Part 3

Dr. Edmund Tanner was next appointed to Cork and Cloyne by brief of 5th November, 1574. There are some peculiar passages in this brief, which merit our attention. Thus it describes Dr. Tanner as "in Theologia Magistrum, de legitimo matrimonio procreatum, in quinquagesimo aetatis anno et presbyteratus ordine constitutum, que fidem Catholicam juxta articulos dudum a Sede Apostolica emanatos professus fuit, cuique de vitae munditia, honestate morum, spiritualium providentia et temporalium circumspectione, aliisque multiplicum virtutum donis fide digna testimonia perhibentur". Subsequently, addressing the clergy and faithful of the united sees, the brief continues:

"Dilectis filiis capitulis et vassallis dictarum Ecclesiarum et populo Corkagen. et Clonen. civitatum et Diocesium, per Apostolica scripta mandamus, quatenus capitula tibi tamquam patri et pastori animarum suarum humiliter intendentes exhibeant tibi obedientiam et reverentiam debitas et devotas: ac clerus te pro nostra et sedis Apostolicae reverentia benigne recipientes et honorifice pertractantes, tua salubria monita et mandata suscipiant humiliter et efficaciter adimplere procurent: populus vero te tamquam patrem et pastorem animarum suarum devote suscipientes et debita honorificentia prosequentes, tuis monitis et mandatis salubribus humiliter intendant. Itaque tu in eis devotionis filios, et ipsi in te per consequens patrem benevolum invenisse gaudeatis".

Moreover, this is the first occasion on which I have found the following clause inserted in the Bull of appointment to the Irish Sees:

"Volumus autem, ut occasio et materia tibi auferatur vagandi, quad extra Corkagen. et Clonen. civitates illarumque Dioeceses etiam de licentia Episcoporum locorum ordinariorum Pontificalia officia exercere nequeas, decernentes irritum et inane quidquid secus per te actum et gestum fuerit" (_Ex Secret. Brevium Romae_).

Dr. Tanner was consecrated bishop in Rome, and subsequently tarried during the winter months in the Eternal City, laying up spiritual treasures for his future mission. On the 10th of April, 1575, special faculties were granted to him, and he was, moreover, empowered to exercise them not only in his own united Dioceses of Cork and Cloyne, but also "throughout the whole Province of Dublin, of which he was a native (_universae provinciae Dublinensis ex qua exoriundus_), as well as throughout the whole province of Munster, so long as the various Archbishops and Bishops were obliged by the fury of the persecution to be absent from their respective sees (Ex. _Sec. Brev._). About the middle of May the same year, he set out from the Seven Hills to assume the charge assigned to him, and the great Pontiff Gregory XIII. wished to accompany him with the following commendatory letter, dated 12th of May, 1575:--

"Universis et singulis Episcopis atque aliis Praelatis ad quos hae nostrae litterae pervenerint, salutem et Apostolicam benedictionem.

"Ut Nos commendatissimos habemus viros eos quos pietate atque integritate praestare intelligimus, sic cupimus eos nostris in Christo fratribus ac filiis esse summopere commendatos, huncque animum cum omnibus pietate et virtute praeditis tum vero venerabilibus fratribus Episcopis ut ordine ipso sic charitate Nobis conjunctissimis Nos debere cognoscimus. In his est venerabilis frater Edmundus Episcopus Corcagiensis qui a Nobis discedit ut in patriam revertatur. Erit igitur Nobis gratissimum, si eum in hac peregrinatione quam commendatissimum habebitis, vestroque ubi opus esse intelligetis favore complectemini: Datum Romae apud S. Petrum sub annulo Piscatoris die 12 Maii 1575, Pontif. Nostri an. tertio". (_Theiner_, _Annals_, ii. 133).

