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 CAPUCHIN

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CAPUCHIN

around historical fact ; and Epiphanius Lindsay, de- scribed in the Memoir of P. Cyprien de Gamache as "son of the Count of Maine", but probably of the family of the Lindsays, lairds of Mains in Kirkcud- brightshire. But in 1630 the missionaries were with- drawn, when Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I, brought over twelve Capuchins as royal chaplains. Under the protection of the Court, the friars publicly celebrated Mass and preached, sometimes holding controversies with the Protestants, and they are said to have made many conversions. Their mission, however, was abruptly terminated when Queen Hen- rietta went to Holland to solicit aid for the king against the Parliament. The royal chapel was closed, and the friars told to consider themselves prisoners in their own house. They were afterwards sent back to France. They returned at the Restoration of Charles II, but only for a few years. From this time no Capu- chin seems to have come to England until Father Arthur O'Leary, the brilliant Irish friar, settled in London, in 1789, ostensibly as chaplain to the Span- ish Embassy, but really to minister to the Irish Cath- olics, for whom he built St. Patrick's Church in Soho Square. He died in 1802. The present province of England was not established until the latter end of the last century, through the instrumentality of Father Louis of Lavagna, an Italian friar, who came to England in 1850 with the intention of proceeding to Canada, but having arrived in London he was in- duced to stay there and minister to the wants of the Catholics in the district of Peckham. Here he built a small church, and at his request other friars were sent over to assist him. At this time the Franciscan Order had virtually died out in England. Only one Father of the Recollect Province founded in the time of Queen Mary remained, and he ended his days a few years later in the house of the Capuchins at Pontypool, thus creating a link between the new Franciscan foundation and the old.

The order rapidly took root on English soil. Ten years after the coming of Father Louis of Lavagna the friars had four canonical communities at Peck- ham, Pantasaph, Chester, and Pontypool, besides several stations; during the next few years they established several houses in the Diocese of South- wark, so that in 1873 it was thought expedient to erect the English houses into a canonical province. The province is yet too young to afford much matter in the way of history of general interest; but it may be noted that in little more than half a century the friars have established thirty-five missions, most of which have been given over to the bishops when they were able to support a secular priest; besides the parochial work thus entailed, they are continually employed in missionary labours outside their own parishes. In 1904 several friars of the province were sent to establish a house in Mendocino, California, which is to be the centre for missionary work in Mendocino county, now given into their charge by the Archbishop of San Francisco. They also have undertaken to supply missionaries for the Vicariate of Aden in Arabia. In 1905, at the request of the Bishop of Southwark, the friars undertook a unique mission to Catholic hop-pickers. Every year in the month of September there is a large exodus of the London poor into the hop-gardens of Kent; of these poor the Catholics average yearly about ten thou- sand. Until 1905 no provision was made for the spir- itual needs of the Catholic hop-pickers, and hardly any of them during the period of picking were able to hear Mass or receive the sacraments. Now each year when the hop-picking begins, Capuchin friars, assisted by Sisters of Mercy and lay workers, men and Women, go down to the hop-district. The work has distinctive characteristics. The majority of the hop-pickers arc of the very poorest class, whence chiefly comes the leakage from the Church; they sel-

dom enter a church, and often are lost to the priest in the shiftings and maze of London life. In the Kentish hop-gardens they come again under the in- fluence of the priest and religion. The work is as yet in its infancy, but it is big with possibilities for regaining to the Faith the indifferent and lapsed amongst our Catholic London poor; and it is char- acteristically Franciscan in its object and methods, for once again the friar is seen celebrating Mass and preaching in the open fields amongst the ill-clad and the hungry. In 1906 the friars were able to restore one of the broken links in the history of English Franciscans by their return to Oxford, once glorified by the learning amidst poverty of the sons of the Poverello. On the outskirts of the city they have secured a school for the training of candidates for the order, whence they can look down upon Merton College, where, according to tradition, Duns Scotus lectured, and upon the site of the ancient friary where the relics of Blessed Agnellus of Pisa — sent by St. Francis to establish the English Province — were enshrined until their dispersion in the reign of Henry VIII.

It was in 1615 that the first friar of the Capuchin Reform came to Ireland, Father Stephen Daly. He was sent over by Father Francis Nugent, who, in 1608, had received a papal commission to establish the reform in his native land. According to Ber- nardine of Colpetrazo, the other branches of the Franciscan Order had, in 1549, petitioned the general chapter of the Capuchins to send over friars to intro- duce the reform into the Franciscan houses of that country; but this was impossible, since at that time the decree of Paul III was still in force which forbade the Capuchin reform to establish houses outside Italy. Francis Nugent, the actual founder of the Irish prov- ince, was a remarkable man. He had already intro- duced the reform into the Rhine country when he petitioned the Roman authorities to set aside a house of the order for the reception of Irish friars. Accord- ingly, the convent of Charleville, in the Low Countries, was given him for his purpose, and thither the Irish friars from all provinces were sent to form a com- munity whence the Irish foundation might be begun. The convent of Charleville thus became the novitiate and alma mater of the province of Ireland. In 1615, first Stephen Daly and then four other friars were sent over. At first they lived separately wherever they could; but in 1623 or 1624 (the exact date seems uncertain) they took a house in Bridge Street, Dub- lin, where they lived in community. But in 1630 the house was seized by the Lords Justices and conferred upon the University of Dublin. The friars, however, remained in the country, and were gradually re- inforced in numbers: several of them suffered impris- onment and banishment for the Faith. In 1642, the Irish mission numbered fifty-one friars, with houses in Dublin, Slane, Limerick. Mullingar, Drogheda, and Cork. In 1733 they had fourteen houses in Ireland and two in France, and were that year erected into a canonical province. Just then began one of the sad- dest periods in the history of the Irish people. Perse- cution and famine for a time seemed to break the spirit of the people; vocations became scarce, and the Irish province became almost extinct. It lingered on, however. In 1771 Father Arthur O'Leary built a church in Cork, and the friars reopened houses in Dublin and Kilkenny. The last days of the old prov- ince were made illustrious by the apostolic labours of the world-famous Father Theobald Mathew.the projv agator of the temperance movement. After being for a while united with the friars in England under a

commissary-general, the Irish friars were again, in 1S73, formed into a separate "custody", with au- tonomous government, and in 1SS5 the canonical province was re-established. There are now four convents of the order in Ireland, with eighty-nine