Part 3

The congé d’elire to the dean and chapter of the cathedral of St. Canice was issued on December 26th, and the mandate for his consecration was given on 31st December, the same year, (Morrin, i. 306). This prelate is described as a benefactor to his see, and he is especially commended for taking care “to have the antient charters of his church, which otherwise would have perished, transcribed and sealed with his seal” (Ware, pag. 418). Though summoned to Parliament as bishop of Ossory in the first year of Elizabeth, and receiving commissions from the crown even in Elizabeth’s reign (Morrin, i. 370, 412), the government found him inflexible in maintaining the Catholic faith, and consequently declared that his election from the beginning was void, and that his acts as bishop could not be valid, since the heretical Bishop Bale was still living.[15] In this, however, the government fathers of the Establishment only gave another proof of their inconsistency, for a few years before, they declared that the fact of the flight of Dr. Dowdall rendered vacant the see of Armagh, and they actually proceeded to the consecration of Goodacre for that see, though Dowdall was still living. There is one great advantage, however, which we derive from the hostile course pursued by the agents of Elizabeth in regard to Dr. Thonery; it supplies us with the clearest proof we could desire of his unflinching devotedness to the Church of his fathers; and when we find Sir W. Cecil, on the 4th July, 1565, conveying instructions to the lord deputy, that, “Her majesty understanding that the archbishoprick of Cashel and the bishoprick of Ossory have been long void, whereby hath grown lack to the ecclesiastical government there”, would wish to have the sees united, and one bishop appointed “who might serve as counsellor there” (Shirley, _Orig. Lett._, 207), we are more than justified in concluding that our Catholic bishop was faithful to his trust, and successfully guarded the flock entrusted to his care against all the inroads of heresy. He passed to the crown of his zeal and labours about the year 1567.

The next bishop was _Thomas Strange_ (or _Strong_), appointed in consistory of 28th March, 1582. The following is the consistorial entry:

“Die 28 Martii, 1582.

“Sua Sanctitas referente Card. Senonensi providit ecclesiae Ossorien. in Prov. Dubliniensi, a pluribus annis vacanti per obitum Joannis O’Thonery, in dicta dioecesi defuncti, per Thomam Strong, Presbyterum Waterfordiensem, Doctorem Theologiae, in curia praesentem”.

In the Vatican list of the Irish clergy in 1579, Dr. Strong is twice commemorated, first, under the heading of those who were pursuing their studies on the Continent we find him described as “Thomas Strongius, Parisiis, annorum 32”; and again, under the heading: “Qui sunt in Hibernia fideles operarii vel certe facile eo transmitti possunt”, we find him thus mentioned in the fourth place: “D. Thomas Strong, Waterfordiensis: hic tenet utramque linguam Anglicanam et Hibernicam sed melius Anglicam” (_Ex Archiv. Vatic._) Immediately after his consecration he set out for the theatre of his missionary labours; but it was only “in ruffling apparel with gilt rapier and dagger”,[16] that a bishop could then visit his flock, and so vigilant were the agents of Elizabeth in his pursuit, that he was soon compelled to seek refuge in Spain. It is thus the bishop of Killaloe writes on 29th October, 1584:

“Thomas Ossoriensis episcopus mansit in Hibernia aliquot mensibus in habitu saeculari, tandem contulit se ex Hibernia ad Hispaniam”.

We cannot say with certainty whether Dr. Strange was able at any time subsequently to return to his see. Whilst in Spain he devoted himself to the sacred ministry as assistant of the bishop of Compostella, and he died there (according to the new computation) on 20th January, 1602. The contemporary, Malachy Hartry, in his _Triumphalia Sanctae Crucis_, thus briefly sketches his career:

“Dum in hac sua patria degisset, Catholicae fidei causâ et ecclesiae permulta et gravissima a persecutoribus sustulit et in Hispaniam ire cogitur; Compostellae in Gallicia, demum anno Domini 1601. Januarii die 20ᵒ obiit atque in claustro Cathedralis Ecclesiae D. Jacobo consecratae, sub marmoreo lapide, uti vidi cum Strangorum stemmate inciso, terrae traditur”.

PETER FRANCIS XAVIER DE RAM.

