For a good while now, I've been writing a series on great Irish priests for Ireland's Own magazine, and a series on Catholic converts for St. Martin's Magazine. Both of these series are labours of love, and I'm very grateful for the opportunity to write them.
The articles will remain exclusive to the respective magazines, and if you subscribe to Ireland's Own you get access to the archive going back to before the beginning of my series.
But at this point, I think it might be of interest just to give a list of the priest and converts. I've tried to go somewhat off the beaten track.
Researching these articles has been a great source of sustenance in my own spiritual and devotional life. This is especially so in the case of the priests, many of whom were unquestionable heroes of faith. But it's also true with quite a lot of the converts-- for instance, John Bradburne, whose story fired me immensely. We are indeed surrounded by "so great a cloud of witnesses".
I've had a set of rules for each series, although I've allowed some exceptions. With the priests, my rules were that they had to be born in Ireland, they couldn't be bishops or archbishops, they couldn't be advanced on the road to recognized sainthood, and they had to be faithful Catholics rather than dissidents. They also had to be priests first and foremost, whatever their other achievements.
When it comes to the converts, they simply had to be people whose lives were fundamentally true to Catholic teaching. For instance, I would not include converts who had divorced and remarried without an annulment, or who lived flagrantly scandalous lives. Their faith had to be demonstrably important to them in an ongoing way.
Anyway, here goes. Priests first. I will give their death date in each case.
1) Nicholas Callan (1864). Scientist, inventor of the induction coil, Maynooth professor.
2) Thomas Burke (1883), famed Dominican preacher.
3) Canon Sheehan (1913), novelist.
4) Eugene O'Growney (1899), Irish language scholar.
5) Willie Doyle (1917), military chaplain.
6) Aedan McGrath (2000), League of Mary missionary imprisoned by Chinese communists.
7) James Christopher O'Flynn (1962), dramatist and speech therapist.
8) Patrick Peyton (1992), "rosary priest".
9) Pádraig Ó Fiannachta (2016), Irish language scholar and Bible translator.
10) Luke Wadding (1657), important cleric in Rome.
11) John Patrick Caroll-Abbing (2001), founder of self-governing communities for homeless boys and girls.
12) Theobald Mathew (1856), temperance campaigner.
13) James Coyle (1921), murdered by a member of the Klu Klux Klan in Alabama for marrying his daughter to a Puerto Rican.
14) John O'Hanlon (1905), hagiographer and historian of Laois.
15) John O'Connor (1952), friend of G.K. Chesterton and his inspiration for Father Brown character.
6) Niall O'Brien (2004), social activist in Philippines, accused of murder and sentenced to death but reprieved.
17) Henry Edgeworth (1807), accompanied King Louis XVI to the gallows.
18) John Hayes (1957), founder of rural organisation Muintir na Tire.
19) P.J. McGlinchey (2018), agricultural reformer in Korea.
20) Rufus Halley (2001), interreligious activist in the Philippines, murdered by terrorists.
21) Stan Brennan (2012), educationalist in apartheid South Africa.
And now the converts. If there's no death date, it means they're still alive.
1) Gerard Manley Hopkins (1889), Jesuit and poet.
2) Malcolm Muggeridge (1990), writer and broadcaster.
3) Alec Guinness (2000), actor and reluctant Jedi.
4) Dean Koontz, mega-selling author of horror and thriller novels.
5) Ronald Knox (1957), Anglican cleric and Bible translator.
6) Adrienne von Speyr (1967), Swiss theologian and mystic.
7) G.K. Chesterton (1936), some guy, can't remember who exactly.
8) Thomas Merton (1968), Trappist monk and writer.
9) Gregory Zilboorg (1959), Russian-American psychoanalyst.
10) St. Justin Martyr (166), generally considered the first Christian apologist.
11) St. Augustine (430), orchard thief.
13) Leonard Cheshire (1992), pilot and charity founder.
14) Marshal McLuhan (1980), communication theorist.
15) Blessed Bartolo Longo (1926), former Satanist. Strictly speaking a revert.
16) Avery Dulles (2008), theologian and cardinal.
17) Thea Bowman (1990), religious sister and writer.
18) John Bradburne (1979), poet and Franciscan tertiary.
19) Mary Aikenhead (1858), religious founder.
Thank you for this series and this specific piece. A Lot of people for me to start some research on.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome and delighted to get a comment from you!
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