This worthy bishop, during four years, endured the toils and sufferings of his perilous ministry. The Vatican list of 1579 represents the see "Corchagiensis et Clonensis" as still presided over by a canonically appointed bishop; and another list of the clergy who were then engaged in the exercise of their sacred ministry in Ireland presents first of all the name "Reverendissimus Edmundus Epus. Corchagiensis, pulsus tamen Episcopatu". In this last named list we also find commemorated: "Thomas Moreanus Decanus Corchagiensis": and again, "P. Carolus Lens et P. Robertus Rishfordus, ambo Societatis Jesu, qui in variis locis docent litteras sub cura et mandato Reverendissimi Corchagiensis". Soon after, however, on the 4th of June, 1579, Dr. Tanner was summoned to receive the reward of his zeal and labours.

His successor was _Dermitius Graith_, who was proposed for the first time in the consistory of 7th October, 1580, and whose election was definitely confirmed on the 11th of the same month. The following is the consistorial entry:

"Die 11^o Octobris, 1580, Cardinalis Ursinus praenunciavit Ecclesias Corkagien. et Cloinen. invicem unitas in Provincia cuidam principi Catholico subjecta, pro Hyberno scholari Collegii Germanici".

In the list of the Irish clergy above referred to, under the heading "qui sunt extra Hiberniam", is mentioned _Darmisius Craticus_, who is described as studying in Rome, and in his thirtieth year. He is subsequently again mentioned among those who might be destined for the Irish mission, and it is there added that he was a native of Munster, and though he was skilled in both the English and Irish languages, he was more conversant with the Irish: "melius loquitur Hibernice". From the consistorial acts we further learn that he applied himself to sacred studies in the illustrious college which had been founded a few years before for the purpose of supplying missioners to Germany and other countries suffering from the oppression of heresy, and among his companions in its hallowed halls was Nicholas Skerrett, who was destined to be sharer of his missionary toils and perils as Archbishop of Tuam.

Dr. Graith was one of the most illustrious missioners who laboured in our Irish Church during the sixteenth century; and, as Peter Lombard informs us, was at one time the only bishop in the province of Munster. Soon after his arrival in our island, the agents of heresy mainly directed their efforts towards his apprehension, and so chagrined were they at his escape that they even accused Sir John Perrot of having secretly favoured him and thus baffled their designs. In a memorial presented to government in 1592, "Doctor Creagh, Bishop of Cloyne and Cork", appears first on the list of those who in Munster were enemies of the Elizabethan rule, having lived "in the country these eleven or twelve years past, without pardon or protection, consecrating churches, making priests", etc.; and it is further added that "he did more evil", that is, he was more zealous in propagating our holy faith, even "_than Dr. Sanders in his time_" (see _Essays_, etc., by Rev. Dr. M'Carthy, pag. 424). Another State Paper, being a letter from the Lord Deputy to Lord Burghley, in England, dated 17th May, 1593, gives us the following particulars:--

"We have laboured with all possible endeavours with the Earl of Tirone, as well by private conference as by our sending letters, for the apprehension of the titular bishops remaining in these parts; yet can we by no means prevail, though it is very well known to us that the earl might have done great and acceptable service therein, on account of the friendship between him, O'Donell, and Maguire--Maguire being cousin-germain, and altogether at his service, and, as report goeth, either hath or is to marry the earl's daughter. And as in this I made bold, I humbly pray your lordship's pardon, to state what little success hath followed of the great shams of service made by the Archbishop of Cashel and Richard Power, rather in regard for their own benefit and to serve their own turns, than for any performance of actions at all. Upon the Archbishop's coming over they pretended a plot, both for the getting of great sums of money for her Majesty and for the apprehension of Dr. Creaghe, to the second of which we rather first hearkened, but in the end nothing was done more than to spend so much time, and an open show, as it were, made to the world how that traitor was sought and laid for, whereby the other traitorous titular bishops might take warning to be the more wary upon their keeping" (S. P. O.).

