unfortunate lot to speak to men split up into two great parties, one favourable, the other opposed to them. Do not imagine, however, that I despair, because, as I promise myself a favourable hearing from their friends, so do I expect the same even from their enemies, convinced as I am that their hostility arises rather from an error in the understanding than from contumacious malice in the will. Give me, therefore, I implore you, your undivided attention, that you and my good readers may see I lay down nothing but what is reasonable. And that my readers may have the greater confidence in me, I beg most earnestly that they will now carefully attend to what I am going to say. I have no pretensions to eloquence, I therefore renounce the studied precautions of oratorical art. Orators are generally accustomed to win the favour and enlist the sympathies of their audience by artfully removing from themselves the suspicion of any special affection or private interest in their cause, and by professing their pure benevolence & disinterested zeal, But far from me these precepts unworthy of a candid soul. I, for my part, do most openly proclaim, so that all may know it, that I am about to write on a subject on which I am all passion-all interest. I intend to prove that all Religious, no matter of what Order, are entitled to the greatest reverence. But I beg my reader to be on his guard, and to believe nothing but what I shall make him see with his eyes and feel with his hands. Let him pay no regard or respect to the weight of my authority, but weigh the strength of my arguments. This I certainly do require at his hands, that if my reasons when well considered satisfy him, he shall not persist in prizing them less because they come from the lips of an humble layman, than if he had heard them from the lips of some writer of weight, and influence, and station in society. Rev. Father, I have stated truly that I have heartily identified myself with this subject, but not from worldly or family considerations. There have been many priests, and there are still several, in my family. Two respectable relatives of mine are on the English mission; others, one of whom is my nephew, are doing parochial duty in Ireland. But all my living relatives in the ministry are seculars, and all who have died were seculars, too. I never knew, neither did I ever hear, that any of my paternal or maternal relatives had been members of any Religious Order. My testimony, then, ought to carry greater weight in consequence of my having no other than a religious predilection for those venerable and revered men who either have illustrated the annals of the Church by their labours, or who still remain to do so. To my readers I would say I write as if I were addressing true Catholics, ardently zealous for the glorious exaltation of our holy Church; because, if you are not such, I confess you ought to hate nothing more cordially than the Monastic Ordersfor they have been at all times the objects of the rage of heretics, who in their writings against them, like mad dogs, snarl and howl, and pour out the loathsome venom of their fury. Supposing, then, that you are true Catholics, so far should you be from harbouring malevolence or rancour of any kind against the Religious Orders, that on the contrary you should hold them in the highest veneration, for they have mainly contributed to place the Church on that pinnacle of splendour, glory, and majesty, on which you behold her to-day. At this moment she receives, as you', know, the homage of the most distant nations, and, rivalling the dominion of the sun, she has children beyond the limits of his track. But when, lost in admiration, I proceed to inquire who has brought so many worlds to her obedience, I find that they were monks-men who some. times struck out new paths in search of unknown worlds to subdue to her sceptre. Tell me, I pray you, who con verted France to the faith ? St. Remigius; who converted Sueria? St. Martin; who Tessendria? St. Lambert; who Ireland? St. Patrick; who England? St. Augustin; who Friesland? St. Wilfrid; who Germany? St. Boniface and St. Ludger; who Saxony? St. Switbert and St. Willibrod ; who Bohemia St. Cyril and St. Methodius; who Dacia ? St. Otho; who the Vandals? St. Nallino; who Pannonia, who the Russians, the Lithuanians, the Moscovites, and, above all, the Poles? St. Adalbert. These were all members of Monastic Orders, these were the men who courageously succeeded the apostles in the laborious conquest of the universe, and won the glory of the apostleship by its dangers and its fruits. But if those Orders, the principal object of whose institutions were contemplation, solitude, and silence, brought over so many provinces to the faith, i leave it to my readers to judge what those have done whose profession have devoted them to the public good, as much as to the work of their own salvation. Look at Ireland, converted by St. Patrick, a canon regular; Tartary, that owes so much to the disciples of St. Dominic; Persia, the theatre of the labours of the sons of the great St. Francis. I ask, is not the conquest of the New World, extensive as it is, the glory of the mendicant friars? and if any honour has redounded to the Church on receiving ambassadors from the remotest extremities of the earth, from Japan, hitherto unknown, from