Cardinal Manning and Ireland

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLVIII, Issue 35, 1 September 1921, Page 18

Cardinal Manning and Ireland

Address before Dunedin Irish Society

by Right Rev. Dr. Whyte

On Thursday evening, August 25, the Dunedin Irish Literary and Historical Society assembled in large numbers in their rooms, where they had the honor and the pleasure of hearing an interesting and scholarly address from their Bishop. Shortly before eight o’clock his Lordship, who was attended by Father Coffey and Dr. Kelly, arrived in the hall, and when the audience had manifested its delight at the Bishop’s presence the entertainment began with a spirited''rendering of “God Save Ireland,” all joining in the chorus. The president, Mr. E. Nolan, having introduced Dr. Whyte, his Lordship delivered the following address:— . •

The subject that I have chosen for my lecture (or rather, “talk”) is “Cardinal Manning and Ireland.” Many of the great churchman’s friends and acquaintances, both clerical and lay, English and Irish, will naturally come in for mention. And that will be because of their connection with problems that confronted Ireland between, say, 1860 and the time of the Cardinal’s death, which took place in 1892. You need not, then, be surprised if, in the course of the next thirty or forty minutes, I mention such dignitaries as Cardinal Cullen of Dublin, Cardinal Moran (who died in Sydney 10 years ago), Archbishop Walsh of Dublin, whose, recent death is still lamented as a terrific blow to Ireland, Cardinal Persico whose name cannot be omitted whenever one speaks of the “Plan of Campaign” ; nor need you be surprised if reference be made to Gladstone and Parnell, with both of whom Cardinal Manning came into close and frequent contact.

Like many other celebrated Englishmen, Cardinal Manning laid claim to Celtic blood, for his grandfather,

; William Manning, married an heiress named Elizabeth Ryan. It was from the Ryan family, indeed, that he took his motto, Main moil qunm foedari (Death before dishonor). You will be glad to hear or to be reminded that it was the motto also of the late Bishop of this diocese, Dr. Verdon. The Catholics of Dunedin need not be told how perfectly that motto suited the unblemished life of ray predecessor. The intimate friends of Cardinal Manning are no less strongly convinced that he, too, would suffer death rather than bring a stain upon his honor.

Of Cardinal Manning’s sincere attachment to Ireland there can be no doubt. Ireland’s attachment to him is equally certain. He burst into tears on one occasion when assured by an Irish priest that the people of Ireland loved him. It was a calamitous time. Parnell and most of his colleagues had just been thrown into prison, and it was rumored that Archbishop Croko was soon to follow them. “I fear that every link of affection between the two countries is broken,” muttered the Cardinal. “Yes,” said the priest, Canon Ryan, “all but one, our love for you.” On hearing this, the old man was moved to tears.

"The first time that he seriously directed his attention to Ireland and her grievances was during the excitement connected with the Fenian movement.

The Fenians

The Fenians were men who took up arms in the ’sixties against England's power in Ireland. From that time till recent years they have been looked on as a wellmeaning but misguided body of men whose enthusiasm betrayed them into attempting heroic things, heroic but impossible, heroic perhaps because impossible. At the present time they are regarded as the forerunners of the Irish Volunteers of to-day, . well-meaning as are the men of to-day; not misguided, for they, too, aimed at preserv-

• ing the soul of Ireland, and, in the attempt to do so, were prepared to pay the penalty of losing their freedom or their lives. The Irish bishops, with Cardinal Cullen at theiij head, vigorously expressed in several ways their hearty disapproval of the Fenian movement, and bitterlylamented its effect upon English public opinion.. Striving for the good-will of English politicians has been the insanitary occupation of Irish patriots for a long, long period. :

Cardinal Manning grieved over what he considered

the blind, reckless policy of the Fenian leaders, and regarded both themselves and their followers as men who had lost their reason and the Faith. The character of the Fenians, however, could not be given by a moro competent or trustworthy witness Butt, the leader of the Irish people whom Parnell supplanted. Like Parnell, he was a Protestant, but while Parnell hailed from the South, Butt came from the North. Butt was the advocate who defended nearly all the Fenian prisoners. This is his opinion of them :

“Whatever obloquy gathered round them at first, there are few men who now deny to the leaders of the Fenian conspiracy the merits of perfect sincerity, of a deep and honest conviction of the righteousness of their cause, and of an unselfish and disinterested devotion to the cause.