The accusation which is here made against the unfortunate Miler MacGrath, Protestant Archbishop of Cashel, had probably more foundation than the Lord Deputy imagined; and whilst much noise was made for the arrest of our Bishop Dermitius, intelligence of all such schemes was communicated to him by Miler himself. One letter of MacGrath to his "loving wife Any" is preserved in the S. P. O., dated from Greenwich, the 26th of June, 1592, in which he writes: "I have already resolved you in my mind touching my cousin Darby Creagh, and I desire you now to cause his friends to send him out of the whole country if they can, or if not to send (to him) my orders, for that there is such search to be made for him that unless he be wise he shall be taken".

On the 31st of October, 1595, a brief was addressed to "Dermitio Episcopo Corcagiensi", commissioning him to grant some ecclesiastical livings to Owen MacEgan, who a few years later became illustrious in the annals of our church as Vicar Apostolic of Ross.--(See _Irish Ecclesiastical Record_, vol. i., p. 110). In 1599 Dr. Graith was visited by the Franciscan Father Mooney, who in his History of the Order, commemorating this visit, describes the bishop as "vir valde prudens et in rebus agendis versatus". This must have been a period of harrowing anxiety for the worthy bishop. His diocese was laid waste by fire and sword, the Irish chieftains driven to arms by the iniquitous policy of the agents of Elizabeth, having made the southern districts of Ireland the theatre of their struggle. Dr. Graith shared the perils of their camp, ministering to them the comforts of religion. One of his hair-breadth escapes is thus described in the _Hibernia Pacata_, pag. 190:

"The Earl of Thomond, Sir George Thornton, and Captain Roger Harvey, with their companies, following the direction of their guide, were conducted to Lisbarry, a parcel of Drumfinnin woods. No sooner were they entered into the fastness, than presently the sentinels who were placed in the outskirts of the wood, raised the cry which it would seem roused the Earl of Desmond and _Dermod MacCraghe, the Pope's Bishop of Cork_, who were lodged there in a poor ragged cabin. Desmond fled away barefoot, having no leisure to pull on his shoes, and was not discovered; but MacCraghe was met by some of the soldiers clothed in a simple mantle, and with torn trousers like an aged churl, and they neglecting so poor a creature, not able to carry a weapon, suffered him to pass unregarded".

This happened in the month of November, 1600.

It was on the 30th March that year, that O'Neill and the other Irish princes addressed a letter in common to the Sovereign Pontiff, unfolding to him the miseries which laid desolate our island, attesting too their resolute desire to combat for the Catholic faith, and to promote the interests of Holy Church, and petitioning in fine, that the vacant sees of the province of Munster might be filled by those who were recommended by the Bishop of Cork and Cloyne: they add that the only bishop then in the southern province was "Reverendissimus Corcagiensis et Cloanensis qui senio et labore jam paene est confectus"; and as a special motive why the Holy See should not delay to make these appointments to the vacant dioceses, they write: "Hoc eo confidentius petimus quia qui electi conservati et ad nos dimissi fuerunt a vestra sacrosancta Sede, ad vacuas his in partibus sedes occupandas, a nobis pro viribus, in iisdem Dei gratia defenduntur, ut gregibus sibi commissis tuto invigilare queant".--_Original Letter in Hib. Pacat._, page 311.

The next notice that we find of our aged Bishop is in the appointment of Luke Archer to administer the see of Leighlin during the absence of its Bishop Ribera, on whose death, in 1604, the same Luke Archer was constituted Vicar-Apostolic of that see. From the words used by Harty when registering this appointment made by our Bishop, we may conclude that Dr. Graith, as his predecessor, had received special faculties from Rome not only for his own diocese, but also for the province of Leinster. "Dermitius Chrah (he writes), Corcagiensis et Clonensis tunc Episcopus _apostolica auctoritate qui fulserat_".