The great question of the present day is the question of education. The Catholic Church, as the infallible teacher of men, claims for herself the right to control human thought, and exercises that right by sitting in judgment on each newfangled system as it appears. This claim is peremptorily rejected by the civil power, which, on its part, wishes to make of education a department of government. The science of the age sides on the whole with the civil power as against the Church. Towards the ecclesiastical authorities it assumes at times an air of pity, as towards men whose otherwise estimable qualities are warped by a religious bigotry which is eminently unscientific; at times it exhibits irritation and distrust; at times again it is in open and undisguised antagonism. In the face of a jealous government, to urge, and to urge successfully, the inalienable rights of the Church, requires no ordinary tact; in the face of the contempt, or distrust, or antagonism of the intellect of a country, to take every understanding captive unto Christ, demands no ordinary courage and ability. And yet this is what is meant by founding a Catholic University; and this has been achieved in the nineteenth century in Belgium, under God, through the instrumentality of one priest, Monsignor Peter Francis Xavier De Ram, the late Rector of the Catholic University of Louvain. A life such as his is a model which all may study with great profit. It is only with his spirit and through his principles that we may hope to obtain for Ireland what he obtained for Belgium――the full liberty of Catholic education.

De Ram’s great work, but not his only work, was the foundation of the Catholic University of Louvain. At the time when he was called by the bishops of Belgium to form and direct the new institution, he was diligently engaged in promoting the spread of good books, in illustrating the antiquities of his country, and especially in publishing the lives of the saints and other distinguished men who have shed glory on his native land. Almost in his infancy he imbibed a special predilection for the study of the lives of the saints from a holy aunt, a religious of the Premonstratensian Order, who lived in his father’s house, having been driven from her convent at the time of the first French Revolution. Even before he had completed his clerical studies, this taste made him publish, as author or editor, several works bearing on the lives of the saints, and before he was twenty-five years of age he undertook a new edition in the Flemish language of the great works on this subject by Alban Butler and Godescard. This taste he preserved through life, and to it when fully developed we are indebted for his other great works, the _Collections of Belgian Synods_, the _Synodicum Belgicum_, the _Synodicum Antverpiense_, and _Ecclesiastical History of Belgium_, _Belgica Sacra_, of which he published the plan in 1830, for which since then he has been collecting most abundant materials, but which, alas! he has not lived to finish.

Later on, we find him labouring strenuously and successfully to obtain for the Jesuit Fathers a state subsidy to enable them to continue the stupendous undertaking of the old Bollandists, the _Acta Sanctorum_. Thanks in great measure to this help, the noble work is now making progress to the great glory of God, to the advantage of religion, and the honour of Belgium. And among the first eulogists of the departed prelate, we have the great Jesuit Father de Buck, the head of the present Bollandists in Brussels, to whose notice on Mgr. de Ram we are indebted for much that appears in this sketch.

In fine, this same taste for historical research, especially in the history of his native land, made him take a most distinguished place in the Royal Academy of Belgium, of which he was for thirty-one years one of the chief members, and especially in the Royal Commission of History, founded precisely for the promotion of the study of the national annals. Indefatigable in his labours, never-failing in his attendance at the meetings of the Commission, bringing to them the rich treasures of his learning, joined to the affability and conciliatory tone which always characterised him, we are told by one who knew him there, that never during that long period was there between him and his associates in that great work the least shadow of a difference. True to the end to his work for religion and his country, one of his last public acts, two days before his death, was to assist at a meeting of the Academy; and he leaves unfinished three works undertaken in the same holy cause: the Chartulary of the Abbey of Cambron, the preparation of materials for a general and diplomatic history of the University of Louvain, and the collection and arrangement of the short Flemish chronicles scattered in manuscript through the Belgian libraries, with a view to their forming a compendium to the great chronicle of De Dynter.

But it is not with De Ram’s historical labours, great as they were, that we are chiefly interested. His great work for us has been the Catholic University of Louvain. That university was proposed by his Holiness Pope Pius IX. as the model which our bishops were to have in view in founding the Catholic University of Ireland. Over it De Ram presided for more than thirty years, in fact since its foundation; the difficulties, seemingly insuperable, with which he had to contend, were almost identical with those that press our Irish institution; the means for overcoming these difficulties in the two countries were very similar, and we may hope that the Catholic University of Belgium is but the harbinger of the success of the Catholic University of Ireland.

The University of Louvain was called into existence to meet a condition of things, the parallel of which existed in Ireland in 1850, and to cope with dangers similar to those which, at that period, impended over the Catholics of this empire. In its working it has wedded together interests which the sophistry of the day makes it fashionable to represent as antagonistic. It is eminently national, eminently scientific, eminently Catholic. It cultivates literature with a zeal which does not interfere with its devotion to theology and other sacred studies, and pursues even the highest investigations of science in such a way as to prove that nowhere can freedom of scientific research find a more congenial home than in a Catholic university. These sentiments were eloquently expressed by one of the students of the university. M. Van Tomme, as he stood by the bier of Mgr. De Ram, spoke as follows, in the name of his fellow students who stood around him:

