Another Visitor General - Province divided - New Superiors
This was the year in which our Second Provincial Chapter should have been held. It was accordingly convoked, in due form by Fr. Eugene and the day appointed the 26th June. There was an air of incertitude about the presidency and as to whether the General himself should come or not. Without the presence of the General or some one deputed by him, the Chapter could not be held, or if held, would have no canonical value.
Towards the end of June news came that Fr. Pius of the Name of Mary, General Consultor, was coming over with plenipotentiary powers to act as Visitor General first and as President of the Chapter, if thought well, afterwards.
The appointing of a Visitor General may arise from two causes. The General being prevented by ill health or other causes, from making his own regular visitation, annual or triennial, as the case may be, delegates another Father to discharge this duty for him and give him an account thereof.
Again, there may be troubles in some distant province of which the General hears contradictory reports or receives contradictory accounts from the parties concerned. He cannot leave his duties and for a great distance to settle matters. He then delegates another with full powers and sends him forth.
There are advantages and disadvantages to found in the system. Of course it is as old as the history of Government and as active today in secular, military and religious organizations as ever it was. The advantages are that an unbiased party is deputed to judge impartially between the parties who cannot agree and that he is on the spot can hear both sides of the questions and has authority to enforce his decisions even under penalties if need be. The disadvantages are that he may be a perfect stranger to the languages, the country, the customs, habits and manners of people he is sent to visit and bringing everything he hears or sees to a preconceived standard, to err hugely through the best of motives. He may have some friend or fellow-countryman amongst those he visits who, by a specious exterior or pretended zeal may gain his ear and prejudice him against parties to whom he means to show fairplay. One party may imagine he favours the other and then turn against him, hide the real state of affairs from him and allow him to stumble against a very serious block and break his credit for his pains.
That dissensions should exist in religious bodies is no wonder. Until men become angels they must see the same thing from different points of view. Saints are not free from this - Peter & Paul - Paul & Barnabas - Augustine & Jerome - Stephen and Cyprian - are all saints and they all disagreed most lustily and with no lack of strong language and determination. When we consider that members of a Religious body are of different nations, different training outride, etc., is it a wonder that they should have dissentions. Add to this what is no fault at all in one country is a crime in another - an act of politeness in one country is an act or rudeness in another. To go into a church with one's hat on in the West is an act ofirreverence, to go in with one's shoes on in the East is much the same. Some people - aye indeed the greatest number - can never thoroughly get rid of their impressions and suit themselves to the habits of countries into which they become imported and transplanted after they have come to the years of discretion.
It was natural enough that Italian Fathers should like to have Italian customs introduced into England, and quite as natural that Englishmen should laugh at people who held a fork in their right hand and held a cup with both hands whilst drinking. Small things like those would grow into bigger things and the manners of the common room would run into the pulpit or on the platform. Again we must have factions. One thinks if he were provincial just for one year he could put every thing into splendid order.
He is elected and turns out a wretched failure. Another thinks if he were allowed to retire from his office somebody else could do better. This one (a rare case) generally does best.
In the proper government of a country we value nicely balanced parties. When the majority is too great on either side, the governing acts become a sort of 'brutum fulmen'. It is the same, ceteris paribus, in a Religious Order. Those who go in for too much solitude would make us useless to the Church - and those who go in for too much activity would make us useless to ourselves. The golden mean has to be found, in medio est virtus, and then things will go on smoothly enough - as human things go until some party becomes too strong. A Visitor General is sent to find materials which, when subjected to the Roman crucible, will be melted down and the drop being removed, give forth the golden mean.
