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Plus ça change—Plus c'est la même chose

or On Leaving the Dominican Order in 1870

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2024

Bede Bailey O.P.
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Extract

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‘Of course you English Dominicans have had a terrible time recently, losing relatively more priests than anyone else.’ My journalist friend’s job is to know facts and comment on them, and he was saddened at our dilapidated state. So I thought I’d look at the figures. The result is surprising, remembering that in 1860 there were 25 priests, and in 1960, 148.

Here are the figures. They include all who left for any reason, but exclude those in South Africa who never worked as priests in Britain. The ten-year periods are those during which religious profession was made; they are therefore the ‘years of formation’. The figures are of priests only and omit all those who left before ordination.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 52 , Issue 611 , April 1971 , pp. 163 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © 1971 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 This letter was addressed either to Fr D. Trenow or to Fr D. Aylward. Fr Aylward's office as provincial had ended in the spring of 1870. Fr Suffield rejoiced that this was so, because Aylward's successor was ‘a good natured and ordinary man, without any deep feelings or thoughts; thus I am saved the distress of witnessing what would have been the agony of mind of our last Provincial’. In fact he did receive an anguished letter from Fr Aylward, whom he revered and loved both for his holiness and for his wisdom. On 10th August, Aylward wrote ‘with how heavy a heart I will not attempt to say—for—pardon me, if I write it—it looks like a farewell to the Church. I am so sad to be obliged to say so. Others also of your best and dearest friends … seem possessed of the same horrible thought. In the meantime we are all praying for you…. God give you grace and humility to make what reparation you can for the scandalizing of your Brethren. Truth and love for Christ's Church extort such words from me, for you have brought scandal on the Church, and dreadful ruin on your own soul. The little children have only to take up the Crown [of Jesus] and condemn you out of your own mouth. Yours, dear Father Rudolph, Truly and affectionately, J. D. Aylward.

1 Papal Infallibility was formally defined on 18th July, 1870.

2 Gladstone, on the other hand, found it ‘grievous’ that Suffield should have become ‘a Professor of Unitarianism’.

3 In fact he left Husbands Bosworth on 10th August.

4 Charles Hargrove was himself once a Dominican and followed Suffield into the Unitarian Church. Hargrove's Life, From Authority to Freedom, was written by Dr L. P. Jacks.

1 The Effect on the World of the Restoration of Canon Law: being A Vindication of The Catholic Church against a Priest, by Urquhart, David, London, 1869Google Scholar.