Foundation in Dublin.
The Congregation has been just 14 years established in England and its progress has been very slow indeed. In the beginning of the year 1856, there were only nine native priests and three laybrothers, not even one religious per year, the rest, to the number of sixteen or seventeen were foreigners. The three houses then existing were more than sufficient to lodge our few members. There were five students in Rome and not a single novice in Broadway. Things looked gloomy enough. Debts were, even then, accumulating, work was also in arrears and the workmen could not be supplied. Father Vincent had long pondered how the deficiency could be supplied and nothing seemed more promising than to make a foundation in Ireland. He supposed, naturally enough, that the old missionary spirit was not dead in a small country which could people 10 colleges, and one of them exclusively for foreign missions and with candidates for the priesthood.
The state of religion in Ireland at this period might be considered as very flourishing. The famine tide had swept by and carried its victims with it. As if the scourge took away self and created self-sacrifice, more vocations existed in Ireland than ever were known since its old saintly times. There was a putting forth of new energies in the Churches. The old low Mass once a week and stations had given place to High Mass. Harmoniums had found their way into chapels of ease, even in Connaught and Benediction was often given in places, where a grain of incense had not been burnt since the Reformation. The exteriors of religious worship were receiving more attention. Liturgical books were being published and Dr. O'Kane was giving his lectures, which have since been published in Maynooth. The reading-made-easy of Irish ceremonies gave way before the newfangled doctors who came from Rome and the drilled young curates who emerged from Maynooth. Bishops no longer presided at Pontifical Masses in swallow-tail coats and unbrushed leggings. There was a general renovation of externals visible all round.
Whilst noticing this change from the old fair-and-easy style to the new style, we must not be understood as casting a single stone of reproof or contempt upon the good old school - now alas no more - who held conversations with the crones of their parishes whilst engaged in violating the minutest directions of Baldeschi or Hughes. God forbid. They were fine old men, full of faith, fervour and devotion. They drew tears from their flocks when they preached on the passion and spent the incomes of their parishes on the poor instead of themselves. They lived in cabins and seldom wandered beyond the bishop's palace. They died amid their flocks and the tears of thousands keep their graves green until the present day. Peace to their ashes. They were a moral correct old priesthood, even if a little behind in polish and conceit.
They might seem awkward under the garish lights of a genteel drawing room, but they never felt awkward in the den of pestilence, at the bedside of the fever-stricken, in giving sacraments at the peril of their lives, in relieving distress, or comforting the broken-hearted. Peace to your memory, O ye Father Pats and Father Toms. The gratitude of thousands has hallowed your memories and even the caricaturists of Irish character could never cast a stone at your benevolent lives. The new class of priests who began to take charge of Irish parishes, differed considerably from the old.
There was no difference in the faith, or in the customs which were sanctioned by it. The young priests preached somewhat oftener and were more exact in the rubrics. The marriages and baptisms now took place in the Church and were no longer spiritual prefixes to weddings; but the old Irish customs of hospitality and friendliness continued still the same. An ecclesiastical censor could perceive very little except what was praiseworthy between the new generation and their predecessors. Yet there was one little thing, which has seldom been noticed and which it is well to notice here which shows a vast difference between the two generations of Irish clergy. This was the tone in which the rivalry between the secular, and regular clergy made itself manifest. The rivalry there always has been since monks left their solitude, at the bidding of bishops, to supplement the duties of the ordinary priests. Saints have contended on both sides, and when St. Thomas's beautiful defence of the regulars was read before the Council of Lyons, it was supposed the matter ought to die a decent death. It did but came to life again and seems to pluck up new courage even in our own days. Of this rivalry we have little to say except, with all due deference, to point out the way in which it showed itself in Ireland, shortly after the Synod of Thurles.
The older clergy thought the Friars a nuisance more or less. They lived in their parishes, without parochial duties and lived upon their reputation for extra sanctity to the detriment of the parochial exchequer. The only objection from this quarter was a matter of pounds, shillings and pence. The old Parochus, educated in Rome, Salamanca or Paris, knew all about St. Dominic, St. Augustine, St. Francis and St. John of the Cross. He saw their children in foreign countries and knew their place in the Church. He studied his theology out of books written by friars. He was taught by friars, his ascetic theology was written by friars, friars gave him his retreats and to friars he made his confessions and with them settled his vocation. He loved the dear old habits and if the friars would only go to the next parish and not lessen his doles of oats or offerings he would be perfectly content.
The new fledged clergyman was quite different. He had studied his theology and cleared his distinctions. It did not matter that all his respectable classbooks were written by regulars and that all his knowledge of deep theology was acquired from them. It did not matter that all the stupid theologies were written by seculars, like Peter Deus and Scarian - it did not matter that fine thought and keen distinction came from the regular whilst rough common sense and cribbing authorities came from the seculars. All was the same to him. He could not see the difference. He was as well-ordained as any friar. The same bishop ordained them on the same day and during the same ceremony. He had the same (if not greater) faculties from the bishop of his diocese. Who is this regular? Is a man because he wears a rope around his middle, or a magpie suit of black and white upon his body, a leathern girdle about his loins, or perforated stockingless shoes upon his feet, thereby become a greater man than I and have more reverence from the faithful, when I remember he could not pass his examination half as creditably as I could. Faugh - this is all nonsense. I am as good a man as he is and a great deal better in my own estimation. I do not see why he should survey the multitude and be reverenced whilst I must slink into the colourless position of a common curate. It must not be and I shall see that it will not.
