THE IRISH

ECCLESIASTICAL RECORD.

MARCH, 1885.

FOR

THE LATE CARDINAL MACCABE.

OR the first time since the publication of the present series of the IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL RECORD, our title-page bears another Imprimatur than that of Edward Cardinal MacCabe. The cause of this change we record with profound sorrow. On the evening of the 10th of February his Eminence was taken suddenly ill and died within a few hours.

The announcement in the newspapers of the following morning that Cardinal MacCabe was dead was a great shock to the whole country, especially in places distant from Dublin to which no intelligence of his sickness had penetrated. It was, indeed, generally known, that the Cardinal was not strong, that the two recent prolonged and severe attacks of illness from which he had so narrowly escaped with his life had considerably undermined his naturally robust health, but yet there was no indication that his end was so near. On the 1st of February he was strong enough to preach a Charity Sermon in his Cathedral, and on the Saturday before his death he presided at the Requiem Office and Mass for his friend, Lord O'Hagan. In fact, up to the moment when the blow came, the Cardinal was at his ordinary work, but once struck down it was plain to the physicians who were called to attend

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him that the hours on earth for their illustrious patient were now very few. The last Sacraments were administered without delay, and early on the morning of the 11th of February Cardinal MacCabe died, surrounded by his priests and in the midst of the people of Kingstown for whom he had worked so long as Parish Priest, and by whom he was held in such deep affectionate reverence.

The outburst of sorrow on the part of the people of Kingstown, when the sad news was made known, was such as could be witnessed only in Ireland where the people cling so fondly to their devoted priest. In particular the procession on the evening of the removal of the remains of the Cardinal from Kingstown to the Cathedral was an extraordinary testimony to departed worth.

And the capital was not behind Kingstown in the practical expression of its grief. For the three or four days during which the corpse lay in the Cathedral, there continued to flow to the church a stream of people from early morning till night to do reverence to their deceased Chief Pastor, to whom in life they were wont to look up as the model of his flock. So great, indeed, was the anxiety of the people, especially of the poorer classes, to kneel and pray by the coffin of the Cardinal, that at no time while he lay there could it be reached without working one's way through dense crowds. And this splendid manifestation of sorrow and affection was not more than Cardinal MacCabe deserved from the poor. They were the most cherished portion of his flock, when ministering either as Curate, Parish Priest, Bishop, or Cardinal; and we have been told what is thoroughly characteristic of him, that he made it a condition in his last will that he should not be separated from the poor, even in death. His interment in Glasnevin, rather than in his Cathedral Church, was at first a matter of surprise to us as to many others, until we

heard the explanation, that the Cardinal requested his executors to bury him in the open cemetery among his people, and as far as possible to select for him a spot where he would be surrounded by the graves of the poor.

And to understand how not only Dublin but the whole Irish Church mourned over Cardinal MacCabe, one should be in the Cathedral at Marlborough-street on the occasion of his obsequies, and on the line of the funeral procession. Rarely was there assembled in Ireland a larger or more representative gathering of Archbishops, Bishops, and Priests regular and secular of every grade from the four Provinces, to show their respect to a great Prelate and to supplicate God's mercy on his soul.

But we are not writing in any sense a sketch of the life or death of our revered Cardinal. This is not the place for it. Our sole purpose is to avail ourselves of the first opportunity since his death to express our own deep sorrow for the loss of one who did all that his exalted station enabled him to do for the success of the IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL RECORD. When first told, now

more than five years ago, of the project of reviving the RECORD, Cardinal MacCabe warmly encouraged those who entertained it; it was in concert with him that the general character and management of the journal were arranged; he it was who appointed its Editors, and to them, whenever they sought his advice, the Cardinal was readily accessible, with never a sign that they might be trespassing on the valuable time of one who was occupied with concerns of vast and far-reaching importance. For his condescending, gracious, and unwearied kindness, and the practical interest which his Eminence took in our work, we shall always hold him in grateful remembrance, and we earnestly join with his bereaved people of the Archdiocese of Dublin, and with the whole Irish Church, in praying for eternal peace and rest to his soul. THE EDITOR.

CAN A PRIEST SAY MASS PRIVATELY FOR A DECEASED PROTESTANT?

