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| St John the Evangelist by Paolo Veronese (sacristy of San Sebastiano, Venice - one of four ceiling depictions of the Evangelists); shown here in memory of His Grace, the Most Rev. John McIntyre D.D. (d. 1935) second Archbishop of Birmingham (as featured in the post below) whose commentary on the Gospel of St John is a forgotten true treasure of the early C20th English and Welsh Catholic Church |
Continuing our series of excerpts from the Catholic Who's Who & Year Book 1915; specifically to finalise our two-part reproduction of the retrospective entry for the month of January 1914 in the section of the publication entitled "The Catholic Year".
We hope to complete reproduction of the entries for the remaining months of 1914 prior to the end of 2015.
As per previous posts in this series, we have sought to offer – via links and other references – as much background information to the transcribed entries (provided verbatim) as we can.
This has been especially so – and most satisfyingly, too – in this instalment regarding the joyful research of the memory of His Grace, Most Rev. John McIntyre D.D., (1855-1935), the second Archbishop of Birmingham (1921-28) who the reader will soon recognise as a true giant of the Church in England and Wales in the early 20th century and the very late years of the 19th.
Alas we were unable to locate an image for His Grace (we would be grateful if any of our readers – we've gained a fair few! – could point us in the direction of one). However, as shown, we have very aptly illustrated this post with an artistic depiction of St John the Evangelist, for among Dr McIntyre's canon of superior writings, his magnum opus was surely his Commentary on the Gospel of St John (which we link to below).
As to why we are reproducing these entries: see here
Without further delay, then, we start the short but magnificently rich remainder of the Year Book entry recounting January 1914 (the first entry for that month can be found here):
{styled as per the original; however any images, [bracketed Christian name insertions], cross-reference annotations [*], [1], and subject breaks [–], and obviously links, have been inserted by ourselves}
(Pp 516-517: JANUARY 1914)
The Catholics of Birmingham at their annual Re-union [sic], bid farewell to Bishop [John] McIntyre on his departure for Rome to take up the headship of the English College. No one (declares Bishop McIntyre, in a presidential address on “Public Spirit”, published in pamphlet form by Messrs Burns & Oates), could fail to notice the great upheaval of public feeling in recent times against the manifold miseries which afflict mankind. If a man labours for others, there are two great publics summoning him to action, one, the commonwealth, standing for man’s temporal well-being, the other, the Church, for his spiritual. The one tries to make the world perfect for man, the other to make man perfect for heaven. When the commonwealth and Church work together in well-balanced harmony, he who works for the well-fare of his fellow citizens is at the same time building up locally the Kingdom of God. Defining the man of public spirit as he who understands and is grateful for the benefits brought to him through the generosity of his contemporaries and predecessors of times past, the Bishop describes as a moral vagabond and the antithesis of the social spirit the man who can go on devouring the benefits accruing to him from the hands of others with no thought of return, and who feels no shame in being shut up in the narrow circle of his own private interests and self-centred prayers. [1]
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Cardinal [Michael] Logue [1840-1924; Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland - 1887-1924], present at the opening of the new church of St Sebastian, Fairfield, Liverpool, and himself opens the Lourdes Memorial Schools at Rock Ferry. [2]
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| His Eminence Cardinal Michael Logue, late Archbishop of Armagh and still the longest-serving Primate of All Ireland having reigned from 1877-1924 |
The Archbishop of Liverpool [His Grace, Most Rev. Thomas Whiteside - 1911-21] lays the foundation-stone of a new church at West Derby, Liverpool [3]; in Salford diocese, a new church is opened at Urmston, near Manchester [4]. The Bishop of Shrewsbury [His Lordship, Rt Rev. Hugh Singleton - 1908-34] opens a church at Wilmslow, Cheshire [5], and Bishop Butt [The Rt Rev. Joseph Butt, Auxiliary in Westminster) [6] at Stevenage, Herts. [7]
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| His Grace, Most Rev. Thomas Whiteside, the first Archbishop of Liverpool (1911-21) |
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[1] Due to the inexact punctuation in the Year Book of 1915, it’s hard to know which elements are verbatim from the inspiring speech of Bishop John McIntyre D.D. to the “Catholics of Birmingham at their annual Re-union” (a curious phrase). It could be fairly assumed that His Lordship was, if not exactly speaking ad-lib (but rather wonderful if that were that the case, given the depth and solidity of his teaching), perhaps addressing the assembly (we know not where or how large) using probably only hand-written prompts or similar personal notes (no press releases or photo-copied handouts then!). It is likely that the Year Book compilers put His Lordship’s words into reported speech because they were either recorded short-hand by a contributor who was in attendance, or because they were relayed second-hand. However, given the important nuances of His Lordship’s teaching, it would be unlikely that the editing team went to press without first consulting him over the content (we know that the publication deadline was at least as late as November 26th, 1914, which would have given the production team some 10 months to seek his approval). It’s more than reasonable, then, to conclude that the Year Book reproduced a faithful account of a passing, yet nevertheless first-class, address from His Lordship, who, it goes without saying, was an intellectual of the first order having originally been Vice Rector of the St Mary’s College (Oscott) seminary from 1898-1912 prior to his academic talents taking him to the highest position at the English College, Rome.
