You will have the goodness to attend a spiritual retreat to be given next month at the college, in Chicago, for the clergy of the diocese of Chicago and Quincy.
The spiritual exercises, which will be conducted by the Rt. Rev. the Bishop of Louisville, are to commence on Tuesday, the 28th of Aug., and will terminate on the following Sunday. This arrangement will necessitate your absence from your church on Sunday, the 14th, after Pentecost, which you will make known to your congregation. No clergyman is allowed to be absent from this retreat without the previous written consent of the bishop of the diocese, which consent will not be given except in cases which he will judge to be of urgent necessity.
By order of Rt. Rev. Bishop,
Matthew Dillon,
Pro Secretary.
Wishing to study the personnel of that Irish clergy of which Bishop Vandeveld had told such frightful things, I went to St. Mary’s University, two hours ahead of time.
Never did I see such a band of jolly fellows. Their dissipation and laughter, their exchange of witty, and too often, unbecoming expressions, the tremendous noise they made in addressing each other, at a distance: Their “Hallo, Patrick!” “hallo, Murphy!”“The answers: “Yes! yes! She will never leave me;” or “no! no! the crazy girl is gone,” were invariably followed by outbursts of laughter.
Though nine-tenths of them were evidently under the influence of intoxicating drinks, not one could be said to be drunk. But the strong odor of alcohol, mixed with the smoke of cigars, soon poisoned the air and made it suffocating.
I had withdrawn in a corner, alone, in order to observe everything.
What stranger, in entering that large hall, would have suspected that those men were about to begin one of the most solemn and sacred actions of a priest of Jesus Christ! With the exception of five or six, they looked more like a band of carousing raftsmen, than priests.