The Catholic World, Vol. 07, April 1868 to September, 1868

by Various

Anne Warren, the mother of the future bishop, was a Catholic, but of Quaker extraction, and the father had died before the child's birth, so that young Doyle was brought into the world under circumstances, though not of indigence, still not of superfluity in worldly goods. But nature richly endowed him; and what treasures can be sought more desirable than the intrinsic power of soul which no external change can diminish, and which retains its richness, independent of the uncertainties of variable fortune! Nor was his childhood other than obscure, if we may apply the term to that state which, though humble, was illustrated by the tender care and enlightened piety of a Christian mother. His boyhood was not remarkable for those extraordinary manifestations of genius said to be discovered in the younger days of great men. No phenomena indicative of unusual fortune or success in life attended his boyish acts, although there is a tale of some careless fortune-teller having prognosticated the high position and distinguished labors which afterward rendered his name so memorable. At the age of eleven he ran the risk of being shot for his curiosity in observing, at a distance, a battle fought between the patriots of the rebellion and the English forces. His school-days commenced at Rathnavogue, where a Mr. Grace was conducting a seminary of learning to whose seats both Catholics and Protestants had equal access. Hitherto his mother had been his instructor, and there are no impressions so important or so lasting as those imparted to the infant mind by the solicitous teaching of a parent. Under her guidance, the youthful aspirations which inclined his developing reason to the ecclesiastical state of life, were fostered and encouraged, as she early perceived that the tendency of his mental faculties directed in the path of a holy vocation. In the year 1800, she placed him under the care of an Augustinian friar named Crane, who soon discovered the talents of the boy through his eagerness for knowledge, and his intensely studious habits. She died in 1802, leaving him an orphan, but with the prospect of his soon becoming a member of the Augustinian order, which he entered three years afterward. Notwithstanding that he entertained a strong repugnance to the eleemosynary practices of religious communities of begging from door to door—and this aversion he ever retained—he still selected a conventual life in preference to the more public and active labors of a missionary priest. His respect for the dignity of the priestly office was a characteristic trait in his life as bishop, and his ideas on the subject seem to have originated from that natural good taste with which he had been gifted from his infancy.

The ordeal of the novitiate passed through with fidelity, he made his vows as member of the order in 1806, in the small thatched chapel at Grantstown. The marked abilities displayed at this period induced his superiors to select him to be sent with some others to the college of their order at Coimbra, in Portugal, a well-conducted institution, and connected with the celebrated university of that place. As he was afforded all the ample opportunities held out to those attending the university lectures—a privilege accorded only to a few—his mind was immensely enriched, and what is of still greater importance, his ideas were enabled to attain a sturdiness of growth and liberality of expansion which ever afterward distinguished his writings and speeches. In his subsequent examination before a committee of both houses of parliament, he testified to the numerous advantages which were then, as now, derived from a continental education for the priesthood. In his days, indeed, it was no longer, as it had been in 1780, felony in a foreign priest, and high-treason in a native, to teach or practise the doctrines of the Catholic religion in Ireland. Still, the penal laws, although relaxed, had left their evil traces long after their name had ceased to excite terror, even if it occasioned a thrill of hatred in the breasts of those who had so long been subjected to the clanking of their fetters. It seems somewhat of an anomaly for Protestantism, which was inaugurated under the plea of freeing and enlightening the human mind, to sanction the enactment and enforce the execution of laws directly calculated to crush religious freedom, and make it criminal to educate the children of the conquered Catholics. It is, however, but one of the innumerable inconsistencies with which the histories of nations and of creeds regale us at intervals.

Whilst young Doyle was deeply engaged in drinking in from the purest and deepest springs theologic lore, and treasuring up in his capacious mind the classic and philosophic eloquence of ancient times, the sound of war disturbed his retirement. A French invasion overturned the independence of the country, and so rapid was the advance of Junot that the vessel which bore away in safety to Brazil the royal family was hastened in its departure by some shots from the conquering army. The peninsular war ensued, in which the Portuguese, aided by the English under Wellington, drove out the irreligious soldiers of the empire. The enthusiasm which inflamed the minds of the natives was taken up by the young students, and among them Doyle shouldered his musket, believing that the best way to prove one's fidelity to truth and justice is to act when action alone is effective.

