We are also informed that Kohlmann was an ex-Capuchin. It is strange, however, that Guidée makes no mention of it in his historical sketches of the Fathers of the Sacred Heart. Moreover, if he ever were a member of that Order, it must have been for an extremely brief period; for he was born in 1771, and at the outbreak of the French Revolution which swept away all religious communities he was only eighteen years of age. We find him then finishing his theological studies at Fribourg where the Jesuits had been conspicuous before the Suppression, and he was ordained a priest in 1796, when he was twenty-five years old. Immediately afterwards, he joined the Fathers of the Sacred Heart. So that if he ever had been a Capuchin it must have been at a very early age; and in any case he did not leave his Order voluntarily. It had been swept out of existence in the general storm.
Grassi tells us also that, out of pity for the distressed religious who had been thrown out of their homes at that time, the General of the Society had asked the Pope to lift the ban against the Society's receiving into its ranks the members of other Orders — a policy which it had always pursued, both out of respect for the Orders themselves, and because a change in such a serious matter would imply instability of character in the applicant. Father Pignatelli was deputed to submit the cause to His Holiness, and Grassi is in admiration at the sublime obedience of Pignatelli in doing what he was told; but it is hard to imagine why he should be so edified. The Professed of the Society make a special and solemn vow of obedience to the Pope and admit his decision without question. Even when the Pope suppressed the entire Society they defended his action. Where is there anything heroic in being merely the messenger between the General and the Pope? In any case Kohlmann's admission to the Society was with the full approval of both the Sovereign Pontiff and the General, even if he had been a Capuchin, which is by no means certain.
We are also informed that the authorities in Rome were surprised that Kohlmann was admitted to his last vows before the customary ten years had elapsed, but there are many such instances in the history of the Society, and the General in referring to it may have been merely asking for information. Finally with regard to the alleged worry about Kohlmann's appointment as Vicar General of New York; it suffices to say that the office is of its nature temporary, and cannot well be classified as a prelacy; especially as there was only one permanent church structure in the entire episcopal territory that stretched between the Hudson River and Lake Erie, and the clergy was largely made up of transients.
At the time that Father Kohlmann was mentioned for the See of New York, Father Peter Kenny was proposed for that of Dromore in Ireland. Foley in his "Chronological Catalogue of the Irish Province S. J." gives a brief account of this very distinguished man, who like Kohlmann was for some time identified with the Church in the United States.
He was born in Dublin, July 7, 1779, and entered the Society at Hodder, Stonyhurst, September 20, 1804. He died in the Gesù at Rome, November 19, 1841. When a boy he attracted the notice of Father Thomas Betagh, the last of the Irish Jesuits of the old Society, who was then Vicar General of Dublin, and was sent to Carlow College. Even in early youth he was remarkable for his extraordinary eloquence. When a novice he was told to come down from the pulpit, his fellow-novices being so spell-bound that they refused to eat. At Stonyhurst, he wrote a work on mathematics and physics. In 1811 he was Vice-President of Maynooth College. He purchased Clongowes Wood in 1814, and in 1819 was sent as visitor to the Jesuit houses of Maryland. He was made vice-provincial of Ireland in 1829, and again came to America in 1830, where he remained for three years and then installed Father McSherry as the first provincial of the American province. His retreats in Ireland are still enthusiastically referred to and quoted. In 1809 when he was finishing his theology in Palermo, Father Angiolini wrote to Father Plowden "Father Kenny is head and shoulders over every one. He has genius, health, zeal, energy, success in action and prudence to a remarkable degree. May God keep him for the glory and increase of the Irish Missions!" God did so and the missions of America also profited by his genius and virtue.
Later on, Father Van de Velde was made Bishop of Chicago, but he continually petitioned Rome to be allowed to return to the Society; while Father Miège after twenty-four years of the episcopate and without waiting to celebrate his silver jubilee became a Jesuit again and spent his last days at Woodstock, where he met Father Michael O'Connor, who had resigned the See of Pittsburg in order to assume the habit of St. Ignatius. His brother before being made Bishop of Omaha asked to enter the Society but he was told "Be a bishop first like your brother and afterwards a Jesuit." One of the most distinguished Jesuits of New York, Father Larkin, had to flee the country to avoid being made Bishop of Toronto, and Father William Duncan of Boston would have occupied the See of Savannah had not he entered the Society.
The same thing is true of the cardinalate. An unusually large number of Jesuits have been raised to that dignity in the hundred years of the new Society, in spite of the oath they have taken to do all in their power to prevent it, an oath which they have all most faithfully kept, yielding only because they were bidden to do so under pain of sin.
Camillo Mazzella entered the Society in 1857, and when the scholasticate at Woodstock in Maryland was opened, he was made prefect of studies. He was called to Rome in 1878 to take the place of Franzelin in the Gregorian University. In 1886 he was created Cardinal deacon and ten years later Cardinal priest, while in 1897 he was appointed Cardinal bishop of Palestrina. Camillo Tarquini was made cardinal because of his prominence as a canonist; Andreas Steinhüber's learning and his great labors as Vatican librarian won for him the honor of the purple, while Louis Billot after teaching dogmatic theology at Angers and the Gregorian University was named Cardinal deacon of Santa Maria in Via Lata on November 27, 1911. But much greater consolation has been afforded to the new Society by the canonization of its saints than by the choice of its members for the cardinalate. One is a recognition of the intellectual ability and personal virtue; the other is an official, though indirect, approval of the Institute.
At the very time that Pombal, Choiseul and Charles III were crushing the Society in their respective countries, Rome as if in condemnation of the act was jubilant with delight over the heroic virtue of the Italian Jesuit, Francis Hieronymo; and people were asking each other how a Society could be bad when it produced such a saint? In an issue of the "Gazette" of distant Quebec at that time we find a bewildered Protestant Englishman who was the journal's correspondent at Rome asking himself that question. The political troubles of the period caused the proceedings of the canonization to be suspended, but Gregory XVI, who succeeded Leo XII, canonized Francis on the Feast of the Blessed Trinity, 1839. Pius IX beatified Canisius, Bobola, Faber, de Britto and Berchmans, with Peter Claver, the apostle of the negroes, and the lay-brother Alphonso Rodríguez, besides placing the crown of martyrdom on the throng of martyrs in Japan, Europeans and natives alike, as well as upon Azevedo and his thirty-nine Portuguese associates who were slaughtered at sea near the Azores.
Leo XIII beatified Antonio Baldinucci and Rudolph Aquaviva with his fellow-Jesuits who were put to death at Salsette in Hindostan, besides raising to the honors of sainthood Peter Claver and Alphonso Rodríguez, and also placing John Berchmans in the same category, thus re-affirming the sanctity of the rules of the Society, for the realization of which the holy youth had already been beatified. The canonization of Alphonso is also notable because it was by Leo XII, whose name Leo XIII had adopted, that the humble porter of Minorca was raised to the first honors of the altar. Finally, Pius X showed his love for the Society and his approval of the rule by beatifying the three martyrs of Hungary whom scarcely anybody had ever heard of before: Mark Crisin, Stephen Pongracz and Melchior Grodecz. There is also under consideration the beatification of the great American apostles Jogues, Brébeuf, Lalemant, Daniel, Chabanel, Garnier, Goupil and Lalande, five of whom died for the Faith in Canada, and three in what is now the State of New York.