. . ’. There was not one of them who would have purchased safety by a falsehood, by a concession that, would have brought dishonor on his cause, or by a disclosure that would have compromised the safety of a companion.

. . . They were enthusiasts of great hearts and lofty minds, and in the bold and unwavering courage with which one and all they met the doom which the law pronounced upon their crime against its authority, -there was a startling proof that their cause and their principles had power to inspire in them the faith and the endurance which elevated suffering into martyrdom.”

From the Fenian rising comes “God save Ireland.” The spirited anthem is associated with the trial of Allen, Larkin, and O’Brien, the “Manchester. Martyrs,” who were found guilty by a prejudiced jury of The murder of a police sergeant. The anniversary of their death was kept up in my boyhood by holding a huge procession headed by a brass band playing the “Dead March” in “Saul.” It is safe to say that England’s methods of pacifying Ireland resulted invariably in keeping alive and fanning into a blaze the spirit of opposition that they were designed to quench. Sergeant Brett was not killed intentionally, as Allen and his companions solemnly declared.

“No man in this Court,” said Allen, “regrets the death of Sergeant Brett more than I do, and' I positively say in the presence of the Almighty and ever-living God that I am innocentay, as innocent as any man in this Court. I don’t say this for the sake of mercy. I want no mercy. I’ll have no mercy. I’ll die, as many thousands have died, for the sake of their beloved land and in defence of it.”

Condon, who was also condemned to death and afterwards reprieved, closed his statement in these words:

“We are not afraid to die. 1 only trust that those who are to be tried after us will have a fair trial, and that our blood will satisfy the craving which, I understand, exists. You will soon send us before God, and I am perfectly prepared to go. I have nothing to regret, or to retract, or take back. I can only say, ft “God save Ireland!”’

“God save Ireland!” repeated all the prisoners, and hence the well-known anthem, “God Save Ireland.”

The spirit of these men is not much different from the spirit of the men of to-day. "Your Grace will be happy to know," wrote Cardinal Manning to Cardinal Cullenneither of them, however, had yet been elevated to the Cardinalate —"that the Fenian prisoners in Pentonville have asked for Mass, and the Government has granted it. This is a strange victory., on which I make no comment, except Thank God! But it will console your Grace for the poor men." Cardinal Cullen was able to say in* reply that there were never so many penitents at the confessional or so many communicants in the churches as then, notwithstanding all the Fenian agitation. When, therefore, Cardinal Manning said, "Show me an Irishman who has lost the Faith, and I will show you a Fenian," he spoke untruly (according to his biographer), "incor- '.'■■ rectly," I prefer to say. It would have been still more incorrectly put had he said, "Show me a Fenian and I'll show you an Irishman who has lost the Faith." Those' prisoners who asked for the privilege of hearing Mass and who wept when Cardinal Manning preached to them on. the Prodigal Son were not unlike the Irish boys who have been flung into the gaols of Ireland and England since \1916. A journalist who, on recovering his liberty in 1917, wrote an account of prison life entitled With the Irish at < Frongoch, tells of the astonishment of the- prison autli-

