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Father William Barry: Priest and Novelist

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Sheridan Gilley
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Extract

For some Roman Catholic clergymen, the nineteenth century was an exciting age. On its very eve, Cardinal Ruffo led a pious bandit band in a crusade of slaughter through the southern Italian Parthenopean republic. In 1810, another priest, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, under the banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe, began the revolution in Mexico. Luigi Menichini led the 1830 insurrection in Naples. Father Piotr Sćiegienny’s revolutionary activities in Poland earned him a quarter of a century’s exile in Siberia. Father Patrick Lavelle founded an Irish society which was a front for the revolutionary Fenians. The secular or ecclesiastical politician has a job to do, and in some places, the priesthood was forced into political roles, as in nineteenth-century Italy, Mexico, Poland and Ireland. But in spite of the international conflict between Catholicism and anticlericalism in Europe and South America, the ordinary Catholic priest was not primarily a political animal. Unless he served in the Curia or was a martyr-missionary in the South Seas or Central Africa, the priest’s life was the old hidden life of caring for the souls of the people of his parish and of preaching the gospel and administering the sacraments. Amid the tumult of the nations, this inner work continued on its quiet path, and in riches and poverty, and beside the allurements and excitements and man-made manipulations of secular and ecclesiastical politics, the priesthood was concerned with the essential tasks of the comfort of the stricken and the salvation of sinners, laid upon them by their Lord and Master.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , October 1999 , pp. 523 - 551
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1973

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References

Notes

This paper is a much revised and expanded version of the Wiseman Lecture given at Oscott College to commemorate the 150th anniversary of New Oscott in 1988. See Judith F. Champ, Oscott (Birmingham, 1987) and Judith F. Champ (ed.), Oscott College 1838–1988: A volume of commemorative essays (Oscott, 1988).

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43 Ibidem, pp. 224–225.

44 Ibidem, p. 225.

45 Ibidem, p. 235.

46 Ibidem, p. 223.

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51 Barry to Glancey, 9 February 1885, B.8769, BDA.

52 Ullathorne to Edward Ilsley, 10 October 1885, B.8999, BDA.

53 Barry to Bishop Edward Ilsley, 10 May 1886, B.9179, BDA.

54 Davey to Barry (copy), 16 March 1893, B.11149.b, NBDA; Davey to Bishop Ilsley, 10 July 1894, B.l 1149a, BDA.

55 Barry to Bishop Ilsley, 20 September 1898, B.l2243, BDA.

56 Ibidem, 1 October 1898, B.l2256, BDA.

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63 Ibidem.

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81 Barry, William, The Papal Monarchy from St. Gregory the Great to Boniface VIII 590–1303 (London, 1902)Google Scholar. He followed this up with The Papacy and Modern Times: A Political Sketch 1303–1870 (London, 1911).

82 See below, notes 89, 85 and 93.

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85 Ernest Renan (London, 1905).

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87 Renan, pp. 43, 114, 125, 136.

88 Barry to Glancey, 8 March 1891, B. 10476, BDA.

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90 Barry to Wilfrid Ward, 9 March 1896, Wilfrid Ward Papers, University of St. Andrews, henceforth cited as WWP.

91 Barry to Wilfrid Ward, 9 May 1897, WWP.

92 Barry to Ward, 23 November 1903, WWP.

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95 Barry to Ward, 8 May 1906, WWP.

96 Barry to Ward, 12 November 1907, WWP.

97 Barry to Ward, 3 January 1908, WWP.

98 Barry to Ward, 31 January 1912, WWP.

99 Barry to Ward, 22 April 1915, WWP.

100 New Tractsfor the Times (London, 1912).

101 Memories, p. 257.

102 The World, p. 19.

103 Ibidem, p. 102.

104 Ibidem, pp. 46–47.

105 Ibidem, p. 7.

106 Ibidem, p. 247.

107 Ibidem, p. 326.

108 Ibidem, pp. 331–2.

109 Barry, William, ‘The Turks, Cardinal Newman, and the Council of Ten… Reprinted from The Nineteenth Century and After’ (London, 1919)Google Scholar.

110 ‘Monsignor Barry’s Golden Jubilee: Reply to Address and Testimonial’, 1 July 1923, BDA; also Memories, p. 298

111 Memories, p. 289.

112 Barry, William, Roma Sacra: Essays on Christian Rome (London, 1927)Google Scholar.

113 (London, 1928).

114 (London, 1929).

115 Ibidem, p.155.

116 Obituary, Birmingham Catholic Directory, 1932, p. 162.

117 Lewis, C. S., ‘De Descriptione Temporum’ in They asked for a paper: papers and addresses (London, 1962), pp. 22–24.Google Scholar