[The Irish Reformation]; or, The Alleged Conversion of the Irish Bishops at the Accession of Queen Elizabeth, etc. By W. Maziere Brady, D.D. Fifth Edition. London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1867. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
[State Papers] Concerning the Irish Church in the Time of Queen Elizabeth. Edited by W. Maziere Brady, D.D. London: Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer. 1868. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
We have had frequent occasion of late to notice with pleasure and to congratulate our readers and the Catholic community generally on the revival in England of Catholic literature, and particularly of that class of works which has a tendency to illustrate the dark era of persecution and proscription which, commencing under the reign of Henry VIII., may be said to have reached almost down to our own day. In the last generation, Dr. Lingard, by his impartial History, cleared away a good deal of the rubbish with which the deformities of the so-called English Reformation were hidden from view; subsequently, Lady Fullerton and other distinguished writers of fiction attempted, and with success, to gain the attention of the public to their admirable portraiture of the sufferings and fortitude of the Catholics of England in the times of Elizabeth and James I.; while the erudite editor of the Narrative of F. Gerard has, by his industry and conscientious labors, placed all future historians under a great debt of gratitude.
The works before us, though treating of a different subject, and written by a Protestant clergyman, have a tendency very similar to that produced by the writings we have mentioned. The first is devoted to a discussion of the question whether the Protestant hierarchy in Ireland can legally and historically claim descent from the ancient church in Ireland; or, in plainer terms, have the Anglican bishops in that country ever been consecrated at all, at any time, or by any competent authority? In tracing up the succession of the defunct “Establishment,” the author gives very succinct and accurate sketches of every incumbent, Catholic and Protestant, of every diocese in Ireland from the middle of the XVIth century and proves by dates, facts, and public documents that the “reformed” prelates have no more right to claim apostolic succession than they have to claim to be the apostles themselves. When we mention that Dr. Brady is a beneficed clergyman, and was formerly chaplain to the lord lieutenant, our readers will have little hesitation in accepting conclusions so damaging to his own church, and which, as he tells us himself, only the cause of truth could have compelled him to publish.
The other book, though not so interesting, is to us on this side of the Atlantic of much greater value, as few of us have an opportunity of consulting the originals. It is a collection of state papers, letters, documents, and petitions “touching the mode in which it was sought to introduce the Reformed religion into Ireland,” and are all authenticated copies taken from the records of the State Paper Office in London. However much Dr. Brady may have done by these publications to damage the cause of Protestantism in Ireland, and to humble the pride of a faction that never has and never can possess the respect or affection of the people upon whom it has so long preyed, he has deserved by his fairness and courage the esteem and thanks of all impartial lovers of historical truth.
—Since the above was in type, we find occasion for congratulating the author upon having arrived at the conclusion to which his investigations naturally led, i.e., his reception into the Catholic Church.
[A Visit to Louise Lateau.] By Gerald Molloy, D.D. Boston: P. Donahoe. 1873.
This pretty little gem of a book, which has an engraving of the cottage of the Lateau family as a frontispiece, will charm and edify all those who take an interest in reading about the wonders of divine grace with which our age is specially favored.
[Directorium Sacerdotale]: A Guide for Priests in their Public and Private Life. By F. Benedict Valuy, S.J. With an Appendix for the use of Seminarists. London: John Philp. 1873.
This manual for ecclesiastics is highly commended by the Abbé Dubois, an eminent director of a seminary in France, and an author of works specially intended for priests, who calls it “the priest’s Following of Christ,” and by the Bishop of Shrewsbury, to whom it is dedicated by the translator. A valuable appendix has been added, containing a catalogue of books for a priest’s library and for a mission, i.e., parochial and lending library. It is enough to see Mr. Philp’s name as publisher to know that it has been carefully, neatly, and conveniently printed.