The Rebels of Ireland Read Online Free PDF Page B

suspicious and cold. Then Lawrence spoke.
    And, as he winced, Martin gazed at him sadly. It was not easy for a father to be despised by his son.

    Lawrence almost wished he hadn’t spoken. He hated to hurt his kindly father. If only this great chasm didn’t lie between them—yet he hardly knew what could be done about it. The chasm had opened because of education.
    Martin had bought a pleasant estate in Fingal, on the edge of the ancient Plain of Bird Flocks, the heart of the Old English Pale. Though his friend the lord of Howth had joined Elizabeth’s Church of Ireland, most of the local gentry, like the nearby Talbots of Malahide, were loyal Catholics who would employ Catholic tutors to teach their children. Yet deep compromises, you couldn’t deny it, were built deep into the system. The very money for their own house, for instance, derived from an estate that old Richard’s wife, a Doyle, had bought cheap when the monasteries were dissolved. Their Doyle cousins—purely for worldly advantage—had gone across to the Church of Ireland Protestants ten years ago. Lawrence had been disgusted, but his father, good Catholic though he was, had taken it philosophically and was still on friendly terms with his Protestant cousins. Only when it came to his own education had such compromise been impossible.
    â€œThe English aren’t only Protestant. They’re turning Puritan,” Martin had declared. “You couldn’t possibly be educated there.” But what were the alternatives? Ireland had always lacked a university of its own; but recently a new place of learning, called Trinity College, had been set up in Dublin to supply that lack. It had soon become clear, however, that Trinity was intended for the New English Protestants, and so the Catholics naturally shunned it. That left only the seminaries and colleges of continental Europe. And so, like many other gentlemen of his kind, Martin Walsh had sent his son to a continental college: that of Salamanca, in Spain. And there, thanks be to God, thought Lawrence, he had encountered a different world.
    When the mighty Catholic Church had been confronted by the Protestant Reformation, some within it had reacted with outrage; but often brave and pious Catholics took a different view.
    â€œThe Protestants are right,” they agreed, “when they say that corruption and superstition can be found in the Church. But that is no reason to destroy a thousand years of spiritual tradition. We must purify and renew Holy Church; when that is done, the faith will shine out with a new and intense light. And that sacred flame must then be protected. We must be prepared to fight to defend the Church against its enemies.” Thus was born the movement known as the Counter-Reformation. The Catholic faith—pure, incorruptible, simple but strong—was going to fight back. Its best men and women were to prepare for battle. And where would the Church find recruits for the great cause? Why, in the places where the best young men were educated, of course. The seminaries.
    Lawrence had loved Salamanca. He had lived at the Irish college and attended the University, where the curriculum had been rich and varied.
    It was at the start of his third year that the principal had summoned him and quietly asked if he had a vocation for the religious life. “Both I and all your teachers agree that you should continue, and undertake a study of divinity. Indeed, we think you have the makings of a Jesuit.”
    To join the Jesuit order—this was an honour indeed. Founded only seven decades before by Ignatius Loyola, the Jesuits were some of the Church’s intellectual elite. Teachers, missionaries, administrators, their task was not to withdraw from but to interact with the world. As the Counter-Reformation assembled the army of soldiers of Christ, the Jesuits were in the vanguard. Intellect, worldly skill, strength of character: all were required.