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A Man of the Universal Church: Peter James Kenney, S.J., 1779–1841

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Thomas J. Morrissey
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Extract

Kenney, Peter James (1779–1841), was born in Dublin, probably at 28 Drogheda Street, on 7 July, 1779. His father, Peter, and his mother, formerly Ellen Molloy, ran a small business. Apart from Peter, the other known children were Anne Mary, who joined the convent of the Sisters of St. Clare, and an older brother, or half-brother, Michael, who set up an apothecary’s shop in Waterford.

Peter was born, therefore, in the decade which saw the American Revolution, the Suppression of the Jesuits and, in Ireland, the birth of Daniel O’Connell—destined to become ‘The Liberator’. The need to keep Ireland quiet during the American conflict, led to concessions to the Catholic population. The first of these was in 1778. Others followed when the French Revolution raised possibilities of unrest. In 1792 the establishment of Catholic colleges was allowed, and entry to the legal profession. These led to the founding of Carlow College and to Daniel O’Connell’s emergence as a lawyer. The following year the Irish parliament was obliged by the government to extend the parliamentary franchise to Catholics. Increased freedom, however, and the government’s connivance at the non-application of the penal laws, led to increased resentment against the laws themselves and, among middle-class Catholics, to a relishing of Edmund Burke’s celebrated reminder to the House of Commons in 1780, that ‘connivance is the relaxation of slavery, not the definition of liberty’.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , May 1999 , pp. 320 - 334
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1973

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References

Notes

1 Young Arthur, A Tour of Ireland, 1776–78, ed. Hutton, A. W. (London 1892), vol. I, p. 114.

2 Words attributed to Irish parliamentarian, Henry Flood, in Charles, Phillips’s Recollections of Curran and Some of his Contemporaries, (London, 1822), pp. 106–7.Google Scholar

3 Foster, R. F., Modern Ireland, 1600–1972, (London, 1988), p. 280.Google Scholar

4 Battersby, W. J., The Jesuits in Dublin, (Dublin, 1854), p. 109 Google Scholar; also Warburton, , Whitelaw, , Walsh, . History of the City of Dublin, (London 1818), vol. 2, p. 811.Google Scholar

5 Dr. Troy’s pastora] letter, 1788, q. Hepburn, A. C., in The Conflict of Nationality in Modern Ireland, Docs, of Modern History, (London 1980), pp. 12–14.Google Scholar

6 For a more adequate account of this complicated and protracted disagreement, see Morrissey, Thomas, , As one Sent. Peter Kenney, S.J. 1779–1841, (Dublin/Washington, 1996), esp. pp. 10–13, 16, 17, 31–34.Google Scholar

7 Charles Plowden to Richard Callaghan, 13 July 1806, Stonyhurst College Archives, F. vi. 78a.

8 Thomas Glover.

9 Plowden-Glover, 14 Jan. 1808, English Jesuit Archives Letters 1805–18, no. 143.

10 Caetanus Angiolini-Plowden, 22 Aug. 1809. English Jesuit Archives: Irish Mission correspondence with General, 1807–27, code SO/5, in English; also in Irish Jesuit Archives, in Italian, transcripts by Edmund Hogan.

11 Angiolini-Plowden, 28 April 1810; U.A. (Hogan transcripts under ‘Correspondence’).

12 See sources and account in Morrissey, , As One Sent…, pp. 45–7.Google Scholar

13 Atkinson, Sarah, (S.A.), Mary Aikenhead: Her Life, Her Work, Her Friends. (Dublin 1879), pp. 133 f.n.Google Scholar

14 H.C. Papers, ‘Regulation of Catholics in Foreign Countries’, appendix no. xxii, (E); Miscel. Papers, General Order no. 211, p. 541, ordered to be published 28 May, 1812. On the problems with the ‘Scotch Generals’, see Morrissey, op.cit. pp. 57–63.