THIS question was lately asked me by a learned foreign ecclesiastic who thought that my answer might probably reflect the prevalent opinion of priests in these countries, where, from the number of converts to Catholicity, the question is likely to be more familiar and practical than elsewhere. He said, at the same time, that he had himself resolved it in the affirmative, as also had the Professor of Moral Theology in his Catholic University.

I gave him my own opinion in the same affirmative sense, together with the grounds on which it is based; these, in a more extended form, I now venture to send to the RECORD, with the hope that the question may be of interest to its readers, and that additional light may be shed thereon by others in its pages.

The question is often very practical in England, where the priest is perhaps himself a convert, or a member of a non-Catholic family; and where priests not unfrequently may be asked by converts to say Mass for their deceased Protestant relatives and friends.

Before stating my reasons for the affirmative answer which I give to the question proposed, it is well to come. first to a clear understanding as to its terms.

6.

1°. By Mass said for a deceased Protestant," I suppose that the Sacrifice is offered up with the same direct intention for his soul in particular, as it would be for the soul of a deceased Catholic. Even in this latter case, subjectively the priest may have varying degrees of doubt as to the actual application of the Sacrifice by Almighty God; but such doubt, however strong, would neither, I conceive, render such an intention unlawful, nor would it change the direct nature of that intention.

I make this remark on the directness of the intention, because theologians in treating of the excommunicate who are still living, distinguish between a direct and an indirect offering of Mass in their behalf: but I cannot see how if Mass is to be said at all for a deceased Protestant in any true sense, it can be offered up otherwise than directe et in particulari for the repose of his soul.

2°. By Mass said for a deceased Protestant," I understand not merely the application by the priest (in quantum potest) of what he does in Mass proprio nomine, i.e. so far as the offering up of the Sacrifice is a private and personal good work of his own, and not merely his own prayers and Memento; but the application of what he does nomine Christi, viz., the essence of the Sacrifice

properly speaking, and, so far as it may be available, for the repose of the departed soul. For a priest to offer up only what he does proprio nomine, to the exclusion of what he does nomine Christi, in another's behalf, would not be to say Mass for him at all, according to the proper and received sense of the words: nor could a priest licitly accept a honorarium for Mass from the person in such case, since he would not thereby fulfil the implied contract; whereas by offering up the essence of the Sacrifice, that is, what he does nomine Christi, in behalf of the person for whom he has engaged to say Mass, the priest fulfils his contract; and he is no way bound to apply also for that person what he does nomine proprio; this being private and personal he may keep for himself, or apply (so far as it is alienable) for what other intention he pleases.

I reserve for consideration later on the application of what the priest does as the representative of the Church nomine Ecclesiae.

3. I suppose, moreover, that the priest may receive a honorarium for the Mass said for such deceased Protestant.

4. By "the Mass being said privately," or secretly, I understand that it is not published, that others do not know the particular intention for which it is offered: so that no scandal could thence arise.

5. The soul of the deceased Protestant is ex hypothesi presumed to be in Purgatory; otherwise the whole question at once falls to the ground. The reasons for presuming his soul to be in Purgatory would of course be that he was a baptized Christian who was probably in bona fides as to faith and religion; not a formal but only a material heretic; probably alike ignorant of the exclusive and divine claims of the Catholic Church on a Christian's faith and obedience, as also of her censures, tum juris. tum facti, tum poenae; hence free from contumacy, and not really incurring them; and presumably dying in the grace of God. But as, on the other hand, the person in question lived and died a member of a heretical sect, he is notoriously outside the visible communion of the faithful, and certainly in the number of those who are accounted excommunicate. Consequently it would be clearly unlawful and scandalous that the Sacrifice of Mass or any other common suffrages should be publicly offered up for the deceased soul of such a one; and whatever prohibitory or restric

1Throughout this discussion I purposely avoid entering into the question of how the sacrifice may avail, whether by the efficacy of impetration or of satisfaction. The Right Rev. President of Maynooth has in his able articles (I. E. RECORD, third series, vol. iii., No. 12, Dec. 1882, and vol. iv. Jan., April, and August 1883) very lucidly written on the various fruits of Mass, and to whom they are communicable. He has also so fully explained the terms proprio nomine, nomine Christi, and nomine Ecclesiae, that it would be superfluous to say more on this head. The reader will see that I am not a little indebted to Dr. Walsh for his admirable articles.