orities when expecting a “contingent of dirty, ignorant men/’ they found that their prisoners were “all of them clean, intelligent, and reasoning people while many of them were university and college professors of no mean standing.” ' While things were going smoothly in the gaol, an educational scheme, he tells us, was carried out which included lectures on Mathematics, Book-keeping, Irish Language, Irish History, lessons in .Spanish, French, and German, on telegraphy and shorthand (three different systems). They had a dramatic class and a choral class, and held weekly debates both in English and in Irish. The senior officers also acquired, but secretly, a deeper knowledge of military strategy. At 9.30 every night, he adds, the Rosary was said en masse in each dormitory and always in Irish. Cardinal Manning once said that his country would be saved from low views about the Mother of God and the Vicar of Our Lord by the million Irish living there. Soon afterwards he learned that the same lessons could be taught to England by the Fenians who were living and dying in English gaols; and had he Ijved till 1916, he would have rejoiced to find that cells and dormitories which had previously resounded with the obscene songs and blasphemous language of professional criminals now resounded with the praises of Mary ringing out full-hearted and full-voiced in the grand old Gaelic tongue. The Cardinal wrote of the Fenians: “My heart bleeds for those who are deceived by their higher and nobler * affections. They believe themselves to be serving in a sacred and holy war for their country and religion.” While bitterly regretting the Fenian rising of ’67, be could not help rejoicing that England was getting a dose of her own medicine. England had clapped her hands with joy when a rebellion against the Pope was raised in Italy a few years previously. The chickens were now come home to roost when the Fenian movement with its secret oathbound elements was now giving to England what England had rejoiced to see given to the Holy See. England had done more than cheer the Italian Revolutionists. In Cardinal Manning’s own words, she had “praised, flattered, fostered, abetted, justified, and glorified” the Revolution.

Cardinal Cullen

The Fenians were condemned by the Church as are all secret societies bound by oath. The memory of Cardinal Cullen has lain under a cloud in Ireland because of his determined opposition to the Fenians. Shane Leslie pointedly says: “The last word has not been written of Paul Cardinal Cullen.” His nephew, the late Cardinal Moran, it is believed in Sydney, had completed at the time of his death in 1911 the life of his distinguished uncle. When that volume sees the light, it will add immensely to our knowledge of Irish affairs that are now known very imperfectly. It was commonly maintained that he frequently visited Dublin Castle, the stronghold in Ireland of English Ascendancy. But English statesmen, on the other hand, considered him “antiEnglish.” Cardinal Moran, in an article in the Catholic. Encyclopedia , assures us that his uncle visited Dublin Castle only once and that was to plead for the life of General Burke, who had been condemned to death for having taken part in the Fenian rising. The reprieve was granted, but reluctantly, and the scaffold already erected had to be dismantled.

He vigorously opposed Fenianism, his opposition owing a good deal of its vigor to his experiences of the Italian Revolution in ’49. It is AA’orth mentioning that he Avas Rector of the Irish College, Rome, at the time; and AA’hen the outbreak occurred, the Sacred Congregation asked him to take Propaganda College also under his protection, for the ucav Government had threatened to take it over for their own purposes. Within an hour he had the American Flag floating over Propaganda College. And immediately the revolutionary leaders issued a decree that the College should not be molested as being “an institution of Avorld-wide fame of which Rome was justly proud.”

Cardinal Cullen had great hatred and fear of revolutionary movements Avhether in Italy or in Ireland, and heartily approved of the policy adopted by the Holy See at that troubled period. His condemnation of the Fenians < is partly accounted for, however, by his anxiety as to the fate of men Avhose military operations he considered inevit-

ably doomed to failure and destined to lead numbers to the scaffold. His attitude on that and some other movements was freely discussed in Ireland when an Archbishop of Dublin was to be chosen in-’BS in succession to Cardinal McCabe. Cardinal -Manning’s part in the selection of the Archbishop is regarded as one of his greatest benefits to the cause of Irish freedom.

British Interference

The English Government likes to have a voice in the selection of the archbishops of Ireland. . In O’Connell’s time, and earlier, it vtried to obtain the consent of the Irish bishops to a veto upon the appointments to all the Irish Sees. It showed the same desire in regard to England. The question of the veto both in England and in Ireland has given rise to much historical discussion. The veto has never been accorded to the English Government, and the Church in both countries has, consequently, escaped a terrible calamity. Similar powers granted to France enabled its infidel Governments to lay their foot upon the neck of the French Church. From that slavery it was freed by the courageous action of Pius X., who regained the right to appoint to bishoprics men who were independent of Government and not its servants or its tools.