As regards the precise period of Dr. Graith's death, no record has come down to us. Mooney, the Franciscan annalist, merely attests that "he lived for some time subsequent to 1599". Dr. Matthews, who was consecrated bishop of Clogher in 1609, reckons him amongst the bishops who survived Elizabeth, and lived for some years "aliquibus annis" under James I. This would lead us to conclude that his life was prolonged till the year 1605. O'Sullivan Beare, writing in 1618, leaves us in a like uncertainty, as he refers his death in general terms to the first year of the seventeenth century, after an episcopate of more than twenty years. The eulogy, however, passed upon this bishop by O'Sullivan Beare deserves to be cited in full:--

"Catholicorum infelicitati adscribendum est", he writes, "quod sub id tempus fato functus sit vir integerrimus atque clarissimus Dermysius Mac Carrhus, Corcaghae et Clueniae Episcopus, qui annos viginti et amplius in hac insula in fide retinenda magnopere insudavit, dumque bellum hoc gerebatur, movendis Catholicorum animis, ut Christianam pietatem armis defenderent, multum studii et laboris impendit: cujus interitu Ibernorum concordia non minima parte elanguit. Quae ob merita in Dei ecclesiam et Iberniae regnum collata, cum ejus caput Angli diu frustra impetiverint, tandem illius interfectori vel deprehensori grandem pecuniae summam constituerunt, quin etiam tam inexpiabili odio eum prosequuti sunt ut illius etiam consanguineos labefactare non destiterint. Ex quibus Thomam MacCrachum antistitis nepotem ex fratre Thoma deprehensum ad fidem Catholicam deserendam cogere et praemiis et terrore sunt conati: qua spe dejecti magni et maxime Catholici animi virum securi percusserunt. Sed quoniam in episcopi mentionem incidimus, illud ejus magnum atque rarum mirum nequeo silentio praeterire quod chirographum vix male effingeret, aliam vero ne litteram quidem unam visus sit unquam scribere, cum tamen adeo disertus atque sapiens evaserit ut doctor in utroque jure creatus sacram Theologiam Lovaniae annos aliquot publice sit professus, quippe tanto ingenii acumine tamque felici memoria pollebat ut ne discipulus quidem necesse habuerit lectionem notis excipere, et de doctrina Christiana libellum Ibernice scriptum posteris reliquerit, cujus praeceptis in hunc usque diem juventus in ea insula excolitur" (_Hist. Cath._, pag. 223).

We may now inquire who were the individuals chosen by Elizabeth to hold the temporalities of Cork and Cloyne during this interval. The first Protestant bishop of these sees was Richard Dixon, a chaplain of the Lord Deputy Sydney. The see in 1568 had received a Catholic appointment, but it was only on the 17th of May, 1570, that Elizabeth wrote to the Lord Deputy: "We are pleased that Richard Dixon, being by you very well commended for his learning and other qualities, shall have the bishoprics of Cork and Cloyne"--(_Morrin_, i. p. 539). Nevertheless, the prelate thus warmly commended was, on the 7th of March, 1571, sentenced by a royal commission to perform public penance in the Cathedral of Christ Church, Dublin, which penance, adds the government record, he went through in _hypocrisy and pretence of amendment_; wherefore, on the 7th of November following, the same commission proceeded to depose him from his Protestant episcopal functions, declaring him guilty of public immorality and other crimes.--(See _Brady Records_, iii. 47). Mathew Sheyn, or Shehan, was the next episcopal incumbent chosen by Elizabeth: only two events are commemorated to mark his episcopate: 1. that in 1575 "he leased away the whole see of Cloyne for ever for five marks per annum"; and 2. that in October, 1578, he made public display of his impiety by consigning to the flames at the high cross of Cork a statue of St. Dominick, long held in veneration by the faithful of that city (_Ibid._, pag. 49). The next Protestant Bishop, William Lyons, combined in his commission the sees of Cork, Cloyne, and Ross. We have already spoken of this dignitary under the head of Ross (_Record_, vol. i. pag. 110-1): we will now only add that his chief enmity seemed directed against the faithful of Timoleague. Already in 1589 he had destroyed a portion of its venerable monastery to erect a house with the materials. In 1612 he resolved to complete his work of destruction; for intelligence was conveyed to him that a large concourse of Catholics had assembled there to assist at midnight Mass on the great Christmas festival. Though advanced in years, he set out with a troop of soldiers to punish these offenders; however, he had proceeded only a little way from the city when he was seized with such violent pains throughout his whole body that he was obliged to desist from his undertaking. During the five remaining years of his life he displayed less violence against the Catholics, and to his dying day he retained a lively memory of his Christmas excursion to Timoleague--(Mooney's _MS. Hist._, p. 49).