“The great work founded by the Belgian episcopacy has grown under the shadow of our political and religious independence, and, as our rector himself expressed it, ‘The university is not only a Catholic institution, but also a national institution’. Guided by this noble motto, he directed for thirty-one years the Catholic University, strengthening each day in our hearts the love of religion and of liberty, that two-fold foundation on which rests the glory of our past history, and which guarantees the future of our country. The care of our souls, the cultivation of our minds, these were the objects most dear to his heart as a priest; his love for us made him find in us his reward, his joy, his blessing. How can I express his fatherly tenderness, his boundless devotedness to our interests, his delicate management of our national spirit of independence? These were the principles with which he ruled over this laborious and difficult work…. You know the blessed fruits produced in the education of our country by these gifts of mind and heart. Educational liberty, rescued bleeding from stranger hands, first took refuge in the bosom of our University, where Mgr. De Ram stretched out his arms to welcome it, and from that day forward watched over it with zealous care. Our University, the heiress of a glorious name, the offspring of liberty and of faith, under Mgr. De Ram’s presidency, has nobly bound up together the past and the present. Those great works urged on with such ardour, the serried phalanx of youths who have gone forth from this Institution, the eminent men whom this University has given to our country and to the Church, all proclaim, that his devoted labours have not been vain, and point out to us unmistakeably the greatness of the loss sustained on this day by Catholic youth”.

But we are anticipating the course of events, and we must take up from the commencement the history of this great man’s connection with Louvain. We must even go back a little; for, as Father de Buck remarks, it is only thus we can correct some erroneous ideas, which have been freely circulated, and form some notion of the enormous difficulties which surrounded the foundation of the Catholic University of Belgium. Some of these erroneous ideas were thus expressed by Sir Robert Kane, President of the Queen’s College, Cork, in his inaugural address at the opening of that establishment, on the 7th November, 1849:――

“After the revolution, which rendered Belgium an independent kingdom, the question of university education occupied the attention of its government as one of the greatest moment. The heads of the Belgian Church were fully consulted, and they surely deserved to be, from their right to coöperate in every measure of public welfare. The result has been the institution of three great colleges: one at Louvain, formed in the buildings of the old university, and hence popularly called by the name of the ‘University of Louvain’; the second college situated at Liege; and the third in Ghent. Students follow their studies in any of these colleges, but they do not there get their degrees. What course did the Belgian authorities take, when, after the Revolution, they had in their own hands the power of giving to all those colleges a code of securities for faith and morals which might have served us here as a model? They demanded to have Louvain absolutely and exclusively under their own control, and consented to leave the colleges of Liege and Ghent in the hands of government absolutely, without any provision for moral discipline or religious instruction. What is the practical result? The College of Louvain contains only the university faculties, conducted on medieval models, and educating after the forms of old established universities. The Colleges of Ghent and Liege contain the practical branches, to which the majority of the young men attach themselves. The schools of mines and engineering are at Liege. The schools of mechanics and of practical chemistry are at Ghent. There are great schools of medicine at both colleges. Hence the practical education is conducted at those colleges where there is no religion and no discipline. In Belgium there are three colleges, one with ultra-ecclesiastical discipline, attended generally by Catholic foreigners, whom the traditional fame of the medieval university brings to Louvain. The other two are colleges without religion, to which the majority of Belgian students are drawn for practical education” (_Inaugural Address_, pages 23, 24).

In the course of the notice we shall see how many misstatements or mistakes are contained in these few sentences. In this place suffice it to say, that in the year 1864 alone, 325 students of the Catholic University of Louvain took secular Degrees, viz., 117 in Law, 125 in Medicine, 42 in Philosophy and Letters, and 41 in science; and since 1836, the large number of 6,881 took Degrees in those Faculties, viz., 2,028 in Law, the same number in Medicine, 1,838 in Philosophy and Letters, and 987 in Science. We have taken these figures from the official publication, _l’Annuaire_, or University Calendar, for 1865, and from it we also learn, that of 768 students, the total number in the university in the Session 1863-64, only 121 were Students of Theology. There were in the Faculty of Law 204, in that of Medicine 230, in that of Philosophy and Letters 102, and in that of Science 111.

The true history of the circumstances, which preceded and accompanied the foundation of the Catholic University of Louvain, may be briefly told, as follows:――

By the treaty of Vienna in 1815, the Catholic and Protestant Netherlands, Belgium and Holland, were united under one king, William I. of the House of Orange. Immediately on his accession this monarch proposed for the acceptance of his whole kingdom a constitution which had been originally intended for Protestant Holland only. This constitution was condemned as anti-Catholic by the ordinaries of all the dioceses of Belgium. It was also rejected by the nobles or other chief men of the state. But it is worthy of remark, that, notwithstanding its condemnation by the bishops, only 126 voters out of 1325 alleged the attacks on the Church as the motive of their rejection of the constitution; and although 766 opposed it, 527 were found to support this most obnoxious portion of it. From this fact we see the great strength of uncatholic opinion in Belgium fifty years ago, since in so large a number of the chief men of the nation, so few were found to follow the teachings of their bishops.