Archbishop Walsh

When Cardinal McCabe, the Archbishop of Dublin, died in 1885, the question of his successor began at once to interest the English Government. An envoy in Rome was going the rounds of the city, striving to secure the appointment to Dublin of one who was believed to be more favorable to English interests in Ireland than was the President of Maynooth College for whom all Ireland was wishing. 5 Archbishop Croke wrote in great alarm to Cardinal Manning urging him to warn Rome against running counter to the popular demand. It whs absolutely certain, he said, that the Government had proposed the appointment of another. The Cardinal used all his influence to dissuade members of the Government from opposing the appointment of Dr. Walsh. The three men whose names had been forwarded to the Holy See were "good and safe in every sense," but he maintained that Dr. Walsh would be found even by the Government to be the "ablest of the three beyond compare." While the excitement still' ran high, United Ireland, William O'Brien's spirited and fearless paper, published a letter sent from Rome by the envoy of Government to a member, of the Cabinet:—"The Dublin Archbishopric being still undecided, I must still keep the Vatican in good humor about you. . ." And lie promises to use all the influence he can command to bring about the appointment of the Government's choice. On the other hand, Cardinal Manning pointed out to the Holy Father, Leo XIII., what a bad effect would bo produced in Ireland, if the people had any grounds for thinking that the Government had influence in such matters or that its wishes would be carried out against the united will of the Irish bishops. Shane Leslie, Cardinal Manning's biographer, says (p. 392): "Meantime the whole question had reached the Holy Father in all its bearings and sittings.' Roth Crown and bishops put their views strongly. Realising the enormous importance of the decision, he spent days in anxious thought. At last his anxiety overcame his peace. In the dead of tho night he arose and went down to pray at the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul. It was the time of their Feast, when forces invisible and unknown to politicians were abroad—forces that have overturned human calculations more often than historians care to confess." Dr. Walsh was appointed. ~". *«.

The appointment gave to Ireland a great leader, whose services to the popular movements, including Sinn Fein, will not be fully known till his Life is written. He was "a wonderfully gifted man, an authority not only on theology and Canon Law and kindred subjects but even on such an out-of-the-way subject as bimetallism. Cardinal Manning's vigorous exertions in securing his appointment to Dublin are properly looked upon as a convincing proof of his sympathy with the political* aspirations of the Irish people. . ; '> Cardinal Moran a Every cook knows, "you cannot have omelette without breaking eggs." Similarly, you cannot rejoice- over .Dr.