THE CHURCH AND THE BIBLE.

II.

We have seen in a former article that the Catholic Church was the careful guardian and zealous propagator of the original texts of the inspired volume. We now proceed to show that her missionaries and her most devoted sons were most earnest in communicating its sacred truths to all the faithful, by diffusing throughout the various nations of Christendom untainted and authentic versions of the Holy Scripture. This assertion must be proved not by theory but by facts. In producing these facts our task will be comparatively easy, on account of the many able and interesting essays which have already been published, in illustration of this subject.

At the very time that Luther and his followers were engaged in declaiming against Holy Church, and in withdrawing so many of her children from the hallowed fold, the words of a Prophet were first echoed on the shores of a new world; "quam pulchri pedes evangelizantium pacem, evangelizantium bona". The losses of the Church in Europe were more than counterbalanced by her gains among the new nations of America, whose fervour and faith formed a striking contrast to the frenzy and irreligion of the sophists of Germany. Now no sooner were these western children summoned to the bosom of the Church than versions of the Sacred Scripture were made for their use, in their yet uncouth and unpolished tongues, by the missionaries of the Cross. "Benedict Fernandez, a Dominican Friar (writes the Protestant Horne), being appointed Vicar of Mixteca, in New Spain, translated the Epistles and Gospels into the dialect spoken in that province. Didacus de S. Maria, another Dominican and Vicar of the province of Mexico (who died in 1579), was the author of a translation of the Epistles and Gospels into the Mexican tongue, or general language of the country. The Proverbs of Solomon and other fragments of the Holy Scriptures were translated into the same language by Louis Rodriguez, a Spanish Franciscan Friar; and the Epistles and Gospels appointed to be read for the whole year were translated into the idiom of the western Indians, by Arnold a Basaccio, also a Franciscan Friar" (_Introduction_, vol. ii. pag. 120). Besides these various Mexican versions, there were others which escaped the researches of Mr. Horne. Thus, for instance, within the past years was printed the "Evangeliarium, Epistolarium, et Lectionarium Aztecum", composed nearly three centuries and a half ago by a Spanish Franciscan named Bernardine Sahagyn. This zealous religious entered on his missionary career in Mexico about the year 1520, and for sixty years devoted himself to the spiritual culture of that new vineyard of God. He was not inattentive at the same time to the literature and ancient monuments of the Aztec race, and his name is well known to Mexican antiquarians for his researches regarding the language, history, and antiquities of the New World. Lord Kingsborough, in the seventh volume of his great work, published the _Historia Universal de las Cosas de Nueva Espana_, composed by our Franciscan about the year 1550, and his version of the Sacred Scripture, when first announced to the literary world, was thus described by M. Beltram: "J' ai une trouvaille a vous montrer, la plus interressante, je crois, de toutes celles que vous avez deja vues ... on y voit un beau reste de l'illustre philanthrope et moine Bernardino de Sahagun" (_Le Mexique_, vol. ii. pag. 167. Paris, 1830). Nevertheless, this version was destined to remain still thirty years a hidden treasure, and it was only in 1858 that its publication was commenced in Milan by the accomplished Mexican scholar Biondelli. From the introduction of the learned editor we learn that Bernardino's version comprised almost all the New Testament and a portion of the Old, and that its date was anterior to those commemorated by Mr. Horne, the manuscript from which the text was printed having been copied in the year 1530. (_See Evangeliarium, etc., ex antiquo codice Mexicano nuper invento depromptum._ Milan, 1858, 4to, page xlix. 576).