It has been claimed by several sources online that the first Archbishop of Birmingham, Most Rev. Edward Ilsley (1911-21), had appealed against Bishop McIntyre’s Roman appointment (correspondence confirming such is said to rest in the Birmingham Archdiocesan Archives). This would appear to be backed-up by a quite touching report in The Tablet (July 6th, 1918) which records His Grace’s words on the return to Birmingham of Dr McIntyre – now as a member of the Roman Curia and the Titular Archbishop of Oxyrynchus – who was to give service to his home territory as an Auxiliary Archbishop and would eventually succeed his principal consecrator as the second Archbishop of Birmingham just three years later. Reported the Tablet in July, 1918:
A large and representative company was present in St. Chad's Parochial Hall, Birmingham, on Wednesday in last week, to commemorate the return to the diocese of the Right Rev. John McIntyre, Auxiliary Archbishop. The Archbishop of Birmingham presided, and among those present were Canon Villiers, Mgr. Cronin, Canon Wheatley, Mr. Martin Melvin, K.C.S.G., and many others.
The Archbishop, in opening the proceedings, said that Archbishop McIntyre's return was an event that had given joy to them all. ‘When he was removed from my side,’ said His Grace, ‘I felt that my right hand was cut off; but we had to obey the command of authority, and for three years we had to try and get on without him. But you can imagine what my delight was when it was intimated to me that he should be restored to us. I welcomed him with all my heart because we had lived and worked together for so many years—thirty years it is now since we began—and with the exception of the three years that he was in Rome, we were as one, and the work of God prospered in the diocese. Things have taken their course. He left us, and is back with us, more active than ever. He has gathered experience in Rome which is most valuable to us now, and I join myself heartily with you in the welcome which you are offering him.’
Still recorded simply as Bishop McIntyre, his entry in the Catholic Who’s Who & Year Book 1915 reads:
• McIntyre, Rt Rev. John D.D. – b.1855; scholar of the English Coll., Rome; ordained 1880; Dioc. Sec. 1888; Canon Theologian of Birmingham 1900: Prof at Oscott 1888-1912; Auxiliary to the Archbishop of Birmingham 1912-14; cons. tit. Bishop of Lamus 1912; Rector of the English Coll. and Beda Coll., Rome since 1914; a consultor of the Consistorial Cong. since 1914. Author of A Commentary on the Gospel of St John: English Coll., Rome
It is that last detail which is among His Grace’s most enduring legacies. For as mentioned above, his commentary on St John’s Gospel has been a loved resource and treasure of Catholic teaching for over a century. Of various citations on the Internet we offer – and, of course, recommend heartily – the following which is but a mere taste of the thought-provoking depth of His Grace's study of St John, as written in his earlier priesthood:
John 11:35 "And Jesus wept."
And Jesus wept (see on verse 31). Thus He teaches us the lawfulness of moderate sorrow for the loss of friends and the charity of weeping with those that mourn (see verse 42). I think something else is intended here. Recall from an earlier comment (verse 31) that the word used for wept here is different from that used in verses 31 & 33. Jesus is not weeping at the death of Lazarus but out of frustration at those who continue not to believe. Recall that he deliberately delayed coming to Lazarus earlier because he loved him and his sisters (Jn 11:4-6). It is against the background of this delay (also emphasised in Jn 11:21, 32; and implicitly in Jn 11:37, 39) that the weeping of Jesus should be seen. The words of the Jews in the following verse, “behold how he loved him,” and the response of some of them to this in verse 37 shows their ignorance of the motivations and the power of Jesus.
Readable excerpts of most of Fr McIntyre's study of the first 14 verses of St John's Gospel are also available here.
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| Opening excerpt from The Holy Gospel According to John, by John McIntyre D.D. (1899 - Catholic Truth Society, London) |
As his obituary in The Tablet would certainly testify to (here) the Church in these Isles was certainly blessed to have boasted a prelate of the calibre of Dr McIntyre who just a century ago was about to embark on the prime years of the plenitude of his Catholic priesthood. How we could benefit from a shepherd of his zeal, fortitude and consistency today.
Please pray for his soul.
Requiescat in pace.