The ten years which followed were spent by the king, William I., in endeavouring to undermine and still more weaken the Catholic and national feeling in Belgium――to mould that country and Holland into one nationality, which would be animated by one spirit, and that spirit Dutch, and consequently Protestant. For this purpose Dutch was made the official language for all administrative purposes and in all the courts of law and other legal transactions. The immediate result of this measure was to throw the education of the greater part of the Belgian youth into the hands of Dutchmen, and Dutchmen were also placed in every post of honour and emolument throughout the kingdom.

At length, on the 14th of June, 1825, two royal decrees were published, by which it was sought to transfer to the hands of the Protestant Government of Holland the education of the whole of the youth of all classes in Catholic Belgium. The chief provisions of the first of these decrees were as follow:

“Whereas many schools and institutions for the teaching of the Latin and Greek languages; and for the training of youth for the ecclesiastical state, as well as for other professions, have been established without our consent; and whereas Article 226 of the Fundamental Law[17] has given us the charge of public instruction … desiring at the same time to facilitate and favour every arrangement by which young men may be fitted to become well educated ecclesiastics for the Roman Catholic Church,… we have decreed and do hereby decree….

“Art. 2. No Latin school, college, or athenaeum, shall be established without the express authorisation of the Department of the Interior.

“Art. 3. No one shall teach the Latin and Greek languages _to the children of more than one family at once_, either in primary schools or in private houses, without having first obtained in one of the universities of the kingdom the degree of _candidat_ or of _Docteur en Lettres_.

“Art. 4. All colleges, athenaeums, or Latin schools, are placed under the control of the Department of the Interior.

“All colleges, athenaeums, or Latin schools, named in Art. 1, which at the date of this decree have not been approved as such by former decrees, _shall be closed at the end of the month of September_, 1825, unless sanctioned before that time”.

By the second royal decree a “Philosophical College” was established in Louvain for aspirants to the priesthood.

“Whereas some of the heads of the clergy have represented to us that the preparatory education given to young men intended for the ecclesiastical state is insufficient, and whereas we are desirous of providing means to form able ecclesiastics for the Roman Catholic Church.

“Art. 1. An establishment for the preparatory education of young Roman Catholics aspiring to the ecclesiastical state, shall be provisorily erected at one of the universities in the northern provinces of the kingdom. This establishment, under the title of ‘Philosophical College’, shall be installed in a suitable building…. The students shall be received therein, with permission to wear the ecclesiastical habit.

“Art. 14, After the space of two years, to be counted from the opening of the ‘Philosophical College’, no philosophical lectures shall be given in the episcopal seminaries…. After the same time no student shall be admitted into the seminaries who shall not have duly completed his course of studies in the ‘Philosophical College’. Each student of the same college must spend therein two years at least”.

Thus did the Protestant King of the Netherlands think he had secured the undisputed control of the education, ecclesiastical and lay, of his Belgian subjects; but a very short time sufficed to convince him of his mistake. In vain was the short delay of two years allowed by these decrees of June 14th, refused by a subsequent enactment of the 11th July, which strictly forbade any student to be received from that day forward into any episcopal seminary in Belgium, unless he had completed his preparatory studies in the Philosophical College. In vain, by another decree of the 14th of August following, the youth of Belgium were forbidden to seek abroad the free Catholic education denied to them at home, and unless educated in one of the state institutions, declared incapable of holding any public office in the gift of the government, or exercising any ecclesiastical function within the kingdom. In vain, by a decree of the 20th November, were the superiors of the diocesan seminaries ordered to dismiss forthwith all youths received since the previous 11th of July; and the young men themselves also commanded to withdraw. On the other hand, in vain was all the influence of the government used to induce the bishops to approve, or at least tolerate, the new system. In vain was it sought to convince the Common Father of the Faithful that the Philosophical College was unexceptionable, by sending to His Holiness’ own seminary in Rome some youths of exemplary life, who might, by their good conduct, belie the condemnation pronounced against the institution where they had made their early studies. The episcopacy of Belgium continued firm in its opposition, and the Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Leo XII., directed his internuncio at the Hague to explain that it was impossible for the head of the Catholic Church to assent to measures destructive to the liberties of Catholics, or even to abstain from condemning them and protesting against them. The Belgian youths would not go to the Philosophical College; the few who went would not be admitted to Holy Orders by the bishops; and four years passed slowly along in passive opposition to the inroads of the government on Catholic education.