Walsh's appointment as Archbishop of Dublin, nor can you speak of his brilliant success as an Irish leader, without giving the impression that the other candidate would have lowered the Irish flag or would have proved very pliable in the hands of the English Government. If the GovernN ment nominee had been chosenthis candidate whose appointment the Irish bishops so much feared —Government misrule would have had but small reason to"love him, and Irish patriotism but small reason to fear him. You will say that that statement is justified when I tell you that the candidate in question was no other than the late Cardinal Moran of Sydney. I am glad to see that His memory is still fresh here and that you have not forgotten his services to the Old Land. 'The Old Land itself—hierarchy, clergy, and.people made reparation to him a few years before his death when he received a welcome such as Ireland reserves for the very best and truest of her children. His Life has not yet been written, but, among other things, it will reveal, no doubt, whether he would not have declined the See of Dublin rather than stand in the way of one that Ireland demanded. He was then Archbishop of Sydney. Had he been changed to Dublin, either willingly or unwillingly, whatever would have been the gain to Ireland, his loss to the Irish cause in these countries it is impossible to estimate. His devotion to Ireland is aptly touched on by my friend, Father Maurice O'Reilly, in a poem written immediately after his Eminence's death, and his tribute to my former chief I will adopt as my own — When the crown Of nationhood is placed upon thy brows, So long encircled by a crown of thorns, He shall be there, heroic Irish land, He shall be there to witness thy reward. He loved.thee in thy dark and evil days; He hoped for thee, when hoping seemed forlorn : He smote thy base tradueers everywhere; He planted thy green standard in the South And flew it from the limits of the world. f The Plan of Campaign Another striking episode in the same period of Irish history is the condemnation of Boycotting and the Plan of Campaign. England has got the word ''boycotting" from Ireland. It would have been well however, if she had taken from Ireland nothing but words. Captain Boycott was a bad landlord who was determined to make his unfortunate tenants pay excessive rents or else evict them from their poor holdings, "leaving them the wide world for their pillow." In self-defence, the tenants prevented shopkeepers from serving him, and laborers from working for him; they aimed, in a word, at coercing him into surrender. The same system was adopted by the tenants of other bad landlords, and the English language was thereby enriched by the word "boycott." As another part of this system of self-protection, the tenants of those rackrenting landlords offered fair rents; and when those fair rents were refused, the money was given into the hands of the Irish Parliamentary Party t who banked it in Paris. William O'Brien in his Eveniny Memories makes the boast that none of the money thus collected was unaccounted for, and ho gives a number of instances in which heartless landlords were brought to their senses by that "pla^h." Cardinal Persico But the English Government was busy in Rome and misrepresented to the Vatican the methods being pursued in Ireland. Monsignorlater. CardinalPersico was despatched to Ireland to study conditions. The impression he made upon the students of my college was that he was a poor, simple friar whom a, little child could lead. We were not aware then that he had been on embassies of a similar description in India and Canada and the United States. '--.. He interviewed bishops and archbishops in Ireland and received the most cordial hospitality. In my own town the streets through which he was driven 1 to the college were decorated with branches of trees, and the houses : also were made to look quite artistic, banners and pictures and evergreens co-operating to produce the 'impression of

a happy combination of town and country life. It was only tor the representative of the Holy See that such (uoimous trouble would be taken. He interviewed the representative men also of the landlord party. .

; When his mission was at an end, we had not long to wait for the sequel. A message came from Rome and it stunned the friends of Irish liberty; Boycotting and the Plan of Campaign were condemned by the Church authorities,.

Ihe name of Persico became thereupon hateful to Irish ears. He abused our hospitality, wo said, he allowed himself to be imposed upon by the deceitful tools of the Government, he believed the stories told him by iniquitous landlords and turned away from such reliable authorities as Archbishop Croke of Cashel, and Archbishop Walsh of Dublin.

Alter many years it comes to the knowledge of the world that Monsignor Bersico’s report was absolutely in favor of Ireland and that the .Pope's message had been issued before his legate’s report was received in Horne. English influence had been busy, English Catholics of the Norfolk typo had joined with Government envoys, experts in the diplomatic art of calumny, with the sad result that the Vatican was imposed on. The fruit of their evil work was soon lost, however, for a document was shortly afterwards issued which practically annulled the first.

, Cardinal Manning’s services through this crisis were unstintedly given to the Irish side. Monsignor Persico’s letters to him show how keen were the legate’s disappointment and indignation at the cruel trick played upon the Roman authorities. It was through Cardinal Manning that Monsignor Persico was exonerated from the charges universally made against him in Ireland. While he was being denounced for his abuse of Irish hospitality and for having given himself into the hands of the ascendancy party, the poor legate was eating away his heart in grief that he was deemed the enemy of a people whom he had grown to love and whose lot he was most desirous to sweeten. The Cardinal also was ready with his advice to the Irish Parliamentary Party when they undertook to point out to the Holy See that, while they accepted the principles laid down in the decree, they knew that the facts relied upon were based on misrepresentation. To quote William O’Brien:

“The Party Meeting resulted in a declaration of Ireland’s rights in temporal affairs, so firm as to make those apprehensive of a priest-ridden Ireland lift their eyebrows in amaze, and yet so conformable with Catholic doctrine that, before many months were over, the Irish Bishops received a fresh circular from Propaganda substantially cancelling the first.”

