March 3rd, 1846: The Archbishop of Tuam blames "infidel colleges" for the Famine. Mirroring the mind set of bigoted Protestants, this fiery Roman Catholic prelate appears to worship an Old Testament God. While they view the Famine as divine retribution for obdurate popery, John MacHale directs his wrath against the undenominational colleges planned for Belfast, Cork and Galway.
In his Lenten pastoral, Dr Mac Hale instructs the faithful to fast - an unnecessary injunction for the half starved peasantry. Moreover, "the duties of charity - of an active, benevolent and practical charity - you will, I trust, fulfil towards all, whatever may be their religious creed".
He condemns the sins of fraud and bribery, of force and perjury, committed at elections.
But the "Godless" colleges are the main target of his pastoral: "There is spreading abroad the same jealousy of the holy influence of religious orders, and the same rage to transfer from them to laymen - nay, to heretics and infidels, mixed up with apostate priests, if they can be purchased - the education of the rising youth of Ireland, such as preceded the melancholy catastrophe of the French revolution. There is ringing in our ears the same jargon of liberality, and the same denunciations of a distinct and exclusive creed, with which the true faith was then sought to be annihilated."
One wonders if the "Lion of the West" has Archbishop Daniel Murray of Dublin in mind when he adds: "There has been no schism, however inveterate - no heresy, however deadly, of which ecclesiastics were not found the abettors.
Dr MacHale asks if they think it harmless to have their sons educated by "schismatical masters".
He compares those who speak of the economic benefits of the third level colleges to Judas: "The land mourneth, the people are on the verge of famine in punishment of the sins of their infidelity, and the remedy that is suggested to heal the evil, and the means which they have recourse to appease God's anger, is to lend themselves to an active co operation in that very infidelity which so signally brings on them the chastisement of Heaven ... Do not for a paltry relief derived from the erection of infidel colleges, suffer the worse religious pestilence and famine described by the prophet to desolate a land whose faith was hitherto untarnished."
If control of education passes from spiritual to secular control, "a foul stream of literature will continue to issue from those putrid sources, the infidel colleges, covering your clergy, your convents and your hearths with their irreligious outpourings".
Unsurprisingly, there is difficulty in procuring a site for the Galway college.
The archbishop regrets not providing an Irish version of his pastoral, which is just as well as this harangue would depress the people further.