The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Volume 1, November 1864

The Irish Ecclesiastical Record
Volume 1.
November, 1864

All students of Irish Catholic affairs must feel, at every moment, that we are at a great loss for a collection of ecclesiastical documents connected with our Church. The past misfortunes of Ireland explain the origin of this want. During the persecutions of Elizabeth, of James the First, and Cromwell, our ancient manuscripts, and the archives of our convents and monasteries, were ruthlessly destroyed. At a later period, whilst the penal laws were in full operation, it was dangerous to preserve official ecclesiastical papers, lest they should be construed by the bigotry and ignorance of our enemies into proofs of sedition or treason. Since liberty began to dawn on our country, things have undergone a beneficial change, and recently great efforts have been made to rescue and preserve from destruction every remaining fragment of our ancient history, and every document calculated to throw light on the annals of our Church. We are anxious to coöperate in this good work, and we shall feel deeply grateful to our friends if they forward to us any official ecclesiastical papers, either ancient or modern, that it may be desirable to preserve. Receiving such papers casually, we cannot insert them in the Record in chronological order, but by aid of an Index, to be published at the end of each volume, the future historian will be able to avail himself of them for his purposes.
To-day we insert in our columns two letters never published before, as far as we can learn, in their original language. They were addressed, in the beginning of this century, by the learned Archbishop of Myra, Monsignore Brancadoro, Secretary of the Propaganda, to a distinguished Dominican, Father Concanen, then agent of the Irish bishops, who was afterwards promoted to the See of New York, and who died at Naples, in the year 1808, before he could take possession of his diocese.
The first letter, dated the 7th August, 1801, refers to certain resolutions adopted by ten Irish prelates, in January, 1799, at a sad period of our history, when Ireland was in a state of utter prostration, and abandoned to the fury of an Orange faction. In such circumstances, we are not to be surprised that the Catholics of Cork, Waterford, Wexford, and many other parts of Ireland, in the hope of preserving their lives and property, should have petitioned to be united to England; or that Catholic prelates, anxious to gain protection for their flocks, should have endeavoured to propitiate those who had the power of the government in their hands, by taking into consideration the proposals then made—that the state should provide for the maintenance of the clergy, and that a right should be given to the state to inquire into the loyalty of such ecclesiastics as might be proposed for the various sees of Ireland.