This is a depiction of the brains (if he have any) of the modern Dublin curate. The country curates were more tolerant, but the Dublin curates meant to rise to canonships and parishes by marching over the prostrate forms of the regulars. They knew them well - had been to school with them and was it not outrageous to see their former companions with shaven crowns whilst they could get no further towards gentility than by splitting their hair in the middle and sighing after the absence of a moustache.
These young gentlemen had reverence for nothing - not even for their own fathers. They found fault with everything and invented faults where their existence was desirable.
Whether it be that the regulars possess the hearts of the faithful or that the blessing promised to those who leave all things fall upon them need not be decided. Curates might rage at Regulars at the tables of their hosts; but these hosts invariably went to confession to the regulars, left donations in their alms boxes, built chapels in their churches, whilst they grudged to the dues to their own parochial clergy. This was intolerable from every point of view, clerical or otherwise.
There was a grievance then. Regulars ought to wear their habits, be more of the recluse and keep certain rules. They did not. They often dressed better and fed better than their secular neighbours.
It must be allowed that about the time of the Synod of Thurles -1850- there was very little distinction between secular and regular except that one owed allegiance to a bishop and the other to a Provincial. The new missionary orders had not been introduced and missions and retreats for the helping of parochial clergy were very rare. The 'raison d'etre' for the poor friars did not seem to exist and excuses were sought on every side for their abolition. Rome gave them privileges and these privileges Rome would not withdraw.
Priests began to forget what Ireland owed to the Regulars but the people did not. Ireland was originally rules ecclesiastically by the great monasteries. Even until the time of the Reformation a great number of these bishops were friars. It was, however, at the time of trial that the friars showed themselves the real martyrs. When priests were hunted down like wolves in Ireland and a price set upon a priest's head, the Franciscans and Augustinians sent young men to Louvain and elsewhere, who returned to labour in the vineyard in Ireland. Yes, dressed in the garb of peasants, the poor friars wandered about in the vicinity of their ruined cloisters and ministered to the spiritual wants of the catholics. Old people remember when one friar had charge of three parishes and never slept two successive nights in the same house. Kerry, Mayo, Donegal and all the west coast of Ireland are full of traditions of these poor wandering priests, whose remains are looked upon as relics and whose memories are in benediction. What rule of St. Francis or any other saint was as holy as this rule of self-sacrificing charity. Blame the sons of St. Francis for not singing his matins when he is consoling the sick or the dying in a cabin in Donegal, and blame the son of St. Dominic if he be not dressed in his garb while evading the snare of the priest hunter in Limerick. If these became disorganised because one or two was told off to watch the remains of their old friary from the window of a thatched cabin until better times should come, are we to be surprised? Are we, as we come forth newly fledged from grand colleges to despise those poor friars whose predecessors taught the rudiments of faith to our grand fathers? We would be degenerate sons of our sires temporal and of our spiritual fathers if we did anything of the sort.
Let us remember that poor friars wrote our history, kept our faith, compiled our annals and spent their lives in getting honour for their country and their kindred. It was the ambition of the great chieftains of Ireland to build and endow friaries and have their bones laid under the shadow of the chancels they had built. Every ruin which once sheltered Franciscans or Carmelites speaks of the bounty and devotion of Irish nobles.
Yet it is a common thing, in our day, to hear priests and even prelates speaking in a slighting manner of the poor regulars. This spirit was very rife in Dublin, at the time of which we write - nor has it died out thoroughly yet. It was difficult therefore to get a footing in the place. Add to this that we had not a sixpence in the world and yet, without money, without friends, without patrons, Father Vincent went to Ireland, became possessed of a house and a piece of land where our grand monastery and church now stand in the neighbourhood of Rathmines, Dublin.
The history of our foundation in Mount Argus is very simple. Father Vincent essayed several times to make a foundation in Ireland and two or three sites were offered him. He had his heart set upon Dublin. As far back as 1852, he spoke to Cardinal Cullen on the subject and was encouraged to proceed. In 1855 he accidentally met Father Matthew Collier, then a curate in Rathmines who told him of a place called Mount Argus, belonging to Mrs Byrne, which might be purchased. In April 1856 the purchase was effected for the sum of £2200, which we were obliged to borrow. The deeds were not yet made out but possession was taken and the first Mass said in the house on the 15th August of this year.
A community was soon formed there. Father Paul Mary (the honourable and Rev. Reginald Packenham) was the first Rector. Many remember the tall red brick house, which looked like a slice cut from a factory (so square and uninteresting was its build) which towered over a few orchard trees and was transformed into Bd. Paul's Retreat. It underwent various transformations - a temporary chapel was added to it before the end of the year - itself was lowered a storey and scooped out so as to make a sanctuary for the chapel, ten years afterwards and in twelve years after that every bit of it disappeared from the surface of the earth.
Only three or four of the missions and retreats given during this year are recorded. Fr. Vincent gave the retreat to the students in Maynooth. Our Fathers gave a mission in Rathmines at the instance of the Very Rev. Mgr. Meagher, who always continued to preserve that cordiality and friendship towards our brethren which showed from the beginning. To him are we beholden for many favours which the least of us is not apt to forget. C H A P T E R XVII - 1857