[2] It is informative, yet hardly surprising given the distinctly Irish-Catholic heritage of the Archdiocese of Liverpool in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that an Irish cardinal should be on hand at the opening of a church here. A sign-of-our-modern-times, however, is that 100 years later St Sebastian – like the majority of parishes in the Archdiocese of Liverpool – is “clustered” with another parish (that of St Oswald, in what is known as “Pastoral Area 5” - the notion of “Deaneries” having been formally dispensed with several years ago in the archdiocese). Just one Sunday Mass and two weekly Masses are all that is deemed necessary for the dwindling parish faithful. There have been two schools of local thought as to why this crisis has hit the archdiocese. The first, which has, of course, prevailed across most of the north western Catholic world for the last several decades since Vatican II, has been that we should still await “the fruits” of the Council – and presumably at some future date a new springtime will bloom. Although that still-fruitless line has not been officially dispensed with, it has been replaced by very different advice in recent years. It is now claimed that the population of the Archdiocese of Liverpool, specifically, was over-inflated or artificially-inflated (and other similarly dubious terms) by the massive (undoubtedly) influx of Irish-Catholics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, for whom scores and scores of churches were built (usually funded by parishioners themselves, who could barely spare the coins). It is suggested that this unprecedented programme of church building was purely a practically expedient response at the time, in order to meet an artificial reality, and this can be seen in its historical context now that, apparently, so many of the descendants of those Irish Catholics have since left the city...presumably taking the Faith with them to pastures new. Like the over-inflation of the stock market needing to undergo a later correction, it is now postulated that we are once again beginning to see the true picture and shape of the Archdiocese of Liverpool but we are necessarily swamped with a surfeit of now redundant church buildings whose practical purpose has long since passed. We await a third different version of historical events perhaps a decade from now. In the meantime we are left to wonder why the faithful of a century (or so) ago bothered to use bricks and mortar and didn't simply erect a series of huge wooden sheds to cater for what was obviously just an anomalous and passing spike of enthusiasm for the Faith.
[3] The church of St Paul in the original village of West Derby. It is something of an irony that less than 100 years after its groundbreaking, and that of the opening of St Sebastian (see [3] above) that this parish has also had to be "clustered" with another – and so sharing its parish priest – within the same "Pastoral Area 5" (as above). We intend, at some point, to offer a different version of events as to why the Faith in the Archdiocese of Liverpool has clearly not transmitted down the generations. "Over-inflation" simply does not come into it. Christ's Church cannot ever be "over-inflated". The notion that so many parishes have either closed or been "clustered" with others simply because too many churches were built in too short a time to provide a temporary function is nonsense. It is a mindset riddled with the bent of naturalism and with more than a whiff of utilitarianism. Further, there are no "fruits" from Vatican II for us to await. For the post-conciliar innovations employed across this archdiocese merely compounded and accelerated a worldly process that was already underway prior to the Council, both here and across most of the north-western global Catholic world. Instead of stemming the rot, the progressives in this archdiocese (as elsewhere) simply ensured that its corrosive effects spread even further. The current attempts to address the rot, by introducing even more innovative and short-term solutions, are somewhat akin to a builder re-plastering the top storey of a tower block (*) in order to stem the systemic malaise coursing through the edifice below.
(*) Another failed symbol of the 1960s - many of which appeared all too giddily above Liverpool's skyline, only to be demolished within three decades as unfit for purpose.
[4] Almost certainly English Martyrs.
[5] We believe this to be Sacred Heart and St Teresa.
[6] His Lordship, Bishop Joseph Butt, hailed from the famous Catholic family of the same name. Indeed he was ordained at Arundel in 1897 by his uncle, Rt Rev. Bishop John Baptist Butt, of Southwark, who was the founder in 1889 of St John's Seminary, Wonersh. The first rector that the older Bishop Budd employed at Wonersh was one Fr Francis Bourne, who not only went on to succeed Bishop John Budd as the fifth Bishop of Southwark (the diocese was elevated to an archdiocese only in 1965) but later became the fourth Archbishop of Westminster and was elevated to the cardinalate in November 1911. It was at Westminster, in January 1911, that the still Archbishop Bourne acted as principal consecrator of Bishop Joseph Butt as he became Auxiliary for the archdiocese. The Tablet has a fascinating report of the event and the close family ties and connections.
[7] We assume this to be the church of The Transfiguration of Our Lord, which we note, with no little interest, was a very early example of the modernist-creep appearing in the circles of early C20th ecclesiastical architecture. Hardly modern by today's standards, of course, the church clearly represented a shift – especially given a blueprint that pre-dated World War I – from earlier styles. Against that, it has to be conceded that funds for the building of a new church at Stevenage at that time (to replace a shed - quite literally, and with some irony given our pointed comment [2] above) were quite limited. What makes the story of the Stevenage church even more intriguing is that its foundation stone was laid by that true champion of Tradition, Fr Adrian Fortescue, whom, it seems, was fully aware of the newer style that the building was to be designed to.