China, hitherto inaccessible, has it not been procured by the labours of the Society of Jesus, which, though more recently established, and less widely extended perhaps, has already equalled the glory of all those more extended, more ancient, and very respectable Orders, which, like veteran armies, have been to the Jesuits an exhortation and an example of noble enterprise. In the next place, Rev. Father, we have to consider that of whatever was eminent and glorious in the Church of God, more is owing to persons selected from the cloister than to any others. And in the first place it is certain that of the eight principal doctors, four Greek and four Latin, not less than six were religious. Three of the Greeks, Basil, Nazienzen, and Chrysostom; three of the Latins, Gregory, Jerome, and Augustin. Theology in all its branches, whether dogmatic or moral, boasts no oracies of greater fame than Peter Lombard, master of the sentences, Alensis the irrefragable, Albertus the great, St. Thomas the angelic, Egidius the firm, Ricardus the autho ritative, Henricus the solemn, Alanus the universal, Scotus the subtle, Aureolus the eloquent, Herveus the acute, Mairon the illumined, Occam the ingenious, Bacon the resolute, Ariminensis the authentic, Capreolo the solid. Dionysius the ecstatic, Victoria the incomparable, Suarez the profound, and Vasquez the powerful; and were not all these members of religious orders? Where has sound Scripture found its most faithful interpreters? where canon law its most illustrious expounders? where the spiritual life its most experienced masters, if not in the cloister? Heresy is enraged on finding that as often as she has attempted to renew the battle, so often has she at length been discomfited and compelled to retreat and lurk in the abyss. But who amongst all were the most vigilant in discovering it, the most courageous in opposing, and the most successful in conquering It, if not the Religious Orders? And remark, I pray you, for it is most worthy of your attention, that whenever a new sect of heresy arose to assail the Church, there arose on the other hand a new family of religious to sustain the Church, like a sacred militia held in reserve by Heaven for her defence. Thus with the Arians in the east sprung up two religious orders, that of St. Anthony in Egypt, and that of St. Basil in Cappadocia; and with the Arians in the west two others also, that of St. Augustin in Africa, and that of St. Benedict in Italy. Against the Eutychians arose the followers of Seba the abbot, and against the Iconoclasts arose the disciples of abbot Jannicius. Immediately after the Greek schism, to repair that loss, arose the orders of Cluni, of Camaldole, of Vallombrosa; and shortly after the Carthusians under St. Bruno, the Cistercians under St, Bernard, and the Premonstratenses under St. Norbert, appeared to rejoice the Church agitated by the frightful tumult of the Nicolsites. What shall I say of the Dominicans and Franciscans? Is it not evident that they repelled the fury of the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the Hussites, the Flagellants, and a whole rabble of heretics of every brood that had adulterated all truth and profaned all religion? and, finally, have we not the authority of a pontifical decree, declaring that the order of the Society of Jesus was raised up to crush the arrogance of the Lutherans and Calvinists, who endeavour to revive all the ancient heresies-not indeed that we wish to institute comparisons between Orders and Orders--but that the victory may be more signal when such Goliahs are subdued by humble Davids. And certainly it is evident that the discomfiture and destruction of heresies is more to be attributed to Religious than to any others; for wherever heresy found no Religious, or succeeded in destroying them, there she has always perverted, there she has conquered, there she has triumphed, and there she has erected her firmest throne, as is the case (alas!'how fatally) in Eng land, once the Lyceum of wisdom, now the den and sink of every filthy error. But let us proceed. By whom were those lay confraternities that diffuse such blessings through our cities, by whom were they founded but by the two great orders of friars; by St. Dominic, who founded that of the Rosary, and by St. Bonaventure who founded that of the Banner? Who consecrated themselves by the most solemn obligations for the redemption of captives? Who devoted themselves by indissoluble vows to the service of the sick? and who make it their duty at all times to applyhaughty England spontaneously made herself a tributary themselves most ardently to teach, to confess, to preach, to chant the psalms, to pray, if not those very Religious, in whom this sacred repose is now charged as a crime by the children of error, and by the worshippers of Mammon in the Catholic body. But what argument more evidently proves the immense good done by the Religious, than a consideration of the ample privileges granted to them by the Holy See, the exemptions, the graces, the faculties, the rich endowments, the magnificent monasteries, and the highest testimony of honour in having many of their members raised to the first diguities, dignities which they not only did not seek (as was often the custom), but which they either refused with tears or even avoided by flight? Are