15 Morrissey, op.iam cit., p. 50.

16 For Kenney’s time in Maynooth, ibidem, pp. 90–98.

17 Ibidem, p. 111.

18 Ibidem., p. 110.

19 Ibidem, pp. 98–9.

20 Report dated 24 June, 1814. Ibidem, p. 76.

21 Robert Peel-Hippesley, 24 Feb. 1814; typed doc. in I.J.A., Kenney papers, 1806–41.

22 Morrissey, op. cit. p. 101.

23 In a report of Kenney to Scully, 12 Feb. 1815; U.A. Kenney papers.

24 Scully-Kenney, 15 Feb. 1815; ibidem.

25 Mary O’Connell to Daniel, in Cork, 1 April, 1816, in Correspondence of Daniel O’Connell, (ed. Maurice R. O’Connell, I.U. Press, 1972), vol. ii, 1792–1814, pp. 92–3, no. 264. On this period see Morrissey, ch. 5, op.iam cit.

26 I.J.A. Gardiner Street papers: transcripts from Jesuit Archives, Paris, of Visitor’s correspondence, Kenney-Grivel, 28 Oct. 1818. See Morrissey, op.iam cit. pp. 129–131, and 471.

27 I.J.A., Kenney papers, copy from Jesuit archives Maryland, 2. 111. i. R.182.

28 On his first American mission, and Kenney’s impact at General Congregation, see Morrissey, op.cit., eh. vi., pp. 139–85.

29 Ibidem, pp. 189–219.

30 See Pini, , Pietro, , P. Giovanni Roothaan (Rome, 1930), ch. xiii, p. 306.Google Scholar

31 For Kenney’s second visit, see Morrissey, chs. ix to xi.

32 The Carroll and Caton families were strong Catholic families who had intermarried. The Carrolls included, Charles, the last surviving signatory of the Declaration of Independence, and John, the first bishop of Baltimore.

33 Marechal, Ambrose, a Sulpician, the bishop of Baltimore. Du Bourg, Louis, bishop of St. Louis. Rosati, Joseph, the subsequent bishop of St. Louis. Flaget, Benedict Joseph bishop of Bardstown and Louisville. Whitfield, James, archbishop of Baltimore. England, John, bishop of Charlestown. Kendrick1 Francis, coadjutor bishop of Philadelphia.

34 Van Quickenborne, Charles Felix, a severe Jesuit Superior and severe spiritual director of St. Philippine Duchesne. De Theux, John Theodore, an even more intractable and inflexible Jesuit Superior in Missouri. Verhaegan, Peter, a noted Jesuit educator and administrator at St. Louis University. De Smet, Peter, gained world-wide recognition as a missionary among the Indians, as a peacemaker between the government and the Sioux, as a writer of fascinating accounts of the western country, and as a lecturer popular in Europe as well as North America.

35 Rosati to Cardinal Pedicini, 5 Sept. 1832, Kenrick Seminary Archives, USA, q. Garraghan, G.J., in The Jesuits of the Middle United States, (N.Y. 1938), vol. I, p. 329.Google Scholar

36 In Woodstock Letters (Record of historical notes connected with the Society of Jesus, published at former Jesuit theological college, Woodstock, USA), vol. 12, p. 207.

37 Devitt, E. J., ‘History of the Maryland-New York Province, ix. The Province in the year, 1833’ in Woodstock Letters, vol. lxii Google Scholar, no. 3.

38 Meagher, Wm., Notice of the Life and Character of His Grace Most Revd. Daniel Murray (Dublin 1853), pp. 89–90.Google Scholar

39 Ullathorne, W. B., From Cabin Boy to Archbishop (ed. London 1941), p. 103.Google Scholar

40 On Kenney’s final days and hours see Morrissey, pp. 438–44.

41 Mentioned in S.A.’s Mary Aikenhead: Her Life, Her Work, and Her Friends, p. 304.

42 Clemo, J. B., from Epilogue to ‘The Wintry Priesthood’ in Penguin Poets 1951, p. 184.