Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 2.djvu/870

 BRISCHAR

790

BRISTOL

school-extension, erected the handsome cathedral of St. Stephen, and created and conserved rich educa- tional and other endowments. State aid was fiiiaUj- withdrawn from all denominational schools ■with the close of the year ISSO; b\it at his death, 18th August, 1881, there were 52 Catholic primary schools in the diocese, attended by 6,510 children. The Pro%4cariate of North Queens- land was formed out of the Diocese of Brisbane in 1876, and that of Rockliampton in 1882. On the ISthof June, 1882, the Right Rever- end Robert Dunne was consecrated Bishop of Bris- bane in succession to Dr. O'Quinn. By his solid schol- arsliip and his abihty as a wTiter Dr. Dunne ren- dered important ser\ices as secre- tary to the Plenary Council of Australasia held in Sydney in 1885. At the request of that council, Queensland was in 1887 created a separate ecclesias- tical province, with Brisbane as its metropolitan see; and the Provicariate of North Queensland was erected into the Vicariatc-Apostolic of Cooktown. The pres- ent stately archiepiscopal residence in Brisbane was built during Dr. Dunne's \-isit nd limina in 1890, and presented to him on his return. His episcopate has been fruitful in church- and school-extension, and general progress.

Religioiis Statistics (1907).' — Parochial districts, 31; churches, 91; secular clergy, 56; religious brothers, 25; nuns, 186; lay teachers in CathoUc schools, 126; seminarj' 1; boarding schools for girls, 12; for boys, 4; high schools, 6; primary schools, 41; children in Catholic schools, 6,713; industrial school for boys (with printing office), 1; for girls, 1; orphanage, 1; Magdalen a.sylum, 1; servants' home, 1; total popu- lation, about 240,000; CathoUc population, about 60,000.

MoRAX, History of the Catholic Church in Australasia (Syd- ney, s. d.): The Australian Handbook (Sydney, 1906); Jose. History of Australasia (Sydney. 1901); Australasian Catholic Director)! for 1907 (Sydney. 1907).

Hexrt W. Cle.^ry.

Brischar, Joh.\xn- Nepomucene, church his- torian, b. at Horb in Wiirtemberg in 1819, studied theology at the University of Tubingen, was ap- pointed parish priest of Biilil near Rottenburg in 1853, where he died in 1897. His principal work is the continuation of Count Leopold Stolberg's "History of the Religion of Jesus Christ" of which he wTote volumes forty-five to fifty-four. His share of the work does not reach the high standard of liis great predecessor. He is also the author of a work in two volumes on the controversies between Paolo Sarpi and Palla\-icini, and of a monograpli on Pope Innocent III. His "Catholic Pulpit Orators of Germany" in five volumes was published in Schaff- hausen, in the years 1866-71. He contributed many articles to Herder's "Ivirchenlexicon".

Kathol. Litteraturkalender (Ratisbon, 1S97), s. v.; Herder, Conversationslex.t II, s. v.

B. GULDXER

Bristol (Bristoli.v, Bristoliexsis), Axciext Dio- cese OF. — This English diocese, which takes its verj- origin from measures directed against the

Church, has a very brief Catholic history, for it only had one bishop acknowledged by the Holy See. It was one of the six bishoprics which Henrj' VIII, acting as head of the Church, attempted to found by Act of Parliament out of the spoils of the suppressed monasteries. This was in 1542, the bishoprics in question being those of Bristol, Oxford, Westminster, Gloucester, Peterborough, and Chester. The fact that the city was then one of the leading towns in England and the chief seaport, explains why it was selected as one of the new sees. Like the others, it possessed an important religious house, the buildings of which might serve the new purposes. As it was, the new diocese nearly lost its cathedral, for the abbey church of the Augustinian Canons, which had been plundered at the time of the suppression of that house in 1539, was already in process of demohtion, when the king's order came arresting the devastation. This house of Augustinians had been founded four hundred years before its dissolution by one Robert Fitzharding, who began to build "the abbeye at Bristowe, that of Saint Austin is" in 1133. The abbey church, destined to serve hereafter as a cathedral, was of different dates: the old Norman nave built by Fitzharding seems to have stood till the suppression, but the chancel, which still exists, was early four- teenth century, and the transepts late fifteenth. The building as a whole was well worthy to serve as a cathedral. Yet at first Bristol does not seem to have been thought of as a bishopric, for it is not included in the list of projected sees now among the Cottonian MSS. in the British Museum.

It has been suggested that its ultimate selection for this honour was due to Cranmer, who visited Bristol shortly before his election as Archbishop of Canterburj', and busied liimself in ecclesiastical affairs there. The first bishop to be appointed when the king's charter of 1542 founded the new see, was Paul Bush, formerly master of the Bonshommes at EdjTigton in Wiltshire, who, it is needless to say, neither sought nor obtained recognition by the pope. Himself an Augustinian and a man of some repute both as scholar and poet, he held fast to many of the old doctrines, and opposed Cramner with re- gard to transubstantiation and Masses for the dead. Yet lie followed the new opinions so far as the marriage of the clergj' was concerned, and took as a wife one Edith .\shley. This fact caused him to be proceeded against as a married cleric in Queen Mary's reign. In 1554 a commission passed sen- tence of deprivation against him, which he aiir ticipated by a voluntary resignation. This was the opportunity for placing the irregularly consti- tuted diocese on a proper canonical footing, and Pope Paul IV empowered Cardinal Pole to re- found the See of Bristol. The first and, as it proved, the only Catholic bishop was John HoljTnan, a Benedictine monk of great reputation for learning and sanctity, who had been the friend and subject of the martjTed Abbot of Reading, Bl&ssed Hugh Cook.

As bishop. Dr. Hohnnan gave general satisfaction, and, though he took part in the trial of Hooper, and served on a commission to trj' Ridley and Latimer, he took no active part in the proceedings on the score of heresy. He died in the sunuiier or autumn of 1558, and was thus spared the troublous times that began with the accession of Elizabeth in the following November. He was succeeded in the bishopric by the Anglican, Dr. Richard Cheney (1562-79), who, though a schismatic, was yet sus- pected of Catholic leanings, and was the early friend of Blessed Edmund Campion. But the his- torj' of Bristol as a Catholic see ends with the death of Bishop Holyman. The diocese was formed by taking the county and archdeaconrj' of Dorset from Salisburj', and several parishes from the Dioceses