The following extract is taken from a description of the opening of the Synod of Thurles in the London Times in August 1850. It is unsympathetic to the Catholic bishops, seeing those who opposed the new Queen’s Colleges as backward and bigoted. It is unsympathetic and ill-informed on the reforms to be proposed by the Synod.

Source. The Times (London, 22 August 1850.

The day “big with the fate of Rome” has arrived, and all Irish eyes are now directed to the town of Thurles, where there is just now assembled in convocation a goodly array of Roman Catholic prelates and their adjuvants [helpers], who will have to pronounce the Papal decision in re [in the matter of] the bigots versus the Queen’s Colleges, as well as take into consideration other weighty matters connected with the discipline of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. These latter, it is said, will include the questions of extra fastings and vigils throughout the year, the re-imposition of exploded holydays, and the return of the priesthood to the primitive costume worn by the several orders in connexion with the Church of Rome. The proceedings will extend over several days, and accredited reporters have been despatched to the scene of action by nearly all the Roman Catholic journals in the country. A moderate Dublin journal (rather a rare commodity) thus refers to the approaching deliberations of the Synod: — “The fanatical journals, to whom the denunciation of the ‘Godless Colleges’ has afforded an ample subject for weeks past, announce, with the air of authority, that the condemnation of the colleges has already been decided on by a majority of the prelates, and that they are merely to meet in the Synod to formally announce that decision. Whether this may be the case or not we have no means of knowing; but this rumour is not entitled to much credence, coming from so unscrupulous a source. If the assembled bishops come to a decision hostile to mixed education, and thereby use their influence to perpetuate the ignorance of the people, we feel assured that the advancing spirit of the age will resist any such attempt to trammel the wheels of progress, and that the educated portion of the Roman Catholic population will declare, in language not to be mistaken, that the days of such dictation are at an end.” The Freeman’s Journal of this morning has a vivid description of the appearance yesterday of the town of Thurles, its streets crowded with the clergy of all ranks, from the mitred archbishop down to the “friar of order gray,” besides a strong muster of strangers from all parts anxious to be spectators—on the payment of a handsome fee—of the first day’s ceremonials, which, on the conditions specified, are to be thrown open to the public gaze. Upon subsequent days the Synod will, of course, sit with closed doors strictly. At 3 o’clock yesterday, the Freeman reporter writes, the bishops went into preliminary council, and after remaining for more than an hour in conference the theologians and apparitores [attendants, clerks] entitled to assist them in the deliberations were summoned to attend, and after another hour being thus spent in private, the preliminary council separated at 5 o’clock.

Tomás O’Riordan