Mr. Fitzpatrick does not explain the short stay made by the student in the college of Coimbra, as we find him in Ireland, in 1808, preparing for the reception of holy orders. He had concluded a good course of study, and his natural abilities must have rendered him fully competent to be admitted to the order of priesthood, which he received in 1809, in the humble, thatched chapel of his youthful days. But as there were then, to a greater extent than at present, existing prejudices against religious orders in Ireland, he was not only refused faculties, but even the preparatory examination, by Dr. Ryan, Coadjutor Bishop of Ferns. The young priest quietly remained in his convent until called, upon the recommendation of some friends who admired his talents, to the position of professor in Carlow College. Here he rendered most important services. Within its walls he spent six years most studiously occupied, both for his own advancement and for the benefit of his pupils. The advantage of procuring positions in seminaries or colleges for young priests of talent and taste for prolonged study, is easily perceived when we consider the necessity—more especially at the present day—of fitting some for the higher duties of their order—the defence and exposition of Catholic doctrines in a literary manner. Had the talents of Dr. Doyle received no cultivation more than that afforded by a superficial knowledge of theology in a rudimentary course of three years, his life would have passed in obscurity, and his eminent public services could never have been successfully accomplished. The light of genius is, indeed, a gift of nature, but the intensity of its brilliancy depends upon art and culture. Besides this, his taste for literature excited the enthusiasm, whilst it encouraged the efforts of the students. His lectures on eloquence, which had, up to that time, been considerably neglected among the Irish clergy, served as an incentive to their ardor in pursuit of that noble science, at the same time that it furnished his own mind with the inexhaustible resources which he afterward wielded with such mighty effect. We know of similar results having been attained by the late eminent Cardinal Wiseman whilst rector of the English College at Rome. The necessity of a learned clergy was scarcely ever felt as much as at the present day, when men of abilities and cultivation may be daily encountered, eager and earnest for the truth, but not ready to admit it upon insufficient or superficial grounds. This view, entertained by Dr. Doyle whilst in Carlow College, led him to inculcate the same principles to those around him.

But the scene of his labors changes, and we now approach the period of his life in which his publications procure for him that general recognition of power and virtue, hitherto accorded him in a humbler sphere of duty. By an unprecedented unanimity he was elected, in 1819, to succeed Dr. Corcoran in the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin. The selection was more remarkable, as in those days there were feelings of strong dislike entertained against members of religious communities, and the subject caused no slight trouble at Rome. The wise regulations of the church for the election of bishops were observed in Ireland then, as they are now. Assembled together, the clergy received the Holy Eucharist, prayed for light to direct their action, retired in silence, strengthened and enlightened, to give their voice for the most fitting subject; and the result showed in this case, that, as they had the generosity to pass over the bounds of prejudice, the Holy Ghost guided them in their deliberations. It was not a little surprising that the choice had fallen upon an Augustinian friar; but that the dignity should be conferred upon one so young—he was only thirty-two years of age—and with such universal satisfaction, went far to prove the high esteem in which he must have been held. The custom of electing elderly persons to the episcopal office is generally admitted to have traditional usage in its favor, although we do not read of our Lord having regarded age as a qualification in his apostles, and St. John is believed to have been a mere youth. Innocent III., one of the most illustrious popes that ever reigned, was only thirty-seven years of age when he ascended the chair of St. Peter. And although the youthful appearance of the new bishop was made the occasion of adverse criticism in some quarters, he entered upon his office no less deeply impressed with the truth of what St. Augustine said of the episcopate, "Nomen sit oneris, non honoris," than if he were bowed down by age.