not all these proofs the most convincing, and declarations the most expressive, that the Church has never had ministers more indefatigable, more faithful, or perhaps more efficient than the Religious? So that, to speak my mind plainly, I do not know whether those dignities conferred more honour on the Religious, than the Religious on the dignities. One thing, however, is certain, that if we consider the ecelesiastical offices even of the very highest order, we shall find that seldom have they been discharged with greater innocence, or with greater zeal, than when they were in the hands of men raised from the obscurity of the cloister. And first, with regard to Bishops, this is clear; for among them few (especially from the time religious orders arose) were found outside the cloister, all qualifications considered, to equal a Basil, a Gregory of Nyssa, a Chrysostom, a Nazienzen, an Epiphanius, an Augustin, a Fulgentius, a Martin, a Patrick, a Malachy, an Anselm, an Antoninus, and very many others, who exchanged a monastic cowl for a Pontifical mitre. Then in Cardinals, if we consider either learning or sanctity, which are, as it were, the two pillars of the Church: if we consider learning, who amongst them was more celebrated than an Egidius, an Ostiensis, a Panormotanus, a Hugo, a Turrecremata, an Aureolus, a Bessanan, a Cajetan, a Toletus, a Bellarmine, a Baronius, all of the Religious profession? And if we consider sanctity, I need only remark that, from the tenth century, the period at which that august senate began to rise notably in esteem and authority, there were not less than fifteen Cardinals honoured as Saints, though all were not equally generally known. Four of these were not of any Religions Order, namely, Allertus, Bishop of Lugi, and Berardus, Bishop of Mani, and two great Archbishops of Milan, Galdinus and Charles Borromes, nephew of Pius IV. But all the others certainly were Religious, namely, Peter Damian, a Benedictine hermit, Anselm and Matthew, monks of Cluni, Stephen and Huge, monks of Cistellas, Raymond Nonmatus, of the charitable order of the Redemption of Captives, Thesaurus Bernard, Bishop of Parma, and Peter Igneus, monks of Vallombrosa, and finally, Bonaventure, the great pillar of the Franciscan order, and Gicarino, the brilliant light of the Canons Regular. The Vatican purple, therefore, has not faded by its contact with sackcloth and serge. It would be impossible, in the space at my command, to even enumerate the many renowned names of the Cardinals (and there were many hundreds), who belonged to religious orde.s from the beginning down to the time of the late Cardinal Micara, the far famed General of the Capuchins, whom I had once, in Rome, the honour of calling my Superior. But what shall I say of the Roman Pontiffs? perhaps the Religious could not figure amongst them with reputation and glory. What think you, then, of a Gregory the Great, whose name alone is his panegyric? What of a Gregory the Second, who deprived the Emperor Leo of the empire, and compelled him to retire shamefully to the east? What of a Gregory the Seventh, who also deposed the wicked Henry, and made him a suppliant suitor at his feet? What of an Agatho, who emancipated the Popes from the homage which they paid the emperors for consecration? What of an Urban the Second, whose real nobly rescued the Holy Land from the yoke of the Saracens? What of a Leo the Fourth, in reverence for whom even proud of the Church? What of an Alexander the Third ? What of a Paschal the Second? What of a Pius the Fifth ? and what of so many others, more than fifty in number, who though not so eminently distinguished for learning and sanctity, or noble enterprize, as those already mentioned. vet were nearly so, and not even one of them stands charged with those faults or irregularities in morals, and that feebleness in government, which are imputed to a few other Pontiffs of those disordered times. I cannot let slip this opportunity of remarking, that the Franciscan order has given five Popes to the Church, namely, Nicholas IV.., Alexander V., Sixtus IV., Sixtus V., and Clement XIV., well known by his family name Ganganelli. St. Benedict XI., Pius II., Pius III, St. Pius V., Benedict XIII, and several others, were members of the Dominican Order. There have been several Popes, beginning with St. Gregory the Great, of the Benedictine order. In our own times there have been two, namely, the meek and saintly confessor Pius VII., whose mother became a nun, and the late holy and venerable Pontiff, Gregory XVI. In addressing either you, Rev. Father, or my readers, 1 am not soliciting the attention of persons on whom, were I inclined to do so, I could pass tinsel for gold, or fiction for truth, and even though the nature of the charge which I have taken upon myself, and the sacredness of the subjects about which I write, could not deter me from lying on a matter of so much moment, yet should I be deterred by the fact that amongst my readers are men versed in all branches of learning, sacred and profane, with whom assurance alone could not stamp currency on falsehoods. What think you, then, Rev. Father-can any man charge me with inaccuracy in any of these propositions which I have advanced are they not clear, palpable, indubitable P jon Ledi ofil medi irolage eş nútím nedi ni odw under-2 |