Father Pius was one of those holy men who was famed for long prayers, long sermons, long sessions in the confessional and a very long face for human imperfections. He was the confessor of Cardinals, princes, nobles and ecclesiastics. He was a man of God, one who rested on this sphere only whilst he could do his share of good and wished to be translated to his eternal home when he could do no more. He was seldom out of Rome and wished to see solitude prevail everywhere. The Hyde was a place after his own heart and he caused the Noviciate to be removed from Broadway because it was too near the villages! If it were in the very heart of that sleepy village it would be far enough from noise, activity, industry and civilization to suit the most fastidious lover of silence and laziness. The work he did conscientiously and if he erred, it was with the very best intentions. Looking back at this distance of time it seems a pity he did some things; but as he had not the gift of prophecy, we cannot blame him. We shall follow him through his Visitation and take a look at his ordinances.
He made his Visitation first in Sutton, which he reduced to the quality of a mission house. St. Michael's he was only satisfied with in part and deemed that we should leave it altogether. Broadway he changed from a Noviciate into a house of studies, and the Novice Master was sent to St. Wilfrid's to await the coming of postulants and teach humanities to two newly professed students. He said little about the Hyde where the Provincial was preparing four students for Ordination. He put up the Enclosure in the various houses and then betook himself to Belgium.
There were three houses of our Congregation beyond the English Channel, one in Belgium, one in Holland and one in France. Fr. Pius by virtue of new powers which he received from Rome divided the Anglo-Belgium province into two, disestablished the existing Superiors and appointed new ones in their places. These new ones had only a would be Status, and the provinces had to exist canonically upon the breath of Fr. Pius's nostrils until they could be erected properly at the next General Chapter, to be held in 1867. The new Superiors were: Pro-Provincial, Fr. Vincent; 1st Pro. Consultor, Fr. Ignatius; 2nd do. Fr. Eugene; Superior of Hyde, Fr. Aloysius; of Broadway, Fr. Gaudentius; of St. Wilfrid's, Fr. Raphael; and Fr. Salvian Master of Novices.
Aston Hall had no one appointed as Superior and neither had Sutton. Some new changes took place now, in consequence of the late appointments, but none were of any permanent importance.
In the meantime the parish work at Broadway and Sutton were being well-attended to by Fr. Bernard in the former, and Fr. Bernardine in the latter place.
Fr. Bernard and Fr. Paul Mary (Packenham) tried to evangelize some of the villages in the neighbourhood of Broadway; but the opposition me and the labour thrown away made them think it more produnt to desist. The catholics we had were not very good and those who were made followed their example. It is a sad thing to look through this Vale of Evesham and contrast the days of its Catholicity with the days of its Protestantism. In the catholic times Churches, Monasteries, Castles and their surroundings decked this beautiful Vale. On each bank of the Avon, some testimony of virtue, talent or prowess seemed to continually manifest itself. Since the days of Henry VI (or rather of his wife) no deed of prowess was shown in this vale. Since Shakespeare sung his last dying note nothing adorned literature from this vale; and since the destroyers of monasteries passed through it no edifice worthy of our faith dared to raise its head. There seems to be a deathspell over the whole vale - Protestantism itself seems dead or lifeless. A few ruins here and there tell of departed genius and what remains in full vigour whether in the way of architecture or art, seems to prove very clearly that they never knew what genius was or felt its touch. A curse seems to rest upon that spot. No wonder. One of those stupid stolid villages burned their own parish priest alive, at the time of the Reformation, and their hands have become palsied in industry as their hearts have become hardened to piety ever since. Shall these dry bones live!
Sutton went on flourishing. The old catholic spirit of Lancashire, which withstood the tornado of religious persecution, still lived to animate its inhabitants when the Second Spring began to send forth its shoots. Two good spiritual levers were pushing on Sutton. The old catholic English spirit and the imported one. The former was dogged and would not be improved, the latter was neglected and wanted improvement. A Judicious combination of prudence and zeal amalgamated both and they have gone forward in harmonious progress ever since. Faults will break out and feuds will crop up and differences will exist but there is a sound foundation there and a fertile soil above. Although chemical works with there tall chimneys may poison the atmosphere and kill shrubs and plants; the industry they denote feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, does all the corporal works of mercy and the spiritual easily follow.