Mr. Fitzpatrick's work exposes to us many evils that had been allowed to grow up in the diocese under the inactive government of some of Bishop Doyle's predecessors. Incompetent persons are found in every state of life, and many of the miseries by which society is afflicted arise from faithlessness or incapacity in incumbents of high positions. Energy and diligence were not characteristic of those who had gone before him, and abuses that had been tolerated by negligence, grew into evils which were magnified by their proximity to the sanctuary. But Bishop Doyle was one of those faithful ministers who felt the responsibilities enjoined upon his office, "quasi pro animabus reddituri rationem." Some customs common among the clergy were not much in accordance with ecclesiastical propriety, and it is not easy to eradicate what has been allowed to attain a long growth. It is true that the penal times had but just ceased, and the decadence in ecclesiastical discipline brought about by the dreary night of persecution, was of such magnitude as not to be quickly remedied. Still, the new bishop had brought with him into the office a thorough knowledge of the laws of the church, and a sense of the obligation of carrying these laws into execution whenever possible. These were the two principal reasons to which must be ascribed the successful issue of all his measures at reform. He called the attention of his clergy to the decrees of the twenty-fourth session of the Council of Trent, with regard to the reformation of the church, and dwelt upon the penalties to which he himself should be liable were he to neglect the enforcement of those wise regulations.

For the decency of public worship, the ornaments and linens of the altar, and everything connected with the sacred ceremonies of religion, he had the most scrupulous regard. He instituted regular visitations in his diocese, as he felt that he could not be exempted from a sinful negligence in omitting to comply with the decrees of Trent in this respect. In these visitations he discovered the sad state to which ecclesiastical discipline had fallen before his days. In one instance the vestments were found to be in such an unbecoming state that he tore them asunder. Returning next year to the same parish, he found the identical old vestments sewn together and kept in a turf-basket. To prevent a repetition, he consigned them to the flames, and as the parish priest was by no means a poor man, the wretched taste displayed by him was wholly unpardonable.

Hunting was not an unusual occupation with the clergy of those days. Practices by no means tending to increase the respect of the people for their pastors, had been allowed to accompany the marriage and funeral services of country districts, and all these claimed the diligent reformatory care of the active bishop. The office of reformer—as the very sound has to some an odious signification—is not the most envious one in the world, and it acquires a peculiarly distasteful character from those whose self-interested conduct may fall under its action. Hence the young bishop was sometimes accused of rashness in his undertaking to correct abuses of so long a standing, and the plea was set up that good and wise men had tolerated them in the past. Nor was he free from the receipt of letters of complaint, principally, though not always, from old pastors who found great difficulty in abandoning habits which their sense of right would not permit them to justify. They remonstrated with him for carrying out laws for the execution of which he was responsible. But he kindly reasoned with them on the necessity which pressed him to be faithful to his trust; and as he never urged his own feelings or his own bias as the motive of his action, but always appealed to the law of the church, he gradually effected the most beneficent results. He never used harshness, even where it might appear, if not necessary, at least justifiable, and never was he accused of disregarding the reasonable explanations of the humblest of his clergy. Law, not self; justice, not caprice, were the motives that incited him; and, guided by such principles, he confided the success of his efforts to God, and thus labored under the inspiration of the church.

The sacrament of confirmation had been but rarely administered before his time, and he frequently was affected to tears when, instead of children to receive it, there were crowds of gray-haired men and women. The education of the young had been much neglected by many parish priests, whose taste for agricultural pursuits led them to devote more time to the cultivation of farms than to the instruction of their people. One rural gentleman insisted that he could well attend to his flocks of sheep without neglecting his spiritual flock; but the bishop required that his time should be exclusively devoted to his ministry. Many justified their engagement with worldly occupations, or their inattention to their duties, by pointing to the curate, and, loudly affirming his energetic zeal, declared him fully competent to direct the parish, whilst the old man should repose from his labors and enjoy in ease the fruits of his past services in the vineyard of the Lord. The persistent labors of the bishop at length produced that good result ever to be expected from a faithful discharge of duty. Visitations were regularly conducted throughout his diocese, and the long-neglected canons of the church were reestablished, to the great satisfaction of all good priests, as well as with salutary consequences to the people.