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Document Details : Title: The Irish Colleges and the Early Modern Irish Episcopate, c. 1580-1685 Subtitle: National and International Contexts Author(s): Ó HANNRACHÁIN, Tadhig Journal: Lias Volume: 49 Issue: 1 Date: 2022 Pages: 65-86 DOI: 10.2143/LIAS.49.1.3291724 Abstract : This paper investigates the intersection between two unusual characteristics of the Catholic Church in Ireland during the seventeenth century, namely the web of continental colleges that produced the vast bulk of the ecclesiastical leadership, and the unique Irish hierarchy. It argues that the combination of episcopal leadership and the availability of a significant number of continental graduates were fundamental to the success of the shadow church in confirming the Catholic identity of the bulk of the Irish population. This sense of confessional belonging was of a fundamental importance even if, in common with other areas of Europe where a Catholic jurisdiction was in place, it was not necessarily marked by a profound understanding of doctrine. The article suggests that the preoccupation with the avoidance of scandalous behaviour that echoes throughout the ecclesiastical documentation of the entire period was umbilically linked to issues of spiritual credibility in an island context of different competing confessions. The goal of both the continental colleges and the hierarchy was to produce a clergy which was not scandalous, whether in its behaviour, its attitudes, or its ignorance. |
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