A True Friend

Those are the main topics that a “talk” on “Cardinal Manning and Ireland” should, to my mind, embrace. During the whole of the stormy period of the Land League and its offshoots when Irish patriots were thrown into prison and when Irish archbishops and bishops were reported to Rome, and earlier still, when Cardinal Cullen was fighting for the abolition of the State Church in Ireland. and later still when the Parnellite split threatened to lay Ireland prostrate once again at the feet of her age-long enemy, Cardinal Manning declared himself a friend and proved himself a powerful ally of Ireland and pleaded her cause with Gladstone and protected her prelates in Rome.

If I have passed over in silence many of those stirring incidents, I have done so in order to save time for what seemed to me of more vital importance.

The Fenian movement deserved long treatment because of its many features of similarity to the Sinn Fein movement, the spirit of the men being much alike, the idealism, the valor, the purity of their motives being the main characteristics of the men of both. The Fenian movement taught Cardinal Manning that a broad and adequate treatment of Ireland would be needed to put an end to disaffection. Parnell was influenced by Fenianism to take Up the cause of Ireland, and to attempt to remedy by constitutional means the evils that drove the men of Ireland to take up arms against the mighty power of England. Others also, perhaps Gladstone himself, were forced to think that there was something idiotic in the methods

of governing Ireland when such drastic remedies had to be tried by Irishmen who loved liberty more than life.

If I have singled out Cardinal Manning’s part in the appointment to Dublin of an Archbishop whom Dublin and even all Ireland prayed for and clamored for, it was partly to show that the influence of the English Government upon the appointment of Irish archbishops has limits that Rome does not allow it to overstep. Everybody knows of England’s secret treaty with Italy, by the terms of which the Pope would be given no voice in the discussion of the Peace Treaty that would end the great war. At the present moment when the See of Dublin is awaiting with anxiety the appointment of a new Archbishop, there are many—extremists, to use the pet word of the cables — who hope that Rome will give England as much voice in the selection of the new Archbishop as England gave Rome in the settlement of the terms of peace.

Cardinal Manning’s fidelity to Irish national aims was made clear also while Ireland’s loyalty to the Holy See was so severely tested by the condemnation of .boycotting and the Plan of Campaign.

The latest arrival from Rome stated publicly in Sydney a fortnight ago that the present Holy Father has shown Ireland such affection and .practical sympathy as will make the Irish people at home and abroad reverence for all time the name of Benedict XV. The latest arrival alluded to is the Archbishop of Melbourne, Dr. Mannix. (Prolonged applause.)

The audience heard the Bishop’s interesting account of Cardinal Manning’s relations with Ireland with intense interest. At the end, Mr. Nolan came forward and in a few well-chosen words expressed the thanks of the society for the great interest in its work manifested by his Lordship, and especially for the honor done them all that evening. A hearty vote of thanks was then passed by acclamation. In reply Dr. Whyte said:

Reply to Vote of Thanks

I felt inclined while bringing so many Church dignitaries ’under your notice to include a few others such as Cardinal Newman, Cardinal Wiseman, and Cardinal Vaughan. The Lives of those great churchmen have been published in recent years and have aroused a vast amount • of interest in Catholic circles. Had I introduced Cardinal Newman, it would have been mainly to tell of his intimate association with the Catholic University of Ireland and his affection for her Catholic people. The Life of Cardinal Cullen when it appears show that he and Cardinal* Newman appreciated each other much ‘better than readers of Cardinal Newman’s Life could be expected to know. If I had mentioned that “English” churchman, Cardinal Wiseman, it would have been for the purpose of saying that his grandfather was a Waterford man and, better still, his mother was a Kilkenny woman.

Cardinal V aughan I would also have liked to notice, principally in order to call attention to the edifying Life written by Snead-Cox. The reader of it is given to understand, however, that Cardinal Aloran, immediately on his appointment to Sydney in succession to Archbishop Vaughan who had died in England, acted in a highhanded way when asked to have his predecessor’s remains brought out to Sydney. The Life of Cardinal Aloran, when written and published, will probably illustrate the wisdom of the homely proverb, “One story is good till another is told.”

I am pleased to have had the opportunity of showing my interest in your society, and I ought to congratulate you on your patience in spending such a long time in the company of Archbishops and Cardinals and, other important personages.