THE IRISH CATHOLIC HIERARCHY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 36, 3 January 1874, Page 9

THE IRISH CATHOLIC HIERARCHY.

(' Catholic Standard ') The Catholic Hierarchy presents, at the present moment, peculiar features in relation to the episcopal standing of its members. The twenty-eight See? are filled, and there are also coadjutors in three dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin, Killaloe and Aeh-ony, while tho Bishop of Galway is Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of K-ilmacduagh and Kilfenora. That is, there are thirty-one individuil Bishops in or connected with, the twenty-eight dioceses. One of these tiie Archbishop of Tuam, has distanced all the members of the Apisoopal Bench m age; and standing yet, without a coadjutor, his Grace feels equals to all the duties of avast diocese, and even the visitation of the entire archipaUgo on the Connaught seabord. Consecrated the sth of June, 1825, the venerable Metropolitan of the Wear, has entered the forty-ninth year of his episcopate, and is the only member of the hierarchy of the anti-Emancipation era. His Grace so distances, m seniority, all his contemporaries, that there is only one of the other thirty members of the hierarchy that is of half the standing, Dr. Delany, Bishop of Cork, consecrated 15th of August, 1847, so that the latter is not twenty-six years in the episcopate, against upwards of forty-eight, in the case of his Grace t.he Most Rev Dr. Mac Hale. This disparity has, likely, wo parallel in the episcopate ot any kingdom. The Archbishop of Tuam is, therefore, the last living link which connects the present generation with the exciting struggles otthe Catholic Association, of the Education Agitation of 1826 of "the *« ?.; eetion » and of Emancipation. He is <he only contemporary of the xllustnous Dr. Doyle remaining in the episcopate. Nay, more while, to most ot us, it feels only like yesterday, when in February 1852, amid the grief of the nation, without distinction of class or creed, the Most Eev. Dr. Murray was laid in his honored grave, there are only five of the thirty-one Catholic Bishops now surviving that were his episcopal contemporaries— namely, Di. Mac Hale, Dr Delany Bishop of Cork; Dr. Kelly, Bishop of Derry, r onwated Oct., 1849; his 1- minenoe Cardinal Cullen, consecrated (a.- P-imar,3 of Armagh)' Feb., 1850 ; and Dr. Kane, Bishop of Cloyne, c isecrated February, 1851 ; and of these five four were less th. i five years ia the Episcopacy before tho death of Archbishop Murray about twenty.

one years ago. Of the thirty Archbishops and Bishops, excluding the venerable Archbishop of Tuam, six have been in the episcopate twenty to twenty-six years; ten, fifteen to twenty years ; two, ten to fifteen years; two, five to ten years ; and ten much less than five years. If, therefore, the four Bishops who have coadjutors be excluded, Ireland has the youngest Catholic Episcopate that she hud for ages.